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.

Short

As any good company should, we invest a significant portion of our time on R&D. No, we don't have a lab with hardcore athletes undergoing high-tech tests (as Gatorade would have you believe they do..... mmmm corn syrup and colored water!). But we do have a design team, study groups, and a sweet network of athletes we work with to develop our products. I surprised myself today in thinking about how much time we spend on trying to make newer, better, products. And almost all of it is done on an informal basis, simply because we love Ultimate, love Ultimate gear, and have friends and acquaintances who are willing to give good, honest feedback. Our dinner conversations at home turn in to R&D meetings; a Sunday afternoon out on a friends boat can turn in to a product development session.

So, what brought me to thinking about all this in the first place? Believe it or not: short shorts. At some point in the near future, Five Ultimate will definitely be paying a tribute to retro, with a sweet line of short shorts and vintage-themed jerseys; it's going to be sweet. (And no, we don't see this as investing in the masters division.)

Whatever we do, whenever we do it, we'll let you know.

Check two.

The biggest news Five Ultimate has to announce is that we’re beginning to manufacture our new 'Ambient' jerseys today! After 6 or 7 rounds of prototypes, we’re now stoked to have a new jersey material that is lighter, stronger, and smoother than our most recent jerseys. We’re also improving the cut of our jersey - making it longer, a little wider, smaller at the neck, improving the collar, lengthening the sleeves, and last but not least, making our washing labels more dynamic and just plain sweeter. We’re keeping the same 10 colors, for now. Our new jerseys don’t shrink during printing, too, benefiting Ultimate beer guts around the world.

Speaking of shrinkage. Shrinkage has probably been our #1 problem with our current jerseys. The very first round of jerseys we printed for teams back in January/February had serious shrinkage problems because the jerseys were being over-dried at our printer. After you screen print on a jersey, the ink needs to be dried to set well on the jersey, so they run each jersey on a conveyor belt through a huge drier, which blasts the jerseys at around 350 degrees. The first jerseys we printed were being dried four to six times… and caught the shrinkage bug. Ultimate beer guts came out huge losers on that one. Another big loser was Five Ultimate. If you read RSD (rec.sport.disc), you can see that we have a rep for our jerseys being too small. Most, if not all, of these complaints on RSD came from people getting that first round of jerseys. Our current Haus jerseys (our new jerseys are our Ambient jerseys) do run on the small side - this much is true. We’ve fixed the over-drying problem, though, and encourage teams to order on the larger side if players are unsure of their size. In any case, we’ve lost some street cred on RSD because of our mistake (as we should!), but it’s important to know that the problem has been fixed.

Here’s to blog post #2. As we continue, I hope these posts will improve! Writing here reminds me of my childhood - my parents had me write 300 words a day in my writing book before going to school in the morning (on top of Chinese lessons and music practice). I’ll get back in the swing of it in no time.

Right on , right on.
Keep on truckin,
Vehro

Check 1, Check 2, Check Five.

Welcome to the FiveUltimate blog!

My name is Vehro Titcomb, and I'm posting on behalf of the Five that make Five Ultimate work: myself and my siblings Zahlen (25), Xtehn (23), Rohre (19), and Qxhna (14).

As you may have learned from our website (http://www.fiveultimate.com/), we're an Ultimate Frisbee apparel company based in Seattle, WA, poised to serve the people, sport, and spirit of Ultimate. Check out the info section of our website for more details.

The purpose of this blog is to create a more personal connection between Five Ultimate and Ultimate players around the world. The Five of us will be posting our thoughts on our company, each other, Ultimate, and all the other cool things that come our way. We hope to show you, our reader and customer, who we are. We'll expose our flaws, tout our achievements, and most importantly, share our opinions.

Get involved. Give us your feedback. Let's get to know each other better.

Cool. We'll catch you down the trail.
The Dude abides.
Vehro (+ the Five Ultimate crew)