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The very first Everpurse was built right here in Rogers Park, Chicago. At that time we didn’t even have a name for what we were building. It just started with a personal dream to make the perfect bag. Something that was gorgeous to look at and could be seamlessly charged AND seamlessly charge my smartphone on the go. It took hundreds of revisions, patent filings, and the intense support from many of you in the Chicago and 1871 community (many who are forever immortalized in the demo video!) before we launched a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2012. Since then we have focused on making Everpurse the global leader in fashion technology by enabling some of the most epic fashion brands around the globe to easily adopt fashion tech. Because our dream of a perfect bag is one that not only works magically with our tech-infused lifestyle, but is also made by our favorite designers and brands.
Unusual, but true: Mondays are one of our favorite days at Everpurse. We meet for a little over an hour, during which each team member presents what they worked on last week and what they will work on the upcoming one. We also relish in an Everpurse tradition, which we call TWIL—This Week I Learned. TWIL is a time for all of us to share something interesting we learned the week before, no matter how far off the fashion tech space it may be. TWIL builds community, but also helps to centralize the huge amounts of learning that an exceptionally talented group like ours devours on a daily basis. Without this critical focus on learning, our ability to make the best decisions is severely limited. After all, we are effectively trailblazing a new industry, and the answers to our questions cannot be found in the annals of fashion tech firms that came before us.
Today we are delighted to share with Chicago the release of our next product, the Everpurse Mini—the physical representation of months and months of learning and research. Mini reimagines the most ubiquitous women's accessory: the wallet. On the front and in the middle, Mini is just like any other wallet, with enough space for credit cards, cash, and keys. On the back, using our own patent-pending system, the user can charge her phone using our “safe-dock” mechanism. The dock holds the phone on the top and the bottom with an aluminum material that keeps it safe yet fully accessible for use—at least 48 hours of smartphone use. To remove her phone from the Mini, the user simply slides up the holder on the top of the phone and the Mini will spring up the phone, similar to a cassette player.
Applying fashion principles to technology, we also reimagined the clasp that wraps around Mini so it would double as a USB connector, allowing the user to charge her Mini anytime and anywhere, using any USB outlet. Most importantly it allows the user to forget about charging cords—forever. Mini has everything she needs to stay powered and in charge.
Mini went on pre-sale this morning on our site everpurse.com at an Early Bird price of $98, with a regular price of $129 starting May 6.
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Background on the Mini:
What customers have told us.
As some of you know (and we are indebted to the dozens of startup community members who helped us test our first product!), by design we made the very first Everpurse clutch just big enough to hold the essentials, but small enough to carry in a larger bag. It was the perfect size because our research told us that about the same number of customers would request a larger bag as would request a smaller one. And indeed, that is roughly what happened. Customers loved it, but about 60% asked for a slightly smaller bag and 40% asked for a larger bag. Excitingly, this weekend we confidentially shared a preview of the product launch page with a few of our customers. They all loved it. They were impressed with how closely it mirrored a product they wanted but hadn’t known to ask for.
How it fits our strategic plans.
First of all, Mini was a product that we ourselves wanted to have, the kind of product that we constantly dreamed about and discussed at length, even at the end of our long workdays, and often over delicious food and wine at Gilt Bar :). Secondly we knew that it had to be a product that could further push the technical limits and thus define our brand as the fashion technology leader.
Since we launched publicly in 2012, we have seen a significant uptick in copycat companies. None of them have technology nearly as refined or sophisticated as ours; however, unless we continue leading the industry, we could reach a point in which there would be little to distinguish us. So we focused on making a product that incorporates tech into the most common fashion accessory, in the most innovative form possible. This pursuit allowed us to create and patent a variety of features, which we can offer to fashion brands interested in partnering with us. Some of these innovations may not be seen in a consumer product for a year or more, but developing them fits into our long-term goal of building a strong technical and IP foundation which we can leverage with future brand partners and products.
Thank you again for all of your support and encouragement, we are delighted that we can share this news with you. The next chapter in the Everpurse story is just beginning and we are thrilled to be sharing the journey with our Chicago family.
