I’m Hristo - CEO and co-founder of Gram Discs. I’ve played disc golf since 2012. In this series, I’m sharing the decisions, mistakes, and small wins behind our first set and packaging.
As a first timer in making physical products, everything is new and comes with a learning curve.
My initial assumption about how the process goes:
1. Choose a name for the set
2. Check all the products already on the market and pick the best package to copy
3. Send this as an example for a designer with your own CVI and name
4. Get price quote
5. Accept the quote
6. The sets are in sales well in time for Christmas
7. Start creating the next bigger set
So to be able to imagine the outcome, I started by selecting the discs that would go into the set, because that would already give some lead for the name, and also the exact measures for the package.
Picking the discs and the name went smoothly, as there are currently two putters and two midranges to choose from, we chose the more understandable ones, which are putter Tallinn and Midrange Vilnius. From that came the idea to make the first set with an aim for the Baltic countries, so the third disc in the set is neutral to understandable fairway disc Riga, and together they make the Baltic Connection set.
Now getting to task number 2, things got more difficult. I checked all the sets on the market, but I found them all quite ugly. So there was a need to figure out a practical package from scratch that would allow us to have a clean, nice look that would also work practically and price-wise.
Luckily, turned out that our design partner Erkki, who has made our disc stamps and many marketing materials, has also designed and created his own boardgame for what he also created a packaging, so we started this journey with him.
So here is the list of the actual process from getting the 0-80.
1. Choose discs to put into the set
2. Choose a name for the set
3. Check all the products already on the market to understand that neither of these is for 4. your taste
5. Understand that you need a person with experience in creating a package
6. Find this person
6.1 Have an initial brainstorming meeting to figure out how to have a package that
looks nice;
6.2 can hold the weight of three discs
6.3 keeps the discs from scratching against each other
6.4 allows the buyer to see what color discs are in the package;
6.5 is well presentable and storable in physical shops;
6.6 do not drive up the price of the set.
7. Read laws and regulations about what mandatory information has to be on the package
8. Find out that there is a separate service for ordering bar codes
9. Create the initial visual layout of the package
10. Give the layout as an input for the designer
11. Understand that you are now making the sets only for yourself, and it would make sense to ask input from the community about the design
12. Get the first layout drawings and different design options from Erkki
13. Collaborate with Erkki on Canva to clarify the input
14. Find out that by combining your own web hosting and a paid Canva account, one can create a dynamic QR code, which means that I can change the page that the code leads to
15. Agree on the process of communicating with the package producers
16. Understand that everything is so much cheaper in China, but the minimum order sizes are huge
17. Send e-mails back and forth with a company that makes the demo packages
Get the demo packages
18. Ask for input from the community
I have not seen the demo packages yet, but it seems like 80% of the process is done now, and what the rest of 20% brings is yet to be seen and will be shared in another post. From the current experience, I can only imagine that it will also be more complex than I can theoretically think of, but also much more fun and I can already envision how our all team turns into Santa's Little helpers to glue the packages and get them shipped just in time.
Building Gram’s First 3-Disc Set
I’m Hristo - CEO and co-founder of Gram Discs. I’ve played disc golf since 2012. In this series, I’m sharing the decisions, mistakes, and small wins behind our first set and packaging.
As a first timer in making physical products, everything is new and comes with a learning curve.
My initial assumption about how the process goes:
1. Choose a name for the set
2. Check all the products already on the market and pick the best package to copy
3. Send this as an example for a designer with your own CVI and name
4. Get price quote
5. Accept the quote
6. The sets are in sales well in time for Christmas
7. Start creating the next bigger set
So to be able to imagine the outcome, I started by selecting the discs that would go into the set, because that would already give some lead for the name, and also the exact measures for the package.
Picking the discs and the name went smoothly, as there are currently two putters and two midranges to choose from, we chose the more understandable ones, which are putter Tallinn and Midrange Vilnius. From that came the idea to make the first set with an aim for the Baltic countries, so the third disc in the set is neutral to understandable fairway disc Riga, and together they make the Baltic Connection set.
Now getting to task number 2, things got more difficult. I checked all the sets on the market, but I found them all quite ugly. So there was a need to figure out a practical package from scratch that would allow us to have a clean, nice look that would also work practically and price-wise.
Luckily, turned out that our design partner Erkki, who has made our disc stamps and many marketing materials, has also designed and created his own boardgame for what he also created a packaging, so we started this journey with him.
So here is the list of the actual process from getting the 0-80.
1. Choose discs to put into the set
2. Choose a name for the set
3. Check all the products already on the market to understand that neither of these is for 4. your taste
5. Understand that you need a person with experience in creating a package
6. Find this person
6.1 Have an initial brainstorming meeting to figure out how to have a package that
looks nice;
6.2 can hold the weight of three discs
6.3 keeps the discs from scratching against each other
6.4 allows the buyer to see what color discs are in the package;
6.5 is well presentable and storable in physical shops;
6.6 do not drive up the price of the set.
7. Read laws and regulations about what mandatory information has to be on the package
8. Find out that there is a separate service for ordering bar codes
9. Create the initial visual layout of the package
10. Give the layout as an input for the designer
11. Understand that you are now making the sets only for yourself, and it would make sense to ask input from the community about the design
13. Collaborate with Erkki on Canva to clarify the input
14. Find out that by combining your own web hosting and a paid Canva account, one can create a dynamic QR code, which means that I can change the page that the code leads to
15. Agree on the process of communicating with the package producers
16. Understand that everything is so much cheaper in China, but the minimum order sizes are huge
17. Send e-mails back and forth with a company that makes the demo packages
Get the demo packages
18. Ask for input from the community