Prototyping Your First Product in an Unfamiliar Industry Without a Manufacture

Slater Mclean
7 min readNov 19, 2020

We created our first prototypes with our hands, gained a new appreciation for textile production, built a product we’re proud of, all while saving money on manufactured samples.

Jack weaving with khullu.

Know those things that could never be planned but end up shaping your life?

If you’ve ever seen the movie, Before Sunrise, you’d know what we mean. For those who haven’t, it’s about two people who meet on a Vienna-bound train, strike up a conversation, create a cosmic bond… and then… go their separate ways.

Before Sunrise 📸 by Castle Rock Entertainment, via Photofest

Yeah, they just go back to their lives, and the movie ends inconclusively. But then something happens. A sequel comes out. They find each other by chance 9 years later, and soon after, chart an entirely new course in life.

If you told either of us 10 years ago… 5 years ago… or even last summer, that we’d spend the majority of 2020 hunched over a 50-year-old loom, temperature rising from #weaverfever, we would have laughed…

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Slater Mclean
Slater Mclean

Written by Slater Mclean

Daily Thoughts from Slater. Aspiring Forex Trader. 3x Gary Vee Conference Atendee. Currently reading 50+ books a month. Crypto only goes up.