Every Jersey Shrinks

Yes, jerseys suffer from shrinkage, too. Though in this case it's Extreme Heat that does the damage, as opposed to [mild] cold. Since we all like it extreme, here's the quick lo-down on shrinkage in the world of polyester jerseys.

The root of shrinkage lies in screen printing. (If you're unfamiliar with the process, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen-printing). When you print on a jersey, the ink is printed on top of the jersey material, and must be dried to fix it on to the jersey. After every print, the printer will toss the jersey on a conveyor belt. The conveyor belt passes the jersey through a giant oven, in which the ink is dried and permanently attached to the jersey. The giant oven is where the Extreme Heat comes in. When the jersey is exposed to heat, the polyester fibres shrink up. The more times a jersey passes through the oven, the more it shrinks. The margin of shrinkage can reach over 10%, depending on what kind of jersey you have, how many prints you put on it, and how hot the oven is!

So, how does this tie in to Five Ultimate?

When we design the cut of our jersey, we have to take in to account this shrinkage factor. This may seem simple, but in reality there are some tricky nuances that have gotten the best of us in the past. We're trying to make a line of jersey sizes that:
- Accurately match Ultimate players' perceptions of sizes (why is a women's small such a size, and a women's medium such a size? What are the correct proportions by which to increase? What to you make increase in size from S=>M, what do you keep the same?),
- Fit well (how long are the sleeves? How large is the neck?)
- Provide a size option that works for every player (how do you make an XL that fits both the 6'4" lanky-dude AND the 5'11" dude with the huge beer-belly, without making your jerseys too wide for a regular skinny college ultimate player?)
- Last but not least, account for shrinkage. Some of our jerseys get printed in four or five locations, while some are never printed! So throughout all the factors we've listed above, we have to take in to account that some of the dimensions of our jerseys will shrink to varying degrees from customer to customer. With shrinkage ranging from 0%-10%, it's hard finding the perfect cut that will satisfy every customer given this margin of change.

The next time somebody mentions "I got Turbo-Blast jerseys from Hype-Ultimate last year and they seemed to run a little ____", don't take that information at face value. Find out what printing the jersey had on it, find out if the person ordered her "correct" size.

Not every Five Ambient jersey ends up in the customer's hands exactly the same size as it was conceived. Look around you. People are different shapes and sizes!

Imagine trying to fit every Ultimate player out there in to just 8 sizes of jerseys (female, male), with a random 0%-10% change in every jersey size. That, my friends, is a day in the life of Five Ultimate.

Vehro

Sarasota yeeeeaw

We made it! We flew in to Tampa on the red-eye this morning from Seattle, and a bit of luggage and rent-a-car hassle later, we made the drive down to Siesta Key. Next few days include a bit of prep before games start on Thursday, but I'm so psyched to be here that it's hard to complain about anything at this point. Psyched to see old friends, some hot games, and just to hang out at our booth chatting with peeps (X and V went out and bought three used couches today, so we'll be rockin those in the shade of our tent). Natties, here we come!
=Zahlen

Copy Cat?

Aman Nalavade, who are you?

You're messing with our program, and you might want to look in to developing a second facial expression while you're skying the bejeezus out of someone. We recommend Blue Steel.

For those of you who don't know Aman, go ahead and click on the "Ambient" wrip-out on our website, http://www.fiveultimate.com/, and you'll find him goin' up big over some sucker at this year's Youth Club Championships. Aman played for Philly's SEPDA, and rocked a solid 2 goals in the Mixed final against Atlanta.

Unfortunately, you can also find Aman on the cover of this Fall's UPA "Ultimate News", in a very similar picture skying somebody facial-expression-and-all at YCC '07.

The only practical difference between the two shots is the color of his shirt. Nevertheless, we're not copy-cats. It's a coincidence.

And Aman - well played, my friend.

Five and Ultimate

Attending the UPA Revolution summit here in Seattle a bunch of weeks ago, an unexpected theme caught my fancy - the relationship between "Elite" (we aren't pro, so we have to make ourselves feel good somehow) Ultimate's desires and goals, and the desires and goals of the average player. There are some things that every Ultimate player wants: more opportunities to play, better recognition of the sport, etc. And there are places where one group has goals that are not mutually exclusive of the other party's goals, yet still lend to an either-or decision for the UPA. Luckily, the reigning sentiment at the Revolution summit was to build Ultimate bottom-up from the grassroots and casual competitive level as opposed to top-down from the Elite circuit. Not only is this a smarter choice for growing and supporting Ultimate, but I believe the -right- choice. The UPA should support every player equally.

The Elite/non-Elite topic stuck with me, though, as I turned my thoughts to our company. Does Five Ultimate want to build our company brand name starting with famous Elite teams and advertising down to the casual player, or target the casual player and allow our brand name to travel in to the higher echelons of Ultimate as players progress upwards in the competitive-ultimate food chain? What is the profit-maximizing strategy? What is best for Ultimate?

If there's one thing I dislike, it's gimmicky sales. I hate it when things cost $X.99 instead of $X+1. It's too bad we fall for that crap just enough to allow stores to continue their attempt to trick you in to thinking you are -saving- money by spending money at their store. I like simple, honest prices that allow the consumer to focus on the value she is getting as opposed to the money she is spending*.

Yet, when you buy a product, it's unfortunately very hard to understand exactly what you are paying for. When you buy a can of Coca-Cola, part of the money you spend goes towards funding their TV and online advertisements. Buying a can of Coke also means buying commercials collectively with every other putz out there that made the same purchase. If you drink Coke, every time you see a Coke commercial - guess what, you paid for it. Now apply the same critique to an apparel company. Every time you see a team sponsored by that company, if you purchased any gear from that company, well then you paid for part of that sponsored team's gear. At least that's one way to look at it.

Though, to an extent I think the sponsorship-as-advertisement approach is more than ok. I just hate to see that style of business pushed too far. I want Five Ultimate to succeed because of our personal connection with the Ultimate community, because of the relationships we've built, because we offer a great product at a great value. I don't want us to fall in to a position where we're constantly feeding the top of the social pyramid and reaping the sales from the bottom. I believe that because I think Ultimate should be built from the bottom up, and I want to contribute to that one relationship at a time.

I think the topic is deeper than one blog post or even one conversation. My hope is that some of the ideas I write about help people understand or even just infer what goes on behind the scenes and why we do things the way we do.

In any case, keep on huckin'.
Vehro

*feels funny with a 'she' instead of a 'he', doesn't it? I don't think it should.

Voodoo trucker hat

Here's the trucker hat pic as a follow-up.

Sooooo, about that team unity thing...

Pushing 11pm here in the office, we just got in a little argument about team identities. X and V play for (/co-captain) Voodoo, the second open team in Seattle, and we are working on trucker hats for them. The basis for the disagreement was wether or not to add the text "Seattle Ultimate" on the hats, or just print the silly (/totally awesome) crazy banana eating monkey picture on them.

From there we led each other down the path of defining the value of team unity based on gear, on the field as well as off the field. I am a big supporter of adding the "Seattle Ultimate" to the hats because I think it strengthens each individual player's allegiance to their team in the bigger picture, and though the inside joke or personal knowledge of the simple monkey logo is cool, I think spreading the concept of the Voodoo team as a very important part of a greater entity that is Seattle Ultimate, is cooler (/better/smarter/way cooler).

I really want their team to do well this year, and I think they will. I want them to look sweet, too, and I know they will (I made their jerseys). I think adding the text to the hat will encourage the team and whoever decides to pick up one of the extra hats, to sport it proudly even when around non ultimate players. I happen to be the oldest brother, so I'm always right (/duh), but we'll see what gets decided. I'll try to post the final image when X is done dinking around with it.

=Zahlen

Location, Location, Location.

When we conceptualized Five Ultimate in late 2005, one of the first things we did was call a meeting with an older cousin of ours. FK is no random cousin of ours - we five were actually raised to emulate FK and his siblings. A testament to our mothers' love and skill, we five siblings bear striking similarities to FK and his siblings. The biggest, most obvious, and most interesting similarity in this instance was the fact that FK and his brothers also started their own business as young adults, starting with an idea and a small amount of personal savings. Their bicycle parts company is now internationally renowned. In our meeting with FK, however, we were more interested in his mistakes in the early years than his current screaming successes. Xtehn and I sat on the edge of our seats, picking his brain for criticism and elaborations of our business plan. Through the many comments, one simple yet critical point came to light through FK's stories. Believe it or not, inventory management is one of the top (if not the #1) reasons why small businesses fail. The naive picture of a warehouse and forklifts I painted in my mind told me that inventory management was a far cry from what Five Ultimate would face. I was wrong. I now do "inventory management" every day, and the task has hit me like a wet tomato across the kisser. Keeping track of our stock of almost 200 different items has become almost impossible. Teams, tournaments, individuals, friends, family, samples, personal use of gear - they all make splashes and ripples in our inventory that seem to dissipate and fade away before I get the chance to keep track of them. The longer I wait to record something, the more the ripples fade. And compiling all the information... if only we had an intern.