Decamping for the weekend

We went on a small tour this past weekend... destination was a place called Parker Pie in West Glover, Vermont, about 50 miles north of here on some of the most beautiful back-roads you'll find anywhere. If you like country-style pizza joints with friendly service and delicious beer, then this place is for you!

One might wonder what this blog entry has to do with Ursa Major... well, actually, not very much at all! Except for the fact that we believe it's essential for entrepreneurs to get away from their desks on weekends and do what they love. In our case, we love exploring on bikes and skis.

Rugged Vermont-esque tie-ins

We had a fun email roll in today from an old friend. Here's an encouraging excerpt:

... read some of the blog (and more perused the pix)! LOVE IT, CONGRATS! I feel an immediate attraction to it and think the rugged VT-esque tie in is perfect to make male products seem maybe less metro?!?! i mean that as a compliment!! can't wait to test some...

Immediate attraction is good... so is the rugged VT-esque tie in. We'll take the compliments when we get'em.

Rather randomly, too, we encountered the fearsome bear you see up top today screened on a canvas bag put out by Rogues Gallery.

Something hirsute is in the air...

Testing the Big Bear's mettle on snow

 It feels great to be back in the Green Mountain State! Winter's still in full effect up here and we're making the most of it by trying our luck at both the Stowe Derby this coming weekend and also Peak Pitch next week at Bolton. While the Stowe Derby and Peak Pitch seem to have little in common aside from snow and skis, they're in fact both about survival! More gruesome details to follow here soon.

Fellow Vermont entrepreneur out sampling

Ran into Paul from Vermont Cookie Love while checking out at City Market yesterday. He's a jovial fellow and it's always fun to see him out there sampling his goods. He's the most prolific sampler of anything I've seen anywhere - we literally bump into him everywhere we go.

First ran into Paul on Vermont's Le Tour De Farms this past summer (an epic experience, to be repeated in '10). He was, of course, sampling his fantastic cookies to swarms of ravenous cyclists at one of the farms along the route (the one with all the garlic cloves hanging from the roof).

Makes us want to finish up our products and branding and get out there into the market! There's nothing like evangelizing a product you truly believe in, and sampling is the most hands-on way to do it. If you see Paul around, be sure to stop and taste one of Vermont Cookie Love's special creations.

Upper Old Camp Trail

Testing out that SPF 13 again... Tough to beat the quiet woods on a
day like this.

Gotta love Vermont winters

Local Severe Weather Alert for Stowe, VT
...WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 1 AM EST FRIDAY... ...WIND CHILL WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 1 AM FRIDAY TO 7 AM EST SATURDAY... THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN BURLINGTON CONTINUES THE WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY FOR 3 TO 6 INCHES OF SNOW ACROSS THE NORTHERN GREEN MOUNTAINS OF VERMONT...UNTIL 1 AM EST FRIDAY. IN ADDITION... A WIND CHILL WARNING HAS BEEN ISSUED FROM 1 AM FRIDAY TO 7 AM SATURDAY FOR WIND CHILL VALUES APPROACHING -35 DEGREES BELOW ZERO. * TOTAL SNOW ACCUMULATIONS OF 3 TO 6 INCHES ARE EXPECTED BY LATER THIS EVENING...ESPECIALLY NEAR JAY PEAK. * SCATTERED SNOW SHOWERS AND SNOW SQUALLS WILL CONTINUE INTO THIS EVENING...BEFORE TAPERING OFF TO SCATTERED FLURRIES AFTER MIDNIGHT. AREAS OF BLOWING SNOW WILL BE POSSIBLE. * THE COMBINATION OF WEST WINDS INCREASING TO 20 TO 30 MPH WITH GUSTS TO 50 MPH AND TEMPERATURES FALLING BELOW ZERO BY DAYBREAK FRIDAY...WILL CREATE WIND CHILL VALUES NEAR -35 DEGREES BELOW ZERO. THESE VERY COLD VALUES WILL CONTINUE INTO SATURDAY MORNING. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY FOR SNOW MEANS THAT PERIODS OF SNOW WILL CAUSE TRAVEL DIFFICULTIES. BE PREPARED FOR SNOW COVERED ROADS AND LIMITED VISIBILITIES...AND USE CAUTION WHILE DRIVING. A WIND CHILL WARNING MEANS THE COMBINATION OF VERY COLD AIR AND STRONG WINDS WILL CREATE DANGEROUSLY LOW WIND CHILL VALUES. THIS WILL RESULT IN FROST BITE AND LEAD TO HYPOTHERMIA OR DEATH IF PRECAUTIONS ARE NOT TAKEN.

Marketing out in the wilderness

We see these signs from time to time along trails in this area. They're posted to help trail-goers find and stay on trails. This can be very helpful when you're on a trail for the first time or if the visibility is poor (snowstorm, fog, cloud cover).

Tubb's is a for-profit company that makes snowshoes and other gear so I take it this is a marketing exercise. I'm curious to learn more... On the one hand, it seems like it could be a good way to create goodwill with potential customers; on the other, I have serious doubts about commercial messaging out in the wilderness. What if state forests started auctioning off trail-marker signs every 25 yards?

Sky Top Trail

Testing out our All-Season Face Protector with SPF 13. It works!

Making the most of our weekly trip to Burlington

About once a week we head into Burlington to meet with our creative team (Dave and Steve at Place, above), do some market research or customer development, have lunch with an investor, stock up on groceries at City Market or Healthy Living, etc.

Often, if we have enough time, we'll try to hit one of our favorite places for a bite to eat (or a cold beer!): Stone Soup, Open Arms Cafe or American Flatbread. Sometimes, in the summer, we'll even get in a walk or run at Shelburne Farms, one of our favorite places anywhere.

On today's weekly visit to BTV we kicked off Round 2 of our creative work with Place (Round 1 centered on logo development). Now the focus turns to how we bring our brand to life in a powerful, authentic manner out in the 'marketplace' (packaging, merchandising, web site, collateral, etc).

It's exciting to finally be exploring a "visual vocabulary" for our brand in earnest and we'll be sure to share the highlights here. Hopefully some of you will weigh in as we go!

After our session at Place, we dipped into Healthy Living and EMS as part of our 'customer development' effort. The idea here is to talking to customers to introduce Ursa Major (well before we launch), learn more about the market, get feedback on what we're doing, test our key assumptions, etc.

We've now hit about 10 stores in the local area over the past week and we're encouraged by the response we're getting from local retailers. There seems to be interest in a natural, sustainable personal care brand for people who love the outdoors (oh, by the way, that's a riff on our updated mission!).

Finding our pace and rhythm

It's only day two of the new year and we can feel ourselves getting sucked into the start-up morass. It seems like there's always more to do! And, in fact, there always is. If you like to work, it's easy to keep going... and going... and going. A slippery slope, even if you love what you do, and unsustainable.

So it's a good time to remind ourselves that one of the reasons we moved up here away from the city to launch Ursa Major was to slow down the manic, full-throttle pacing that is often associated with urban start-ups and find our own healthy rhythm up here in the woods! 

We've been pretty good at doing that (usually sneaking out for a run or bike or hike or x-c ski late afternoon, then working for an hour or two before/after dinner) and we're convinced this leads to better thinking, less stress and hopefully a greater chance at long-term success. Time will tell!

Of course a bustling urban environment also has much to offer a start-up, including a vibrant cultural scene and lots of energy, people and possible connections, all of which feed creativity. To be honest, we like having access to both Vermont and NYC for different reasons and hopefully Ursa Major will reflect this.

The photo you see above was taken yesterday (or maybe the day before... ) while x-c skiing up one of our favorite local trails, Oslo, at the Trapp Family Lodge. It feels like it's been snowing every day up here since mid-December. And it probably has! Gotta love the four seasons in New England.

Photo(s): Oliver