{"id":1372,"date":"2018-10-19T04:00:13","date_gmt":"2018-10-19T14:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/2018\/10\/19\/we-found-the-perfect-wallet-for-coffee-folks\/"},"modified":"2018-10-19T04:00:13","modified_gmt":"2018-10-19T14:00:13","slug":"we-found-the-perfect-wallet-for-coffee-folks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/2018\/10\/19\/we-found-the-perfect-wallet-for-coffee-folks\/","title":{"rendered":"We Found The Perfect Wallet For Coffee Folks"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sandy Bledsoe is the Dungeon Master\u2014his actual title\u2014at Coral Sword, Houston’s premier board game Twitch stream specialty coffee bar<\/a>. He’s also the co-inventor of a wallet that may just be the perfect solution for coffee professionals. Called the Wallaby, it’s capable of carrying your cards, some cash, a cupping spoon, and houses a customizable notebook for all of your cupping notes, coffee musings, and\u2014for retail managers\u2014milk orders.<\/p>\n Bledsoe and business partner Alex Pagliere launched a Kickstarter campaign this month<\/a> and are halfway through funding the campaign with over $11,000 pledged as of press time. Just $15 will get you two Joeys, and $22 will get you two Wallabies right now on Kickstarter<\/a>.\u00a0We spoke with Bledsoe digitally to learn more about the project.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n How did this project get started? Who is involved?<\/strong><\/p>\n Our first product, The Wallaby, was born in the Greenlake neighborhood of Seattle four years ago while I was visiting my dear friend (and now business partner) Alex Pagliere. I had been using the back pocket of a Moleskine notebook as my wallet, but the pocket had come apart and my stuff kept falling out. I was fed up. I turned to Alex and said something like, “Why can’t the pocket in this thing actually hold my stuff?\u201d He’s a design person, so he jumped up and started carving up a cereal box with his X-Acto knife, and then we stapled in the guts of my cannibalized Moleskine. That cereal box prototype was a hit when I showed it to people; some friends even tried to buy it from me. That\u2019s really how The Wallaby was born.<\/p>\n How has the product evolved over the years?<\/strong><\/p>\n The overall design hasn’t changed very much since the original cereal box prototype, though we replaced the original name \u201cCR Brand Signature Pocketbook Wallet\u201d with \u201cWallaby”. We retired the X-acto knife and started die cutting the covers, which are now made from a fiber-reinforced paper that behaves and wears a lot like leather. The paper that we selected for the interior pages is the right balance between bleed-resistance and thickness so you can actually use both sides of the page but without unnecessary bulk. We use a faint dot grid pattern that\u2019s really the best of lined, grid and blank paper. We\u2019ve focused on elegance, toughness, and utilitarianism. You could call it concise\u2014more with less. We\u2019ve also introduced a smaller size, called The Joey, which is still a wallet and a notebook, but slightly smaller than a deck of playing cards. Perhaps the most exciting change we\u2019ve made recently is an environmental partnership that allows us to plant a tree for every notebook that we sell.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Tell me more about the Kickstarter campaign.<\/strong><\/p>\n Alex and I have had other jobs and other businesses over the years that have kept us from really focusing on CR Brand. We’d talk frequently about getting things rolling, but it wasn’t until Hunter Pence, my business partner at Coral Sword, invited the business and marketing wizard Gary Vaynerchuk<\/a> onto our Twitch stream, where Hunter brought the product to Gary’s attention. It was actually after getting some positive feedback from them that I called Alex and said “We HAVE to do this!\u201d The next day I was talking at the cafe with a customer named Van, who happened to be a cinematographer and social marketer, and he jumped at the opportunity to work with us to get a Kickstarter campaign off the ground. The campaign ends at the end of October and folks can expect to have their rewards before the end of the year. We\u2019re hoping to raise $25,000, build up our e-mail newsletter, and help some people get organized in their lives through our product.<\/p>\n You’re the Dungeon Master at Coral Sword\u2014what does that entail?<\/strong><\/p>\n Coral Sword is (to my knowledge) the first board game cafe in Houston. We serve coffee, tea, beer, wine, and some simple gamer grub. We have a library of free-to-play board games, with titles like Battleship, Connect Four, Catan and Cards Against Humanity, and many many more. I am blessed with wonderful business partners Hunter and Alexis Pence, Ming Chen, and Greenway Coffee<\/a>. On the worst days at work I unclog toilets and solve problems like “why is _______ broken\/leaking\/missing.” On the best days I get to make guests and staff feel recognized and special, and I get to watch people make wonderful memories in the cafe with people that they care about. My favorite thing about the service industry has always been the tremendous power that we have to make someone’s day. I want to say it was David Schomer (quoting Randy Pausch) who introduced me to the idea that, “Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you expected.” I think of my job (in any environment really) as constantly trying to improve the experience of everyone involved.<\/p>\n