The hungry little caterpillar, here, is the age of Little C while we were having these planning meetings.

Over the next six weeks, James and I met a few times to talk drawings, and designs. I took a lot of notes on Starbucks napkins, which still float around in my backpack (because I’m just that organized). I’m sure they’ll be displayed in the Smithsonian exhibit on American entrepreneurs in eighty years.  (PS – my organized file cabinet backpack – is an Arcteryx… Small, durable, mildly  stylish in an outdoorsy, Colorado kind of way. Yes. I’m paying more attention to bags, these days.)

We discussed parallel products we could design to sell alongside a bag. I sort of thought we should have something for friends to buy for the prospective parents. I think a diaper bag is not something you leave to someone else to by. You see the bag, you identify with it, you buy it for yourself. Especially in an urban center where the parents do more walking than driving, a bag is akin to a car. It crafts a personality. It’s what one displays for others to show personal style and even parenting style.

But friends and family want to buy for you, too. For that, James and I concocted the notion of baby blankets, burp rags and swaddling blankets emblazoned with a personal design we (James) would design.

Along with brainstorming for blankets, burp rags and swaddlers, we discussed a mission statement. We agree we want our company to do good in the process of doing style. Both James and I are conscientious. We’d love to give back: with our (eventual) finances and time. We hope to contribute in one or some or all of the following ways:

The arts, especially for children.

Anti-bullying

The rights and efforts of gay parents

The environment

Self-expression of creative, colorful and all kinds of beautiful people.

So we decided a mission statement will take place before our first product roll-out.

 

Finally, much like prospective parents discuss ad nauseum, we began a soon-to-be long discussion of company names:

iDaddy

Daddy Bag

Baggy Dad

iBag

…and other not-clever and trendy names.

Another tack, we riffed on our own names, combining several elements from the parts of James George Brown III and Gavin Knox Lodge IV

My personal favorite was “iii/iv” based on our suffixes. But I realized that might make people just think they were getting ¾ of a product, if they could even figure out a fraction made up of roman numerals.

Another consideration was “George Knox”. I thought that sounded rather pretentious. Don’t get me wrong: I’m all about the right kind of pretension. But “George Knox” seemed too “trying too hard.”

So we let all these “down-the-road” thoughts marinade.