'Never let perfect be the enemy of good'
This aphorism has been around since at least the 1700's in some form or another, but I remember hearing it first from my Dad. It's a simple, widely applicable message that is almost always relevant and advice I have given to friends and family countless times. The same can't necessarily be said for taking that advice for myself, however. I am under no assumption that the work I do comes near perfection. Frankly, I feel confident that when it comes to things like designing and making a physical product perfection exists only as a conceptual goal you strive towards, always knowing in the back of your mind that the true destination of your product will always lie somewhere between 'good enough' and 'pretty damn good'. Today we aren't talking about perfection, but about one man's slow descent into madness as he tried to complete the gargantuan task of *checks notes* re-working a hip bag.
This is the B.F.P.
Or more accurately this WAS the B.F.P.
When I first started Bullmoose, launching products was borderline paralyzing. I had a mental image of every potential Bullmoose customer in my head all just standing there watching me. With every choice I made I would watch a chunk of those imaginary friends throw their hands up in exasperation and walk away to spend their hard earned imaginary money with some other, better bag maker.
Sometimes imposter syndrome isn't an un-earned affliction. I had no design background and was convinced no one would possibly buy one of my bags due to any intrinsic value they may possess. This deep feeling of inadequacy pushed me to maximize on features. If someone was going to buy a bag from me, I could only conceive of that happening because the bag was just too functional - too clever to deny. To my absolute shock, people liked the bags. To my dismay, that meant I had to make more of them. This bag was a nightmare to make. It was packed with fiddly placements, tight corners, awkward spacing of seams, and it needed a ton of cut panels of fabric. I struggled under the weight of even modest demand for them, and my machines did as well (more on that another week).
Not to spoil things, but time went on and I continued to run Bullmoose. I went from part-time to full(ish)-time and through repetition I gained confidence, and at least some competence in how I designed and manufactured bags. I released all sorts of new products with varying levels of success, and through that time the B.F.P. languished. I knew it needed work (likely a page 1 re-write) but I couldn't bring myself back to it without mentally launching straight back into a headspace of doubt, fear, and inadequacy.
Thankfully, the demands of running a business don't really care if you feel a bit icky about doing something and I knew I had to face the music. The changes I wanted to make were clear. The cargo net and bottle holder were simultaneously the biggest selling points and the biggest headaches on the bag. The net allowed the B.F.P. to stay small while almost doubling its carrying capacity while also letting the user feel like 60's era Batman deploying something from his tool belt. Conversely, the set welt used to make the pocket for the net was agonizingly slow to sew and all too easy to mess up.
The water bottle holder performed like a charm; it fit your standard bike water bottle perfectly, and you could get one in and out from behind your back no problem. Unfortunately anything larger than a bike bottle was basically a no-go and without a bottle in it, you just had this weird flap and strap hanging off the right side of the bag. There was a long list of other, more piddly issues I had on my fix-list but for the sake of brevity we are going to focus on those two.
With my to-do list set and my mirror thoroughly pep-talked I set out to boldly go where most people had gone before, back to the drawing board. I had tried once or twice already to get the ball rolling on the new B.F.P. with about as much success as one could imagine, but this time not only did I have a list (a rarity for me), I even had a plan. I was going to force myself to move as quickly as possible out of the realm of theoretical into the scary world of the physical. This was a new and improved me and I was going to get a completed bag done by day's end.
Attempt 1:
Welp that didn’t take long.
In my haste to get going I forewent pulling out a ruler and paper to sanity check my starting size and it is way too big. The B.O.F.P. already exists in the lineup so let’s call this a learning experience and move on to attempt 2.
Attempt 2:
Some faith in my ability to design things has been restored - we have a completed bag! This will be an emotional high water mark for me along this route until basically the time I am currently writing this. I have omitted the cargo net to just get some baseline going, and the bottle holder was an after-thought (which is why it is placed about 2” too high on the bag) but we are getting somewhere. Lets add some details shall we?
Attempt 4 (I think):
In the interest of honesty and transparency I am not really sure what attempt this is. I didn’t have the intention of documenting this process until it was completed and things got hazy fast. Still no cargo net but we have refinement on the straps, and another failed attempt on the bottle holder.
When I say "failed attempt" let me be clear. This bottle holder works very well, it's secure, easy to tighten, and only a little harder to get a bottle into than the original. Why was it a failure then? Well, this is the time where the fear began to creep in with a little more pep in its step. How could I put this out as newer and better if it works worse? Sure it's pretty much the same but it's not better, and of course we need it to be perfect.
Staring into the void:
Things have progressed, I am just not positive in what direction. We are another 4-5 rounds in and I am starting to feel personal animosity towards the concept of hydration. Any simple solution to the bottle holder is unacceptable (read: a little bit difficult to use), and any complicated solution is unacceptable and complicated. Keen-eyed readers will notice the bottom and top of the bag both look absolutely insane (and thank you for noticing). In a bid for efficiency I was cramming two types of cargo net prototypes and 3 types of attachment points into one bag. At this juncture I am clearly in a very good place and certainly hadn't lost sight of my original intentions whatsoever.
The void staring back (and asking if I am doing okay):
I call this section ‘playtime’. Things had not been translating to bags well enough, but I thought maybe I had a direction on the bottle holder. Adding little wings (like on the Basket Boss) really helped with stability and ease of entry; they also give the option to fold the whole thing up when not in use. There were at least 20 more of these that I hastily threw out during prototyping, but these lucky soldiers showed enough promise to dodge that fate.
The cargo net side of things was looking less rosy. I was vacillating between my old design and changing it entirely to a set of elastic cords with hardware that would make an ‘X’ to hold what you may need.
This was my best and final attempt at the cords; ultimately it was too annoying to re-pack and too fiddly to make sure things were actually secure. That being said, the old system was clearly unacceptable - after all, it was so... um... the old system. I had a much better justification in my head at the time.
Attempt F:
I know we were using numbers before, but it was time to leave the past in the past and start fresh.
I call this one ‘The Walrus’. He was a cute little fella but my lack of foresight meant that the snap that you see on the front is rendered entirely useless by the existence of the net it's meant to hold.
Attempt [REDACTED]: Progress?
Maybe the real bag was the friends we made along the way. I have resigned myself to acceptance that the original cargo pocket is better than anything else I can think of. The best I can hope for is some marginal improvements and easier construction. The bottle holder is actually getting somewhere. It functions well, but the bottom is ugly and I haven’t yet found the proper balance where the bottom cord neither ejects the bottle back up at you, nor lets the thing just shoot sideways onto the ground. Neither of these are close to what I would consider acceptable, but it has been 11 months since I pulled the old B.F.P. off the website and it was time to face facts. I had entirely become consumed by a need for this bag to be perfect. How could it not be!? Everyone will see it and they will all think, "Really? That's the best he can do?" A small vacation over late summer gave me a pleasant week or so with one of my problem-child prototypes and, to my shock, I ended up really liking it. The bottle holder worked well enough, and I found myself being overall happy to have the bag. I came back from that trip having shaken off enough of the fear to get serious and finish this damn bag off.
From here the story gets boring even for those who hadn’t yet checked out. Cord diameter, webbing stiffness, and tiny little bits of hardware ruled my life for a few weeks as I did my best to iron out the final few details and postpone the day of judgement when I have to show my work to the public. There are likely tons of iterations within this journey that would have made great bags, and I could have been making and selling those for the better part of a year instead of fretting in my shop like a hermit. There is a great lesson within that, which I hope to maybe learn one day, but past performance doesn’t fill me with confidence.
Anyways, if you read this far thank you very much. If this post is out then so are the bags which you can see here and here. If this hasn't scared you off from the concept of Bullmoose Softgoods entirely I will be back next month with more ramblings to subject you to.
- Wes