Looking Back and Taking Inventory
As we move into our newer larger office, the Soltech team has paused to take stock of everything and everyone that helped to bring us to this point. We put this blog post together because we wanted you all to see how your continued support is helping to build our company and fuel a few entrepreneurs’ dreams. Together with our customers and our partners, we are all serving the mission of getting more plants in more places, and we're flattered our light is the tool of choice. Thank you for being a part of this story...
Came Out Swingin'
Chris, Mike and I always carried the mission - a green and beautiful future. Not just for us, but for our kids, and our kids' kids... We knew there were always major government and corporate initiatives to help with this, but we always felt that it would be much more powerful if the road to a green and beautiful future was rooted in the lifestyles of everyday people. Not just because we were told, but because we wanted to. We had several ideas of how to tastefully and effortlessly create products that people could integrate into their lifestyles. And we couldn't start designing soon enough.
Hatchhouse
We decided to move to Bethlehem in 2016 to really put our ideas to the test. We were welcomed to Bethlehem with open arms which is how we ended up in our first workspace that wasn’t our apartment – Hatchhouse; a small live-in business incubator where we occupied the basement in return for providing lights to the owner and our friend. It is here where we handmade our very first versions of the Aspect. Countless hours in this dark little basement. And trust us, we learned quickly that if you can grow plants down there - you can grow plants anywhere... It was also out of this dark little basement where we ran our successful Kickstarter campaign and introduced the Aspect to the world, where it too was welcomed with open arms.
"Business 101"
This brought us to every entrepreneur’s dream -
our first and very own office. That was in Pi Building, Suite 5. It was tight and we were packed in wall-to-wall, but it was perfect. We moved in to the office in January of 2017, and after all the hard work and years of research, development and testing, 2017 was finally our first year of business. We thought it would be easy, but it wasn’t. But through persistence, continued support, and building partnerships with like-minded and missioned people, we were able to find our stride. Now we were getting our products into homes, and customers were so pleased with the results they were coming back for more. We started to feel our impact. People were really connecting with our mission of integrating beautiful plants into beautiful spaces. We learned a lot in 2017 about running a business. Not the way we were taught in a book, but through really doing it. Here's a picture to the left of us giving a talk to Lehigh University's Technical Entrepreneurship Master's program in our office. We like to think of 2017 as the real "Business 101".
Sweet, Suite 4
A year and a half later and we’re 3 weeks into our
new office. Same beautiful building in the same beautiful city, but this time our office is three times larger with a little room to breathe. By continuing to develop additional partnerships with all sorts of influencers in the home & garden communities, we now have many new and exciting products for you all currently under development! Again,
thank you to everyone who has supported us. We are all playing a part to keep our future's green and beautiful. We encourage you to
reach out to us at any point. You won't get an automated response or an outsourced customer service rep, you'll talk to one of us - and we always love to hear from you. If you're curious about our journey and learning more about how we're continuing to grow and design products to keep your plants happy and your homes healthy, join our newsletter! We only send out emails about once a month and they're always full of updates, stories and exclusive discounts. If you're reading this, You rock!
Reach out, say "hey" and even send us pictures of your beautiful plant displays. We always enjoy those. And last but not least...IT'S CHRIS'S BIRTHDAY! Feel free to shoot him an email and let him know we're all happy he's around.
