2021 is here - the Year of the Origami!
We are celebrating a milestone in bringing our Paddlers to market - this past weekend, we took the final steps in releasing our CAD designs for the three sections of the Origami Paddler to our manufacturing partner.
We have been working on the weekends, at night, and anytime we can to stay on schedule. Our manufacturer in Kansas will start creating the molds right away, and the first boats will be coming off the production line soon!
We have been spending a lot of time testing, modifying, and then retesting our hinges' design, which is the most complex part of the entire boat. The hinges have to securely lock into place for safety on the water, open easily for folding, and be impervious to saltwater and sunshine. We are checking and double-checking to make sure they do exactly that, so you always have a great Origami experience.
More great news! The colors are here, AND we decided to offer four colors instead of three!
The colors will be … (drum roll please)... Citrine Yellow, Rhodochrosite Pink, Turquoise, and Carnelian Orange! The color of the standard paddle will be Peridot Green. These are our starting colors, we look forward to the future of a billion boats with lots of color choices!
We know you are excited about these colors, and when we get close to shipping your Origami Paddler(s), you will get an email so you can:
- Provide or confirm your shipping address,
- Confirm your Kickstarter pledge rewards if you are a Kickstarter backer. We have all the pledge rewards- personal dry bag, tie-downs, leashes, and cup holder (we found a spot to build it into the Origami) ordered and lined up too!
- Choose your color(s),
- Pay for shipping (if you haven’t already),
- And get some really cool accessories (like wheels or carrying bags) to help you have even more fun.
- If you aren't a Kickstarter backer, you will have the option to add the Kickstarter rewards as additional accessories.
Be on the lookout for this email, and make sure that our emails don't go to your spam folder.
And in addition to our primary focus of providing
Easy Awesome Freedom,
we have firmed up our company principles, which are … (another drum roll please!) ...
Safety, Quality, and Value!
Safety: Above all, we want you to be safe and feel safe when you are on the water or transporting your Paddler.
Quality: We are passionate about delivering a high-quality watercraft that works as expected for a long, long time.
Value: And finally, we want to deliver that safe and fantastic experience at a price that makes good sense to our entire Origami Paddler family.
We are really doing everything we can to stay on schedule, and doing out best to overcome the shipping delays that made the news this past holiday season - and which are still common.
We are hard at work to ensure that your delivery experience is easy and awesome too! (Note: We looked into shipping a large number of paddlers to various locations for customer pick-up but chose not to do that in consideration for the safety of everyone during the pandemic and the clerical challenge of getting it right.)
Finally, stay tuned to help us celebrate our 10,000th Origami Paddler family member in just the next few days. Woohoo!
Wishing you great health and happiness,
Tim, Paul, and the entire Origami Paddler team.