A New Direction - Part 2

In February 2020, I wrote a blog post about RedWhite's "A New Direction - Part 1". This article is a follow-up.

In that article, I wrote about my decision to re-focus this company on the products that truly matter - bibshorts & tights. I used to make a bunch of other stuff (jerseys, gloves, socks, baselayers etc).

In late 2019, I made a tough decision to kill these product lines (they contributed 20-25% of revenue - painful to see it go) and reallocated capital to RedWhite's core bibshort line.

In "New Direction", I talked about 6 products that I will be working on and launching :

• The Entry Bibshort (launched)
• The BIB Women - Stealth (launched)
• The Cargo Bibshort (launched)
• Women's Shorts (not launched)
• Thermal Bibshort (launched)
• The Winter Bib Tights (launched)

I delivered on 5 of these planned products (see above). In addition to these 5 launches, I added an extra product for women called The BIB Women - Navy.

2020 was a remarkably productive year for myself and RedWhite Apparel. Like millions of people around the globe, I experienced some sort of lockdown. Not having any social engagements or being able to travel meant I worked longer hours. That contributed to a high cadence of product launches.

2021 will be a Year of Consolidation

When I launched The BIB in 2014, I spent years improving quality, ramping up manufacturing and honing my business skills to deliver a top notch bibshort to customers worldwide. 

I was very green in 2014. I was 26, extremely inexperienced and made a lot of mistakes. Having just 1 product helped during the early days. I didn't overextend myself. Because of that, the mistakes I made weren't fatal. RedWhite Apparel endured as a result.

The BIB's first manufacturing volume was only 300 bibshorts. The next batch was 500 bibshorts. I couldn't afford to manufacture any more than 500 in every batch which was a good thing. Keeping production volumes small allowed me to discover manufacturing mistakes that I could afford to make. If the early batches were larger (5000 for example), those mistakes would have been much larger, more expensive and likely bankrupted this company. Over the years, manufacturing volumes grew from 500 to 600 and finally I topped out at 2000 last year. Volumes are up almost 6x in every batch while defect rates keep dropping.

This is what I call a "period of consolidation". 

2021 will be a year where I will be consolidating the new products. I will be increasing manufacturing volumes and closely monitoring feedback from customers. I will likely be making changes in my manufacturing process that will result in top-notch quality and consistency in every new item.

Product Development in 2021 will focus on the Ultra-distance chamois.

I will be working on new products in 2021, but I doubt I will launch anything until I finish consolidating the new products I made in 2020 and early this year.

I will be focusing heavily on the Ultra Distance Chamois. 

Developing a new pad is a time consuming and expensive process. I did drop the ball a little in 2020 while focusing on Cargo and Winter Bib Tights. Now that those products are done, I am free to focus on this new chamois.

If you're wondering, yes. There will be a women's specific version as well.

I don't have a launch year for the new chamois. It could be 2022 or 2023. It depends on how quickly I can consolidate the new products and allocate capital to manufacturing this new chamois at scale (assuming I finish developing it).

Scale is important because the new chamois will have to be plugged into the thousands of bibshorts RedWhite makes every year. It is a big challenge.

Stretch Goals

Spare capital and time will be available throughout 2021. I will be investing those in the following projects :

• Cycling Shorts (no straps)
• 3/4 Summer Bib Tights
• 3/4 Winter Bib Tights
• Full length Summer Bib Tights

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I welcome comments and ideas. Please leave them in the comment section below.