TriBling

I had a great experience with the creator of TriBling today (10/11/12). http://www.tribling.com/index.php/

A former marathoner turned mom, turned Ironman woman spent 1 year training for the Madison full Ironman triathlon and designed some really cool necklace pendants with waves (I think they look like water droplets or swimmer heads and an arm as it comes out of the water), a bike gear, and a shoe print for each of the events.

At the 2012 Chicago Triathlon, I briefly saw post card stock talking about them, and was like, eh, a jewelry ad and didn't look at the detail. A post race e-mail had a link that said, "Congratulations! You've earned yourself some trithalon bling!" and it had a blue hyperlink. I saw the really cool design, thought it had some meaning, some creativity, and would be a fun conversation starter. I then posted a link to it on Facebook and said that that was one piece of jewelry that I would actually wear. I actually started measuring my neck to see what size necklace I'd need.

It was $120ish for the small pendant (which I thought was just the right size), and two spare chains since the site said they would need to be replaced every so often and it was cheaper to order them together than to find replacement ones as needed. I thought that was a little much for jewelry (having never bought it before for myself) so I looked on eBay, Amazon, and google marketplace for a used one, but didn't come up with anything. I guessed it was a startup. I thought about asking for one as a gift, but didn't want to wait in case the company went under like a lot of small businesses do. I looked at the card that came in our race day packets and confirmed that it was a really cool design and saw somewhere that they were offering discounts for showing up at the booth. I hadn't seen them at the Triathlon Expo, but my roommate had. Anyway, thinking it was a startup got me a little worried that I'd loose the opportunity to have it, so not long after, I just went online and bought it. I was order 000008 which confirmed that it was a pretty new company.

I didn't see it charged on my Mint.com and thought that was odd, but assumed it would show up soon. That was August 17thish. October 11th, 2012, about two months later, I got a call from someone at TriBling saying, "Sorry to bother you, but I'm with TriBling. Our credit card processing on our site went down so you were never charged, so if I could have you mail a check or get your credit card information down now that would be great. Oh, and afterwards I want to get your feedback on your bling."

I actually told her my idea about using the edges of the bling for the water and shoe in addition to the gear instead of having just the gear 3D and the other edges smooth. She liked my idea saying she could incorporate waves on the side or something. I said it wold be really cool if I could have one if she ended up doing it. She said it may be a while since she has inventory and that she had a lot of requests for strictly running first. I agreed and said that that would expand her market quite a bit because a lot of people are scared of the swim.

I asked if I could get the discount they offered at the event since I didn't see the booth at the Chicago tri but was there. She said sure, she'd take $5 off. Then I got a pretty cool crash course into what she's going through. She wore her rubber necklace all triathlon training season and by the end it was looking rough with the chlorine, sweat, and stuff, and that, like a bike chain, it needs to be replaced. (A parallel which was on her website.. which didn't have the pages you could order from up anymore 10/11/12, probably they will come up once the billing process works again.)

Anyway, she has people who want to invest, but is doing all of it herself because she isn't sure she wants to share yet. She found a jeweler in Chicago who includes the silver, the wax mold, and hand finishing and she wants to keep it in the US instead of going overseas even though it would be cheaper. She's only been able to do small batches, so that is also why the price is high.

The cost of marketing is kind of much. Expos charge upper hundreds to in the thousands for a booth. Printing cards and fliers also costs money, between $.25-$.75 depending on the quantity. Also, to get them to place the fliers in bags, that can be a few hundred dollars as well. Then there is managing a website that isn't charging credit cards properly so only being able to sell inventory at events, also teaching college classes and being a mom.

I had fun talking to her!

March 2013 update: TriBling dropped their prices by about half since I bought my necklace. I paid over $100 including an extra rubber band and a silver band.