Hello, me again

I'm writing this from the plane as we fly home to New Zealand for Christmas. It's Amelia's first flight and the first time meeting all her grandparents, aunties, uncles and cousins. She's recently learned to laugh, which gives her extra cuteness points.

In Progress

Mom feedback

We've received lots of feedback from our Mombassadors, particularly on our CherryCool products. Our egos want 100% glowing reviews, but realistically we're not going to improve our products if our moms sugar-coat it.

Here are some of the comments.

We want to design an ice pack that stays cold as long as possible. One factor affecting how long it stays cold is the thickness of the shell. Because silicone is flexible, our silicone shells can be 10x thicker than our brittle plastic competitors. The other factor is size. The more ice in the pack, the longer it stays frozen.

Results from our testing. It seems our current designs are in the sweet spot coldness for the majority of users.

We might have to design a SUPER THICK version in the future for those Wim Hof types who demand more cold.

Delivering some mamacools to a local mom

We're bringing a bunch of samples back to NZ, so if you know someone who's given birth recently, or is about to give birth, put us in touch and we'll send some out. We're especially interested in getting moms to try our PeachCool product for perineum pain and our BellyCool product for C-sections.

Jack had to sacrifice some suitcase space, so won't be rocking his full array of fits.

FDA + design patents

An unexpected side effect of the FDA process is that it's helped us refine our messaging. The stronger your medical claim, the more regulation you face. For example, if we claim that our CherryCool products "treat mastitis" instead of "provide relief for mastitis", the regulatory requirements become enormous – think clinical trials, etc.

We've also begun filing a design patent. This probably violates every Lean Startup principle about minimizing early-stage admin. But our product is like nothing else out there, so we want to protect it.

Wins

We had our very first referral. One of our Mombassadors recommended the product to a friend who is now the proud owner of some mamacools.

We've confirmed our drawings for our first mold from our factory. The resulting products will be much more polished than the samples Jack makes with his 3D-printed molds. He's happy to be spending less time removing silicone from molds. And I'm happy spending less time removing rogue silicone from our laundry.

Things we've learned

• How to BCC emails (thanks Stu for teaching us this lesson).
• One size fits most, but not all. We may need to look into different sizing for the 5th percentile moms.
• Moms want freezer bags to keep their mamacools separate from their freezer meals. Very fair.
• Moms want instructions with the products.
• We've heard from a few ladies who are struggling with "Mommy Wrist". Basically, holding a baby while feeding can cause tendon pain in the lower arm. Jack's begun designing a product for this issue (version 1 was a failure and is now a doorstop for Amelia's room.)
• We've learned more about Pantone colors. Pantone is basically a universal color guide that helps everyone pick and match the exact same color, no matter where or how it's printed. Turns out our initial colors weren't possible with silicone. So we've chosen these alternatives. (Also, this year's Pantone color of the year is white…I don't get it.)

Ask for help

Same as last time. We'd love to get our products in the hands of more moms – preferably in NZ so we're not shipping them halfway around the world. Please give them our email and we'll send out some free samples.

Canadians, we'll be back in the new year. Feel free to send new moms our way and we'll take care of them when we're back.

See you in a couple of weeks.

Soph and Jack