There are moments in every business when you’re full of positive adrenaline and when your job completely fulfills you. But there are those other moments when you can’t believe what’s happening to you. Last week we’ve had one of those bad ones.

One of the things you don’t know about wtfJeans, and which we thought is a long time sorted out, is our problem with PayPal. On the second day after web-shop was launched, PayPal has totally blocked our account. We didn’t have the access to the money, and we were also not able to continue the sale, because they’ve also blocked the payments.

We’ve called the PayPal straight away and asked them where’s the problem. They’ve explained us that by the PayPal’s policy it is forbidden to take pre-orders if delivery date is after 20 days. That was one of those things you don’t think about, because you haven’t read the small print in User Agreement :(

We’ve asked them is there any chance to resolve that problem or we’ll have to stop our business. It turned out that PayPal sometimes makes exceptions with the trusted clients, but we’ll need to give them “Proof of the origin of the merchandise” to unblock the account. We’ve sent them that document straight away and they’ve unblocked the payment possibility on our account within a few hours. But, to completely unblock the account we were suppose to send them some more documents.

“OK”, we said, “it’s important to continue the business, and we’re going to send the additional papers in the next few days and everything will be sorted out.”
How wrong we were! :((
It was more than 2 months ago, and that’s when our struggle to unblock our account has started. We’ve made countless calls to their call center and sent so many mails…

We had to send some documents twice, because they said they haven’t received them, and we even had to contact some clients by mail asking them have they received the jeans, and to forward those replies to PayPal. And when we thought it’s finally over, we have received a phone-call from our supervisor Francine from French PayPal who ordered us to cancel all the orders.

We’ve told her that we’ve been working 24/7 for the past 5 months on this, that we’ve invested all of our savings, and even borrowed money from our family. Supervisor Francine didn’t care about our pleas that it will make a huge damage to our business. She was ruthless. Her respond was that we haven’t read User Agreement carefully enough, and that she can’t believe that they (PayPal) have left us working for 2 months and that it’s not normal, and that she doesn’t understand how could’ve that happened. However, I couldn’t persuade her to unblock our account and she requested me to cancel all the wtfJeans orders which were scheduled to be delivered in September.

Next step?

Our first next step is implementing of new payment gateway at our web-shop. It will be from our Bank and it will enable our customers to make the online payments. It should be finished until the end of May. Until then, we won’t be able to take any new wtfJeans orders.

We’ll also hire a lawyer who’ll help us to resolve the problems with PayPal. There’s no other way to sort that out, because after two months of numerous phone-call conversations we weren’t able to do anything.

A piece of advice

If you’re starting your own business, please, be very careful and think thoroughly are you sure you want to do business with PayPal. No matter how easy it looks like for the implementation and start of your business, it’s possible that the cooperation with them will cost you a lot of “unpredicted costs”. Very bad experience that leaves a very bitter taste in the mouth.

This has made a huge damage to us because now we have to do everything, since BETA, all over again. :( And when it’s considered that we’ve sold out all of the Early Bird pairs and some of the Regulars, you can imagine the impact of it…
But OK…although the situation is desperate, we’re not. And we’re still working and giving our best to continue this wtfJeans project. We’re doing complete reorganization at this moment, and we’ll keep on rolling. Stay tuned.

Everyone makes mistakes. But when a mistake is a misspelled word in one short sentence which is printed on a label … well, that is simply stupid. And I feel dumb… What can I say except : BETA buyers, I’m sorry you’ll receive your wtfJeans with a misspelled word. :(

How does a morning in the home of wtfJeans looks like when we’re packing up all those pairs of jeans for shipping? ;)

This morning we’ve received some great news: a truck with wtfJeans has arrived from Serbia to France. :) And since all those boring things about administration papers are sorted out, we’re happy to tell you that we’ll ship BETA (first 100 pairs) 10 days earlier! :) If you’re from Europe you can check your mail-boxes within a next few days, and if you’re from America or Asia, it will arrive during next week.

Lots of interesting things have happened since the last time I’ve updated our blog.
The production of BETA will soon be finished, the packaging is prepared, and we’re only waiting for the factory to do their part of the job.

I’m not gonna tell you now about all these details. Today, I would like to tell you about a completely new experience I’ve had.

If you’re wondering what’s on my T-shirt, it says “Don’t stare at my tits, I’ll blog it” :)

Few days after the web-shop was on-line, and all these great things have happened, I was invited to attend FuturAD conference in Zagreb, Croatia, and to present the wtfJeans case-study. The conference was organized by Interactive Advertising Bureau and Best Marketing Croatia and it was held on 24th and 25th of March.

I admit it was a big challenge, because I have never been on stage in front of so many people. Being a part of an elementary school theater-play with another 50 kids does not count here. :)
Preparing a presentation was not a problem, although I’ve somehow deleted it a day before my trip to Croatia, but these things happen when you don’t press ctrl+S often enough. ;)

Lots of my friends from Zagreb were there too. And at the same time it was both a great support and a huge responsibility. I simply needed to give my best!

Yours truly, big stage and wtfJeans photo behind me

When I’ve stepped at that big stage, and the technicians gave me the microphone, the one that reminds of a Madonna-kind-of-thing, I’ve looked at the audience, just took a deep breathe and said to myself “The show starts now. Too late for running away!” :) I had a stage fright for the first couple of minutes, but the moment I’ve started to talk about the 5th of March, a day when wtfJeans was at twitter’s trending topic, all that anxiety have disappeared somehow, and I’ve almost felt connected to all these people.

Sanja, Ivan Brezak Brkan (friend,he designed our logo and written most of the text at our web-shop front page), Pedja, Borja (great friend, who supported us from the beginning)

All I wanted was to show them how we’ve managed to spread the story about our project by using only social media channels (Twitter, FB, blog…) and I wanted them to know how much we’re enjoying what we do. Another important thing was explaining them that every question from our customers, every blog entry about us, every follower on Twitter, every single person that at least have re-tweeted us – all these people have helped us to make a wtfJeans project better and successful.

Just some geeks checking out WiFi connection ;)

I think I’ve made a good presentation. I think that all these attendees at FuturAD now do understand that one doesn’t need lots of investment or a good and well-paid marketing campaign. All you need is a project you believe in, good and trustworthy community, and lots of hart. With those things – everything is possible.

We really believe in our project. Both Pedja and I have been working 24/7 (and still do) and it paid off. I don’t get any more which-big-jeans-company-is-behind-this mails, no explanations needed anymore. People now know what wtfJeans is, they understand how and why we’ve made them. And they know that we just looooooooove what we do. :)

Photos by Smijesak & FuturAD

While the jeans is being made at the factory, we’re preparing packaging for wtfJeans. Nice boxes, security and “Keep dry” stickers, Moo stickers… Very good news is that ppl who’ve ordered BETA will probably get their pairs of jeans before the 1st of May ;)

Our web shop is on-line since Thursday afternoon. As expected, we’ve sold about 10 pairs that evening, most of it to our friends on Twitter.

And then comes Friday… ;)

I was at the university when Pedja called me and said that we’re on Mashable! I couldn’t believe it! :) I ran home, and the only thing I was able to think of was “I hope the site won’t crash down!” :)) Luckily, it didn’t. :)

Minutes after the text on Mashable was published, we’ve started to receive orders. One after another one! Not long after that, Engadget and Gizmodo, and lots of others have published their texts too. The amount of tweets and RT’s on twitter search for wtfJeans was unbelievable! For a couple of hours wtfJeans was even a trending topic! :)

Before web shop was online we’ve made a plan to sell Beta for a few weeks during March – we were so mistaken: The BETA was sold out within a few hours! :) Those first 100 of pairs will be sent to our buyers on the 2nd of May.

At 17:30h, the moment Beta was sold out, the price was automatically changed to EarlyBird price (79€). Buyers from the whole world just kept ordering it, although they know that the those 900 pairs will be produced in August and shipped on the 1st of September. :) They don’t mind waiting for it for a few months! :)

So, how the sale is going, there’s a big chance that these 900 pairs of wtfJeans will be produced and shipped much sooner than it was initially planed. ;)

We would like to thank to all the people who tweeted about us. Special tnx to our friends who were posting comments on various web sites and, for example, explaining other ppl that the pocket on the photo is NOT a back pocket etc… ;)

Another thing I need to point out is:
We are not a big company! This is NOT a marketing trick or something like that.

We are just a simple internet-addicted couple who wanted to make just a 2 pairs of jeans for ourselves, and after a few friends said they’d like a pair too, we decided to make a web shop and try to sell 1000 pairs of it. We have never expected anything like this to happen! :)

Off now, to reply to client’s mails, and to start map-pinning all the cities our wtfJeans will be shipped to. From Australia to Singapore, Qatar, Israel, Italy, USA, UK, Sweden, Canada… It seams I’ll need a lot of pins! :)

Yes, the wtfJeans web shop is finally online! :)

It’s been only 3 months since the initial idea, although it’s more like years to Pedja and me ;). So many things have happened in the past few months, and we’ve met so many new people and learned a lot of new things. Such a great experience this is! :)

Of course, there were also some days when both of us just wanted to quit everything and buy a few sheep, and take them to some far-away-no-humans place and become a shepherd :)

As of today the part of work on web shop is done. And although shop is online only a few hours, we already have a nice lil’ bunch of orders for beta version of wtfJeans! :) And it’s all thanks to our twitter community. Twittersphere, thank you! :)

The web shop is pretty nice and simple, the payment goes through PayPal and the shipment is 9€ no matter where you’re from.

So, if you’re a geek or you just loooooove your iPhone or your iPodTouch, go ahead : take a look at wtfJeans shop and the gallery on it :)

It was 8-9h this morning. Someone was ringing at the door. I was still in bed. But, veeeeery happy to get up and open the door. Why?
Well, it was a postman. Postwoman to be precise. ;) And she brought us a package.

Factory prototypes have arrived! Yes, they’re finally here! :))
Now, there are just two more things to do: photo shooting and than the wtfJeans online shop can start to roll! :)
Beside this video, you can take a look at a few pics at Flickr.

As you can see, we’re rollin’ on a new blog design. Our web-designer Marko Dugonjic has done a great job. Do I even have to mention how proud we are? :) We simply LOVE IT! The reason for launching re-designed blog before web-shop is that Pedja did this part, and more complicated part of web-shop making is in the hands of Simplicity guys. They’ve promised it will be done till the 1st of March. So, 2 more weeks until the D-Day. ;)

Great news: Factory prototypes are finished today! Yeay! :)) But, since the factory is in Serbia, and we’re in France, it will take a few days till we get them. But, when we DO get them…oh, boy! :) I’m promising you lots of photos and videos, with all those details we’ve been writing about! :)

In the meantime, we’re preparing the packaging and we’ve also ordered MOO stickers which we’ll be giving away to wtfJeans buyers. Simple and nicely designed stickers for your laptops, netbooks or whatever. They’ll be delivered these days, and as always: we’ll twitpic them. ;) Btw, don’t you just love Moo? :)