The Loop Escapes

The last week has gone by in a blur. Eight days ago, Greg and I were talking about what we needed to do to finish up our soft launch and get Luma Labs out into the public. Those discussions were in vain as we’d already planted the seeds of what was to come. You see, we’d taken off the password to the website so that friends and family could let their friends order and we could continue our ramp up to a full launch.

I really should have known better. It was like leaving a drum of gasoline sitting in the middle of the street without a top and a box of matches sitting next to it. As friend told friend, word spread. We saw the order volume ramp up a bit over a day or so. Then, midday Monday, hits on our site and our order volume exploded.

John Gruber had linked to us on Daring Fireball.

I’m insanely happy it happened. John’s kind words about the Loop are high praise indeed. They set things into motion. We got follow-on links from Gizmodo, MacWorld, Laughing Squid, and Hivelogic. As much as it meant that we were going to be in scramble mode for the next few weeks, I can’t have asked for a better way to launch. Well, more accurately, to be launched.

Really, I shouldn’t use the word launch. It wasn’t a launch. It was an out-and-out escape of the product. That’s what it was. Plain and simple.

So, there we were. Standing there at Barista looking at our iPhones. For a moment, we just babbled incoherently and made guesses as to the amount of traffic that was inbound. Then we did what had to be done. We threw out the game book we thought we were using. We called up our suppliers and manufacturing partners and shifted our supply chain into high gear.

Luckily, we have greate partners. Greg did a great job finding some of the best shops anywhere. The company that cuts the parts for our shoulder pad does custom production runs for the aerospace industry. Our sew shop works with the locally based sporting apparel companies. They’ve got our backs and we’re really happy to have them on board.

Now, a bit over a week later, we’re closing the gap on our orders and will be on top of things very soon. We’ve put together a quick and dirty video showing the Luma Loop in action. And, we’ve already re-started our plans to produce much more polished video that shows the Loop and how it works. There’s also some exciting movement on some of the other things we’re working on.

Exciting times. I can’t wait to see what comes next.