I usually don’t have any problems when it comes to recording the videos or writing blog posts for wtfJeans . But this time it’s a bit hard…

For the past 9 months, Pedja and I were developing and realizing our idea of a perfect pair of jeans. We’ve started a business in industry we’ve had no clue about. Jeans industry is way more complicated then it seems, but we’ve decided to pursued our dream.

There were lots of ups and downs, lots of nice things, lots of problems too. But we’ve managed to move on each time. Until now.

We’ve made prototypes for a second model of jeans, for iPad overalls. And we’ve made business plan and a promotion plan too. A part of those plans was to find a person who would make an investment into our company and get a part of it in return. Unfortunately, combination of bad timing and our inexperience has resulted with our failure to find serious investor. And since because of our launching plan we’ve had a limited period of time for that, we’re now at the point where we’ve decided to shut down this project.

wtfJeans is getting closed in a few days. The web-shop will continue to operate until we sell out the last 30 pairs of jeans we have left on stock.

9 months of an extraordinary experience! We’ve met wonderful people, learned so many new things. People in about 30 countries are wearing something we’ve made, something we’ve invented. And to top it off: we were a trending topic @ Twitter! :)

As I said at the beginning, jeans industry looks very complicated for outsiders. But once the production part was over, it was much easier to breathe. ;)

Social networks and online communication are 2 things which Pedja and I find much more then just interesting. I can openly admit that the both of us are complete addicts when it comes to those media channels. To us, being bloggers, v-casters and Twitterers is not just a hobby. It’s a vocation. It’s addiction combined with pleasure which almost turned into professions. It’s also knowledge which we’ve used to promote wtfJeans without investing not even one € into marketing.

We were honest and transparent with our business from the very beginning, and people appreciate that. Thanks to that we’ve managed to built a community which helped us to spread the story about our wtfJeans project. It was very nice to have the ability to run a corporate account on FB, Twitter and YouTube with no obligation to be formal, and with the ability to personalize it as much as we wanted.

While Pedja was dealing with more technical parts of the project, I was the one who was also in charge of clients service. And believe it or not - I’ve enjoyed replying to every single question or a doubt of our clients. And when we’ve had those problems with PayPal it was our community who helped us go trough it and resolve it.

At the end of this WTF venture it is our buyers, followers @ Twitter and our fans on FB to whom I’ll say THANK YOU and “So long, and thanks for all the fish” – till next project ;)

WTF FTW !! :)

We’ve received V2 prototypes! :) iPad fits perfectly and we’ve kept the old iPhone’s pockets and added regular ones for hands. So, you can take all your favorite gadgets with you. And guess what? The overalls are just great! :)

After (working) holiday, we’re back and we have lots of news. Early Bird and Regular jeans should be finalized soon and packed into wtfBoxes and ready for shipping within 2 weeks. Despite all the problems we’ve had, wtfJeans V1 (first model) was pretty successful and we have an idea for V2!

Actually, it’s not just the idea that we have – we have a business plan and we’ve made a prototype! Here’s what the V2 is about:

wtfJeans V2 prototype

As you can see on the photos, this is iPad compatible model of jeans. Overalls were the logical solution for combining iPad with a pair of jeans.

Beside that iPad pocket, overalls are offering complete comfort. We’ve kept iPhone pockets from the V1 and we’ve added regular, standard hand pockets on the each side.

We’re expecting to receive the prototypes from the factory within the next couple of days, and then we’ll make a video and show you V2 with more details.

Production and launching of V2

The next thing to do now is to make a plan for production and for launching of this new model. We’ve already aranged our presence at Le Web in Paris, where we’ll be having our DemoDesk. Since Le Web is starting on the 8th of Decembre, it will be a date of V2 launching. If you’re also planing to come to LeWeb you’ll be able to order it and colect it directly from us, on our desk.

Our plan for V2 sale is different then V1: there will be no pre-order. Lots of ppl asked us to exclude that long pre-order period, so we will. That basicaly means that your pair of V2 wtfJeans will be shipped to you within 24h after you’ve placed your order on our web-shop.

Investment

Production of thousands pairs of jeans is very expensive, and it’s beyond our payment abilities. We simply don’t have enough finances to cover all the expenses. That’s why we’re looking for a business partner willing to invest into this project.

If you’re interested in investing into V2 model of wtfJeans, feel free to contact us via e-mail sanja [at] wtfjeans [dot] com and we can arrange a Skype meeting where we can discuss the details. Also, if you just know some investors, tell them about us, share our project, our idea.

We have a lot of energy and enthusiasm to continue this story and after V1 – we have the experience too :)

P.S.
If you’re interested in ordering a pair of V2 wtfJeans, just write a comment with your e-mail address, and we’ll notify you once we launch the sale ;)

We’ve organized a contest “3 days – 3 tweets – 3 free pairs of wtfJeans“. People had to tweet the reason why should we give a free pair of our jeans to them.

If I knew how hard it is when one has to decide and choose a winner – I would gladly give that job to someone else! :) I felt so bad that I had to choose just one winner every day, and it was hard because each day I was struggling to choose not between 2 or 3, but much more great tweets.

Well, at the end we’ve finalized it, and today it’s finished and we have 3 winners. They are:

First Day – 28/06/10

Second Day – 29/06/10

Third Day – 30/06/10

We’ve received so many great tweets, and a lot of people have participated. And some of them were sending lots of tweets while some others were participating each day.

Well, this morning we’ve decided to do something nice for all of them. We can’t give a free pair of jeans to everyone, but what we can do is to give them promo-code for a discount. ;) So, we’ve prepared and sent via DM’s the codes with EarlyBird price, which is 28% discount of the Regular price.

Winners are happy, participants are happy, and we’re happy… This was a pretty nice week … :)

Win a free pair of jeans! :) The contest has started on midnight and it will last for 3 days. 3 days – 3 tweets – 3 free pairs of jeans. The rules are here. Be creative and good luck ;)

I was suppose to get my new iPhone in a few days, via mail, because it was ordered online at Orange.fr. Today we’ve found out it’s possible to get it straight away in Bemac shops (Apple reseller ) with SFR one-year contract (which I wanted at first place, but we were late to order it). So, what do 2 iPhone addicts do? ;) We’ve canceled Orange order and went to Bemac and bought it! :))

And guess what? It fits into wtfJeans pockets just perfectly! :)

Great news! :)) We’ve managed to persuade PayPal to return money to those 129 clients!

Dear clients, money is back on your accounts! :)) I’m sending you mails with details and promo-codes latter today, so you’ll be able to re-order at the same price as you did before.

We still haven’t resolved problems with PayPal. And at the moment we have 129 clients who still haven’t got their money back from them.

PayPal is refusing all the communication with us an they have more then 11.000 € of our money, on our frozen account.

After the mail in which Francine from PayPal ordered us to return the money to our buyers, we’ve done it and we’ve had no problems with orders under 60 days. And for those ordered more then 60 days ago, we’ve been told to file a written request with the names and order IDs of the clients, and we’ve done it. As a matter of fact we’ve done it 3 times: twice using their form on their site, and each time they would say they haven’t received it, and using their form one doesn’t have a proof of it.

Header of the mail sent on the 26th of May 2010

The last time we’ve done it on the 26th of May. This time we’ve sent it by mail to webform@paypal.fr and a good thing is that now we also have a proof that we’ve requested a money return to 129 people.

Till today, 14th of June, PayPal has not returned money to a single client of ours! At the same time, there’s 11 762,18 € at our frozen PayPal account which is enough money to cover all these returns.

Screen-shoot of our PayPal account, 14th of June

We have no possibility to get that money and PayPal is not returning it. For weeks we’re trying to get the answers when will they do that. But we’re not getting any answers. They keep saying they’re reviewing the case and that we should be patient. It’s lot of money, 11 thousands euros PayPal owns our customers.

And then PayPal says they’re protecting their clients 100%…

We would appreciate it if you’re willing to help us by sharing our story – either on blogs or at mainstream media channels. Thank you in advance.

Thanks to twitter, on Thursday evening we’ve found out there’ll be a BarCamp Bodensee 2010 in Konstanza. It’s on lake Bodensee, on the border between Germany and Switzerland which is about 240km from Strasbourg. Since it was Thursday evening and we’ve wanted to hit the road on Friday, we’ve decided to take a chance and try out CouchSurfing for a first time.

Photo by Harald [ha75]

What a great idea! It took us only 5 minutes to open the account and to find a host – and not just any host, but the one who’s also attending BarCamp! :) Thank you Thomas and Iona :)

The BarCamp started on Friday evening with a Warm-Up Party, and lasted till Sunday evening which meant 2 full days of great networking! About 230 people were participating, and it guaranteed there’ll be a lot of sessions: 45 on Saturday and 27 on Sunday. But, that wasn’t a problem at all since the sessions were held in HTWG Konstanz. It’s an University building 100m from the lake. So whether you wanted to participate in a session or to chit-chat with people at Strand Bar relaxed in a beach chair with a cocktail in your hand – the choice was all yours.

We’ve held one session “Advantages and disadvantages of PayPal’s payment system” and it turned out to be a really great and creative discussion with both experienced and unexperienced users of PayPal’s service.

The organization of BarCamp Bodensee was perfect! And I really don’t know how the organizers, Oliver Gassner as “project mind” and Patric Schmid as “man in charge”, have managed to do that. They’ve provided us everything: breakfasts, lunches and dinners, coffee and drinks trough the whole 2 days. And they’ve had a great sponsors, of course. But I’d like to single out one of them. Peter Eich has provided 50 free bicycles for the BarCampers so that we could see the lake’s area. Another reason why I’m singling-out Peter is that he’s made an video interview with us, and it’s published on his blog. Thanks, Peter!

Photo by Peter Eich

This was my 2nd and Pedja’s 4th BarCamp. And all that sharing of knowledge and experience simply astonishes me. Bunch of people who are more or less in the same industry, talking and discussing about business or a meaning of life (oh, yes, we’ve had that session too :) ) or just hanging around and chatting – it’s just great! I’ve learned some new tricks about how to be more efficient, I’ve discussed the idea of International BarCamp Network, I’ve participated in You Tube Movie Karaoke and I’ve cycled 20km with no problems at all – and all of that within just 2 days. Amazing experience!

And the last but not the least I want to mention a few people:
-Sacha Schlegel from Lichtenstein who was our CouchSurfing room-mate and with whom I’ve had wonderful talks and discussions. Hope to see you soon ;)
-Michele Capobianco from Switzerland, who was my partner at YT karaoke “Pulp Fiction with FB Farmville sub-titles” :))
-Justine Adam, great girl and a great web developer at Novelys in Strasbourg, she shares my “love” for red wines ;)
-the to-me-unknown person who managed to get that red sausages sponsorship – they were yummy/tasty/excellent! :))

So long, and thanks for all the fish/sausages until the next BarCamp Bodensee! :)

If you’ve been reading our last texts, then you know that we were implementing a new payment gateway. Well, the implementation was finished last week, and since yesterday morning our web-shop is working again and we’ve started to accept orders. We’re now working with ATOS payment system and with La Banque Postal. At the moment we’re excepting VISA and Master cards, but hopefully we’ll be able to accept payments via American Express within a month.

Due to those problems with Paypal we were forced to return the money to most of our clients. We’ve contacted them via mail yesterday to notify them about our new payment system. To each one of them, we gave one promo-code which enables them to re-order a pair of wtfJeans at the same price as they did before. Those codes can be used only once and they’re valid until the 15th of June.

PayPal still hasn’t returned the money to about 130 of our clients, although we’ve made couple of requests. Yesterday they told us that they’ve “received the request and it’s being reviewed right now”. So, for these clients we’re still waiting to hear that their money is returned to them, and after that, we’ll contact them and send them promo-codes so they could make re-orders as the other ones.

We’ve also had some clients whose orders are “safe” – which basically means that we’ve managed to collect their payments, but we’ve notified them too, so they wouldn’t worry about it :)

When it comes to new buyers, the price is Regular (109€), and when it comes to shipping: the official date is the 1st of September (as it was scheduled at the beginning) but we’ll give our best to ship it a bit earlier ;)