Season Intro And Innovation Theme

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi, I'm Alexa.

SPEAKER_01 0:01

And I'm Rory. And together we are the Roamies. We're a husband-wife duo and longtime travelers who believe travel isn't just about where you go. It's about how it shapes the way you live when you get home.

SPEAKER_00 0:14

On the Roamies podcast, we explore where to travel, how to travel, and why to travel. Through our lens of creativity, wellness, and everyday life.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

We're calling this season Rome Google. As we travel near and far, we're sharing the ways we bring inspiration home.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

It's all about making travel tangible, livable, and meaningful long after this event.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

So whether you're planning your next adventure or reimagining the life you're building at home, you're in the right place.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Now, let's get into today's episode. Hi everyone, welcome to our latest episode. This is I It's for Innovation. And we're super excited to have Dave Logan with us with Only Travel. He has created some very, very cool luggage. So, y'all, we're gonna talk practical, innovative luggage today, and how innovation, not only the innovation of this very cool suitcase arrangement that he, this system that Dave has created, but we're also going to dive into how innovation can affect our lives and how inspiration can affect that innovation. And we're gonna have a super fun conversation. So, Dave, thank you so much for joining us. We're super glad to have you.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

Well, thank you. Thank you for having me, Alexa. I I look forward to the conversation.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

Now, you've shared some of your story with me, and I've also seen it on your website, but I'd love to just launch our conversation with a little background on you things that happened before that South Dakota story that you shared. You've had 25 years of business, adventure, vacation travel, and more than 40 countries, hundreds of cities. So, like what business were you in? And what have been some of your top places that you've traveled? I know that's like 600 questions, but that's where I'd like to start. Your own travel.

Dave Logan’s Travel Origin Story

SPEAKER_02 2:16

No, yeah, no, no, no problem. I I'll actually start 1978 when I ran out of money for college. And so I took a year off to work to get money to go back to college, and I saved up enough money for college, and then I decided that I would go traveling with what I had left over. And so myself and two friends jumped into my 1965 Plymouth Valiant, and we drove across the country from basically California to New York, hopped a plane to London, and I hitchhiked around Europe and North Africa and the Middle East for about six months. And that really jump started my love of travel and actually some of my travel philosophies just to this day about traveling lights and about being able to adapt on the plot. So that's how I started. Then my uh my business career started when I finished graduate school in 1982. I joined a consulting company called McKinsey, which basically had me traveling, you know, call it 75% of the time. So for the seven years I was with them, I was always on the road. And then I uh I joined an organization company and worked several jobs for them, and then I actually became CEO of a video game company, if you can believe that. Cool. And traveled all over the world promoting our video games. And then I basically switched from running companies to being an investor. So I was a partner in an investment company, several of them, and I traveled around to where all of our companies were and continued to apply everything that I'd learned about travel as I did that. So, and then basically that's where I got the idea for only travel that we'll cover in a minute. But answering the second part of your question, here's some of my favorite places. So, very early in that first trip, I I met my brother and we hitchhiked around Ireland. And so, Ireland has always been a place that I've loved to travel. Then, shortly after I was married, my wife and I, just on a whim, did an adventure getaway to the South Pacific. We went to a little country called Tonga that hardly anybody's ever heard of. And so we went to a bunch of remote islands, and that is forever etched into my mind. Some other cool places I've I've been to is Samasir Island in Sumatra in Indonesia, Machu Picchu in Peru, which is a lost city, and I'll cite two others that might be of interest. One is Botswana in Africa, where we went on safari. And then finally, I'll cite Alaska, where we just went this year and wandered through the inland passage. Most of those, as you can tell, are adventure trips or fun trips rather than the big the many business trips I took, but the lessons come from both.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Sure. Yes, yes. I I don't think I've been to any of those places except Ireland. So this is our I episode, so that's ties into I for Ireland, right? So that's fun. Very cool. No, I love that you have been to all of those places. And yeah, my the two co the two states I haven't yet been to are Vermont and Alaska. So I'm so glad you had a great trip there. And I'm sure we will get there soon. Yeah, you and those islands, they sound amazing.

SPEAKER_02 5:37

Yeah, no, I've been to a lot of really a lot of root places. Um, one of the things that you said about your theme is that I is for innovation, so it made me think of uh Ireland. We my brother and I ended up at an Irish folk festival where for three days there was no place to stay because everything was so crowded. And so we uh walked about two miles out of town and we knocked on a farmhouse door and asked if we could stay in the barn. Uh and they they let us stay in the hayloft, which was comfortable and dry. So good. And uh they gave us breakfast for£3.50 each of the three days, and that was enough food that we spent the rest of the time listening to Irish folk music. So um, I don't know if the idea of negotiating with a farmer counts as innovation for I, but it wasn't ice in Ireland. So maybe maybe it'll meet your stamps.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

So because like one of the things is that travel inspires our creativity. And uh to me, they both feed on each other, and therefore we find creative ways to travel, and that's exactly what you did. You were very innovative. I love that. Dave, I love also that you mentioned that a lot of your trips were some for business, and then the the exciting places that you mentioned were just more for like fun adventure trips. And sometimes the business trips don't allow time to go see the areas that you're in, right? And so you could have been to amazing bus places on your business trips that you just didn't have time to explore. You know, maybe you were able to stay an extra day or here or there because sometimes that can work out. But I love what you said is that you learn from both because regardless, it's the practical getting from one place to another in a feasible way. And I just I I want to just share a quick little, I don't know, a little bit about me and my luggage situation. Cause y'all, when you travel as much as like Dave has, and as much as Rory and I travel, it's a nonstop thing. Like we we come home from one trip and we start packing for the next one. At least I do. Rory has his own little system, but I have I'm a girl and I've got my own, you know, little thing that I I have a process and it's always fluctuating, you know, and our fashion is always fluctuating and evolving, right? So we are like, I think as female, we have a little bit more adjusting and change, and we're always, at least for me, always looking for the next best bag because there's just not for women like a really good option. And so I was really excited to find only travel to find Dave and what he's created because there's a lot right about what he's doing. But y'all, when you when you travel so much, your suitcase is your home. Like this series is called Roam to Home. Your suitcase is what you take with that is your home. That is your home base for anywhere you're going because it's it's it's the thing that holds your belongings. When you're home, that's what you're doing. That it's the place where you have your stuff, right? And um there's a lot of things you do in and around your home as well. But but at the end of the day, like one of the ways a home, it's it like holds your stuff. And so the only constant that you have when you travel is what you're taking with you. I I can know that I always have like my phone, or I always have my sunglasses, or I know that I'm always gonna have my computer or my bag or whatever it is, I'm gonna have my thermos. These are things that they don't change as I travel. They are things that are always with me and they're my one constant thing. And so that suitcase is my home. And so having a suitcase with the right floor plan and the right configurations for the life that I live and the things I do on the road and the things I need as I'm going from one place to another, and how I need to easily access all my stuff and all my goods, that's like I need that to work for me. I need that to be something that's smart and innovative. So, um, David, before designing this system, what did your own travel setup look like? And what were things that drove you crazy about traditional luggage? And sorry, before I even ask that, I have to say one more thing. I feel like there's so much luggage out there that was designed by people that don't travel because I feel like it doesn't make sense. Like, like you put the zipper on this side, like, do y'all not even think about that it has to fit under the seat and you made it like one inch bigger or whatever it is, like it's so what drove you crazy about traditional luggage?

Why Traditional Luggage Wastes Time

SPEAKER_02 10:33

So, so um I think you know, it's as as my particularly my business career progressed and I traveled more and more for business, what I found was that I kept wanting to be able to go lighter and lighter. And I kept wanting to be able to go faster and faster so that I minimized the amount of time that was spent, you know, wasted time waiting for check bags or waiting in in the airplane access tunnel for gate check bags, thing, things like that. So what I and what I found was that there are a lot of different bags designed for different purposes, but nobody had ever really thought about how do I design a bag specifically to avoid having to check it. How do you know how do I design a bag that will minimize the chance that I'll end up having to gate check it or that I will have to check it and then wait with uncertain results in an unknown airport? So, you know, as I traveled through my career, you know, I there were improvements along the way. I mean, travel clothing has come a long way. You know, you can now get stuff that's very lightweight, wrinkle-free, washes and dries quickly. There are a lot of improvements that have been made. But when I started really thinking about this, that was really my focus was how do you design something that literally ensures that you'll never have to check a bag?

SPEAKER_00 12:08

Love that. Yeah. We've also had some previous episodes with her packing list with Brooke Shineman. And that's one of the reasons she has her course and her classes on packing light, because it's so much hassle when you have to check a bag, and now it's so much more expensive. And sadly, Southwest Airlines is now charging for bags before you could just check two for free. So no big deal. Let's take all the bags we want. And now it's like, nope, you're gonna pay. And so for us in our F episode, we talked about being frugal with travel, and you have to find ways to save money. And this, you know, again, there's that innovation of how do we do that? How do we save money? How do we save time? And I think Dave, too, on on the saving time, when you said that, it also occurred to me like time when I come home. Like, because when I come home, I'm having to unload from the previous trip, get ready for the next one. I may or may not need the same things. I may it may be totally different weather where I'm going. And so I don't necessarily need all the same things. And so when there's kind of like a system going on, which is really what you've created, is like a system that just kind of helps facilitate time at home. So when you're home, it's not about the packing and the unpacking to me, which is actually part of the fun part of travel. Like, I think packing is like actually kind of a fun thing because it there's like you have to be creative. How am I gonna fit? Where do I fit this in? And how can I creatively get all of the things that I want to take into this small space? Like it's always a fun challenge for me. Just being innovative to save time when you're home so that you can actually like be home and do all the things you need to do while you're home and and it not be all about packing.

SPEAKER_02 13:52

Yeah, and when when you do pack, you want the packing to be as stress-free as possible. Right.

SPEAKER_05 14:01

It should be stressful.

SPEAKER_02 14:02

And so if you think about it, there the sources of stress when you pack, one is will it fit? Right? And then the other is are you packing everything you need for your trip or are you forgetting something?

SPEAKER_05 14:17

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:19

And and our our packing cube system, we designed it specifically to fit our product so you know it will fit. And then the other stress in packing is am I taking everything I need? Am I taking the right stuff? And so if you think about most packing cubes, they come in, for example, small, medium, and large, which doesn't help you with that. But our packing cube system of eight packing cubes is designed specifically around the things we know you're gonna need to take. So, you know, there's a bag for toiletries, there's a bag for cords and charges for your electronics, there's a bag for socks and underwear, you know, and they have additional value-added features. But the idea is if you literally put in them what they say you should put in them, then you'll have most of what you need for your trip and it'll fit. So it's yeah, so it so it takes all the oh, and I see you've got one of our packing cubes there. You might tell me of some of the things you put in it.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

Sure. Okay, so I actually used your small items bag for my toiletries. I basically have my toiletries, my medicine kit, and then another little kit that I usually have is a I call it my sleeping bag. And in my sleeping bag, that's where I have maybe eye mask things, right? For sleeping mask. And right now, what I've been doing is using like a combo mask headband to it pulls back my hair, but then I can also just put it over my eyes, and that way I'm not bringing two things. So I have that with my makeup. Now, my makeup I don't have in here, but my toiletry. So, y'all, I always talk about baths and how much I love them. So I've got my bath stopper in here, I've got my essential oxygen mouth rinse. This is so good. Y'all probably be hearing more about them soon. Shower cap, toothbrush, toothpaste, floss. I even have some band-aids in case you know you get uh calluses from shoes or whatever. Tiny mini razor. I've got my prescriptions here. Let's see, we've got all that prescription stuff. I've got my hair bands, I've got bath salts, little tiny from Rome. We talked about Rome in our bath episode. This is coconut oil. Use it for everything, everything, but especially makeup remover. I use the neti stick to open up my airways and breathe because you never know what kind of places you're gonna get, especially when you need to sing sunscreen, y'all. It's essential. Um, another prescription. All right. I've been using lately deodorant that is uh the wipes. And then this is just a little spot cream, day cream, and night cream. So what I did there is I mixed them all together, and then I have a hair gel thing. So that is everything that I have in this toiletry bag, but I use the small items because the small items for me works well for the biggest.

SPEAKER_02 17:16

Yeah, so it means you're already a fairly light traveler if you can fit all of that in the small items. We made the toiletry bag a little bigger under the assumption that people would want space for hairbrushes or things like that.

SPEAKER_00 17:29

But uh, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 17:30

But uh sounds like you fit it in the small one.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

I'm holding up the toiletry bag and it's got it has great space and it's got side pockets and all around and multiple. I love I love how you designed all of these. They're very fun.

Packing Cubes That Prevent Forgetting

SPEAKER_02 17:44

Yeah, the the two the the two packing cubes we're most proud of, I think. One is the double-sided shirt and pants folder, which you can which basically literally has instructions on how to pack your your clothes so they won't wrinkle. Um because it comes with a folding board, so you can pack them so they don't wrinkle. Then that can hold five shirts on one side, two pairs of pants on the other side. So basically, you get a week's worth of clothes in that. And then the other that we're I I think we're particularly proud of is the and you know, and the velcro straps lets you compress it. Then the other we're proud of is the 2X shoe kiss, whose shoes are the most difficult thing to pack. And so that holds two pairs of shoes, and again, we have velcro straps, so you can strap them down so that to the extent the shoes will allow, you can make them as small as possible and make them fit. And those you know, those two you know really help, particularly if you're taking a short foot strap and you know you just want it all to fit quickly, um you know, then then you know it'll fit.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

Yeah, so great. I put two pairs of shoes in the shoe bag, but I also added my curling iron. That that was a good space to uh add that. And so my curling iron is in there with the shoes.

SPEAKER_02 19:01

Yeah. Well, that's great. That's great.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

Yeah, these these cubes are great. We have a gig coming up, and so I have my dress for the gig in your hanging cube there. And it's called the suit folder. They have so many good features, and I and I love the innovation around there, and I love that it's almost kind of like you said, like a packing checklist. Because they're labeled, you have this packing checklist, and it just really helps you again with that stress-free packing to know, okay, I'm I got this. Okay, did I pack my underwear? Did I pack my socks? Did I have shoes?

unknown 19:37

You know.

SPEAKER_02 19:38

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So just to run through them quickly, the eight cubes that that we have, we have the suitor, which will hold a dress, a jacket, or a suit, has designated fold points on it, so that you fold it up and you know that after you hang it and fold it, it won't r you know, it won't wrinkle your clothes. So that's one thing. Then the the double-sided shirt and pants folder, probably my my one of my dumbest decisions as a business person was not to patent that because I should have. Um because there's nothing else like it that basically handles your tops and your bottoms in the same, you know, in the same single cube and keeps them all perfectly folded and and organized so that they don't wrinkle. And I really invented that because I was doing a lot of business travel. And you know, you you you you may fly to four different cities. You know, I would be going to Indianapolis and then to Milwaukee and then to Sioux Falls, and you know, and you have to look good in each of those places that have bored me. So that was valuable. And then the two X2 kids came from basically I had to have a pair of basically business shoes for meetings, but then I I'm also a runner.

SPEAKER_05 20:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 20:49

And so I, you know, I needed a pair of running shoes because I, you know, I I I wanted to work out while traveling. And then uh yeah, then uh for socks and underwear, what I thought was you know it'd be really nice if you didn't have to carry a laundry bag. So one side of that is for clean clothes, and then the other side is for dirty. So you literally don't need to carry a laundry bag. You just put all your your clean clothes on one side and your dirty clothes on the other, and it fits perfectly. The toiletries, I think we've already discussed, we designed it so that it used the best features of a lot of toiletries bags that we've already seen, like the side pockets for you know, toothpaste and a toothbrush and things like that. But the unique feature there is underneath. What we found is that almost everybody for their toiletries bag wanted a little more space, and it varied between men and women. The women mostly wanted space for multiple brushes or more space for makeup. And the men wanted a separate space from everything else where they could put workout clothes. So we ended up designing that pocket underneath because it would meet Moto's needs perfectly. So when my wife I travel, she uses it for her multiple brushes, and I use it for my running clothes. Then everybody needs two tubes that are quick access that you can get out right away without needing to fumble around. One is your 311 bag for your liquids for TSA, which has to be meet their standards. So it needs to be clear, it needs to be one quart, needs to hold all the liquids that you're allowed so that you can carry them on. So we designed that so that it would fit in one of the front quick access pockets so that you could get it out quickly as you go through security. And then the other thing we designed for the front quick access pocket was um the cords and charges, because everybody these days travels with electronics. So you're gonna have your cords and charges for your iPad, your computer, you're gonna have usually a battery backup, you may have charger for your headphones and so on. And so you need those quickly accessible. And then, of course, everybody has their own idiosyncrasies, and that's what the small items uh bag is for. It's just for every anything that anybody wants to pack that doesn't make sense in any of the other bags. But between the eight of them, really will give you a roadmap to what you need to pack, you know, and it'll all fit.

SPEAKER_00 23:19

Now that's just your packing cues. We haven't even dived into the whole suitcase innovation that you have. So there's just so much more to dive into with what you've created here, with what you have innovatively created. So with the luggage, let's take us back to that moment where the trilogy module system, which is what you have, you kind of referenced that briefly when you talked about the the pack. When did it click for you in your brain of like, hmm, let's let's make this modular and and the way that you've done it? And maybe you could describe what you've done since we haven't really talked about that yet.

The Trilogy Modular System Explained

SPEAKER_02 23:59

I'll tell you what what the trilogy modular system is, and then I'll tell you how what the aha moment was, although from the aha moment to the trilogy modular system was a lot of development. Um the trilogy modular system is the world's only four-wheel rolling three-part modular back. So it's a rolling spinner, and then there is a backpack essentially, or it can also be a tote for one of them, that's attached to both the front and the back. And you can take those off and you can attach them to each other if you want to. So what it essentially gives you is three bags in one, which is better for your pocketbooks, if we can basically offer the three-bag system at the price of you know, typically what one bag would be for you know for uh another system. And then you can mix and match to your trip. Uh so you know, you don't have to take all three, you can take just one, the spinner, if you you know, if you want. If you like to travel with just a backpack, one of the backpacks is we call the weekender day pack, and it's really been designed for a quick, you know, like you know, one to three day trip. And then if you want to travel with a backpack that needs more space, you can actually put the two backpacks together into the double pack, which is a larger backpack, and that gives you enough space to travel for a long time, depending on how you pass. So that's what the system is. It's a modular system where you can mix and match to your trip. And because you can take the three pieces apart to make it into a smaller bag, you have a greater chance of not having to check your bag because you can find smaller places on the airplane to put them. So, with that, that will segue into how I first got the idea, which was a brutally cold trip to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in uh, I'm gonna say 2015 or 2016. I was going there in January and it was a small regional jet. Because of that, they made me gate check my bag, which was already pretty light because I'd been traveling for a number of years, but it was too big for the small regional jet. So they made me gate check it. And of course, my jacket was in my bag. When I get to Sioux Falls, uh it's a snowstorm, it's about 15 degrees or something. And because of the snowstorm, the airplane port has a skeleton crew. It's one of these smaller airports, so you come down the plane off the plane on some mobile stairs, and then you wait on the tarmac for your luggage. And because of the skeleton crew, it took a half hour for anyone to bother to come and unload the plane. As I'm sitting there freezing, I said to myself, why couldn't you make a bag that's modular so it would fit in these small regional jets and you'd never have to gate check it? So I pondered that until I got my bag. I ripped my jacket out of there and put it on. I got in the got in my car, heated up the car, drove to the hotel, and got on the internet. Nobody had made such a thing. So um I applied for a patent and we started the company.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

So innovative of you, Dave.

SPEAKER_02 27:27

Well, they say, you know, necessity is the mother of innovation. And if you were as cold as I was that evening in South Dakota, you would have invented almost anything.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

Right? Oh, sounds miserable. Yuck, yuck, yuck. Our f our Finnish friends that are listening are just like, whatever. They jump in cold lakes all the time, but we're not used to that.

SPEAKER_02 27:51

For the record, we have taken the bag to Finland.

SPEAKER_00 27:54

So um, we'll take it this summer. So, y'all, we will be sharing posts from this bag. If y'all have been following us for a while, you saw that uh after I took Brooks' class on how to pack light and I took everything in a wheeled backpack, I'm gonna be doing that same thing this summer with this only travel packing system. And I'm really excited to take it overseas. And this one modular system is all I'm gonna need. Well, that and my ukulele is all I'm gonna need for our one to two month trip to Europe. And I love that it's wheeled. That is really hard to find. And the bag that I showed y'all on socials, it ended up ripping on me for like within the first week. And so I no longer have that bag. So I'm really excited to have a replacement that's gonna be even better. And I'm having a lot of fun just kind of like diving in and figuring out, okay, where do I want to put this? Because there's so many compartments and there's so many. You've got you've thought of a lot of things, Dave. You've got a lot of places for things. So it's figuring out, you know, where do I want to put this? And do I want this in a cube here? Do I want this? Do I want to put everything separate and lay it out? You know, so it's just like there's so many choices and options that I think it's gonna take me a little bit of trips before we go to Europe to figure out what what suits me best and where I'm gonna put what. Yeah. And I love that there's options and choices and the configuration of different scenarios.

SPEAKER_02 29:29

Yeah. That's great. One of the things also about taking a bag to Europe is you know, a lot of times in Europe you run into cobblestone streets as, you know, as you get close to your, you know, your Airbnb or your bed and breakfast or whatever. And so although our bag is a rolling bag that works well for gliding through airports, because we designed it with the three-part modular system, you can actually put the whole thing on your back.

SPEAKER_05 29:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 29:56

So yeah, so if you need the last 200 yards to your to your bed and breakfast up a cobblestone street, up a winding lane, you can do that without a problem.

SPEAKER_00 30:08

Yes, and I'm sorry if I didn't mention that before. What's difficult to find is a rolling backpack that work that is the size of a suitcase, but not too big, can fit in the overhead, all of that stuff, right? Like this takes all the boxes with that.

SPEAKER_02 30:24

And how'd we land on the idea of three pieces working together?

SPEAKER_00 30:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 30:28

And yeah, and so so the the core idea was we want to be able to take the pieces apart so that they could fit in smaller places on the airplane. So if you've ever traveled on a small regional jet, what you'll find is that a lot of times a 22 by 14 by 9 uh center won't go in that smaller overhead compartment. There's only like eight inches of clearance or something like that. So um we said, okay, if we design the two front and rear bags so that they're fairly flat, then those will go in a small regional jet. And so that way if you're actually traveling with them zipped together as the double pack, and you get on, you can carry a lot of stuff because that will make it fixed. But then when you get on the plane, just zip them in half and put each of them up separately and they fit in the overhead and you don't have to give check to that. So that was one thought. And then the the second thought, the the big aha moment that we had was you know, everybody designs their carry-on spinners to be 22 inches by 14 inches by nine inches. The reason they do that is because that's the maximum size most airlines allow. The problem with that is that the space under most airplane seats is eight and a half inches. So all these nine-inch spinners don't fit under the airplane seats in a pinch. So we looked at ourselves and said, well, why couldn't you make the spinner eight inches instead of nine? And that way, if you had to, you you don't want to do this because you'd like to have the legroom, but if you have to in a pinch, if it's a crowded flight, you can put it under the seat. And so we did that. And so that was how we landed on the idea that you know there there were there's basically three bags, each of them individually is small enough to fit under an airplane seat or a normal airplane seat. That the they're also because they're thinner, you can fit them in small regional jets. And if you put any two of them together, they qualify as a personal carry-on, and then the third one becomes your personal item. So you you can get around the various you know restrictions that airlines have. So it gives you as many options as possible to avoid checking a bag, which of course that's good for adventure travelers or people going on longer vacations, but it's also really good for business travelers who need to get out of the airport and to their hotel and then to their next meeting quickly and efficiently.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

Don't think I realize that the spinner, the main like quote unquote big suitcase part of that system can fit under the seat in front of you. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 33:26

Yeah. Yeah, on on you know, again, all airlines, airplanes are different. There's you know, smaller ones maybe or it won't, or if there's a stereo system or an electronic system under the seat. But on a standard, uh on a standard jet, such as you would take in, you know, on most of the airlines in the US, it will fit under the seat in a pinch.

SPEAKER_00 33:47

Amazing. One of the questions I had as I've been playing with the luggage is the front zips on, you have your front day pack, right? This is the day pack. Yeah. Okay.

Designing For Under-Seat Airline Fit

SPEAKER_02 33:59

Yeah, well what we call what we call the expandable tote pack. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:01

All right, sorry, the expandable tote bag. Okay. The expandable tote bag is made to zip onto the front of the spinner, and then the day pack is meant to be zipped onto the back of it. Of the spinner.

SPEAKER_05 34:14

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 34:15

Okay. Correct. Now, you cannot zip the tote onto the back of the spinner, right?

SPEAKER_02 34:23

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 34:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 34:24

But what you can do is you can zip the day pack and the tote together in into a larger backpack that we call the double pack. And then that can be carried the traditional way if you want to, you know, with pay on the handle of the rolling back.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

Mm-hmm. Yes. I love that you have all the built-in features. You've got the strap on the back that you, if you want to just set it on top of your spinner, that you have the strap.

SPEAKER_02 34:52

Well, we call the pass-through slow strap. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 34:55

And also that both the day pack and the tote bag both have backpack capability. So when Rory and I want to take a day trip, we can use the same exact luggage. He gets one of the backpacks, and I get one of the backpacks, and we can go day trip. They're expandable. So I love the flexibility with that. And even the spinner is also expandable. But you but the in order for the spinner to be a backpack, the day pack has to be zipped onto it because the backpack straps for the spinner are on the are on the day pack.

SPEAKER_02 35:34

That's correct. Yeah. Yeah, that that yeah, you're you got that exactly right. The um yeah, we we've actually found that it's interesting. There are a number of uh, and not every couple wants to do this because many people don't travel as light as this, but there are a number of couples who've bought our bag, their intention being that the two of them will travel together with just that one bag, and they'll put both of their stuff in in the main spinner. But then exactly as you said, Alexa, they each want a bag for bopping around London or Paris or wherever they've traveled to. Right. And so the the front and the rear bags give them that option. So and and one place where that's particularly common is what we call bleisure travel, which is basically you know, one of the couple is going on a business trip and the other one comes along so that they can have some time together or have a little bit of vacation afterwards.

SPEAKER_05 36:36

Right.

SPEAKER_02 36:36

And he or she wants to go out and explore the city while the other one is in their business meetings. So you can basically split the two backpacks out where one person goes, you know, to the convention or whatever, and the other person goes out and explores the city.

SPEAKER_00 36:52

My brother-in-law just got back from a trip like that yesterday and was telling us about his trip. You know, he was at the convention all day, his wife went out and saw the town, and then they would do things together. So, yes, they were just doing that. So I love that the bag is flexible for that. Now, you also have a convertible three-piece duffel system that's available to and depending on when y'all are listening to this episode, there there may be other, you know, you've got one in the works that's coming out anytime. And so there's gonna constantly be new things depending on when y'all listen. So we'll have link to the only travel in the show notes, and so y'all can go see what is new and what Dave has continued to create. But um, let's just quickly talk about that double system so people are aware of it.

SPEAKER_02 37:39

Yeah, so so we have what we call the Penta five in one packable double.

SPEAKER_05 37:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 37:44

So the idea here is it folds up into a little packet that's maybe five or six inches by two or three inches deep by three or four inches wide. I don't remember the exact dimensions, but you know, a little thing like this. And that enables it to be what we call a just-in-case bag. So you throw it into your suitcase, and that way if you go somewhere and you buy a bunch of souvenirs, or your mother-in-law gives you a bunch of things to take back, or anything like that, um, you've got an extra bag you can you can bring out, fill it up with whatever you got, and you can check it, because it's made of aerobic material that's extremely strong and hard to tear. And so that was the original idea was to make a bag like that. We had a big debate about whether to make it a duffel or a backpack, and we concluded we should make it both. So um it is a duffel bag, but if you take the straps out and reconnect them, you can wear it as a backpack. And then the other thing that we thought about was we said, okay, we're doing pretty well here. We've got rolling luggage, we've got backpacks. What else do people travel with? And the missing link, if you will, was the smaller bags, like a belt pack or a purse or a shoulder bag. So the two end caps of the penta zip off. And one of them is a belt bag that you can wear. For example, I wear it when I'm running. A lot of women wear it crossbody, and the other one is a shoulder bag that you can wear over your shoulder, and you can actually zip the two of them together just like you could zip the two parts of the backpack together on the larger trilogy. Okay, and that becomes a larger, like travel purse or shoulder bag that you can use when you're out and about. So it gives you the lighter options for when you're when you're at your destination and gives you an option if you end up needing more space because you're bringing a lot of things back back with you.

SPEAKER_00 39:59

Yeah. And we always try to have a little built-in tote with us when we're traveling, because even like in Europe, we end up going to the store and just grabbing groceries because we find we don't want to spend money eating out. And some states now don't even don't offer you bags for your groceries, and they're wanting you to bring your own bags. And so even just for like grocery shopping, having that extra bag is super convenient. Yeah. Yeah, we have always found a use for just like an extra little mini tote that it's super helpful for food and snacks and and yeah, other things for our travel.

SPEAKER_02 40:38

Yeah, or go or going going to the beach is another example.

SPEAKER_00 40:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 40:42

Yeah, or or walking through an outdoor market. Exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:47

So you had all of this design and you had this aha moment when you're freezing, but now it's a finished product. And how many prototypes did you go through? And what design and engineering challenges have you had?

Prototypes Patents And COVID Challenges

SPEAKER_02 41:02

So what I would say is a long road. Um, first of all, I am a terrible artist. I can't sketch anything. Um, we've act we are actually, Alexa, on the third iteration of this concept. So the first bag that we did was a two-wheel bag, not a four-wheel bag, that we called the venture rolling pack. And that took eight design prototypes. We went through basically, in addition to myself as kind of the lead designer, we went through three uh what I'll call detailed designers, you know, who spec out all the all the all you know all the details of the bags. And uh I ended up having to make a trip to Vietnam where we make the bag over a weekend to clarify some of the things that were uh the that that were needed. So I literally left a business meeting in Los Angeles, drove to the airport, flew to Vietnam, spent two days with our factory there, and then flew back uh back to Boston. So anyway, we got the venture uh launched after these eight prototypes started to build demand for the concept. And then, of course, what hit was COVID. And so uh the year 2020 hit, and we had already identified that we had a great idea, but people really wanted a four-wheel spinner rather than a two-wheel bag. That was what 80% of the market was. 20% is a two-wheel bag because there are people who prefer to pull it rather than glide it, but about 80% of the people prefer a four-wheel bag. So, and we didn't even know if a four-wheel bag was possible with our design. So we began to work on that, and we worked on that during COVID. And that was a real challenge because we had to do everything over the phone or over Zoom. We couldn't visit the factory, and most importantly, we couldn't beta test the prototypes because you couldn't travel. That was very challenging. And, you know, speaking honestly, we made a couple of mistakes in the revolution. And so that was the second product, and and we launched that, and we began to get more customer feedback, and people liked about 90% of it, but there were 10% of things that we honestly had missed, in but in large part because of the isolated you know design process where we weren't able to beta test it. So we then went back to the drawing board and we said, now it's like 2022, and you know, and we said, you know, we really need to do one more to do one more version of this. And this time we are going to beta test it all over the world. We had people who traveled to Japan with it and all kinds of places that that were beta testers for us. And that also went through four or five iterations. So I would say to get to the current Version, the trilogy modular system, probably call it 18 prototypes and three versions over call it a five or six year period. And along the way, filing for and getting three patents on the design. A lot of patience and a lot of endurance comes with your in many ways, this could not have been done by a large company because they would have given up on it. Right. Yeah, and and the the in a sense, the benefit of being a small company is, you know, when COVID hit, we just hunkered down in our garage and started fiddling with how we could make it better. And which you can do if that's you know, if if all the overhead you have is your garage.

SPEAKER_00 44:44

Right. What's something people would never guess about the process of designing luggage that maybe you haven't mentioned yet?

SPEAKER_02 44:50

Oh, let's see. Let me mention two things. One is testing, and then the other is I'll call fashion. So the testing, you'd be amazed at the different ways that you can actually test a bag and that people have dreamed up over time. You can fill it all with little basically ping pong balls to estimate the volume. And there are machines that do that. There are machines that will drop the bag from different heights to see how strong it is. There are machines that will rip the bag apart to see how strong it is. So you it's amazing the uh the different testing you can do. So that that's more with me and see how they can so that's that's one thing. I would say the thing that for me has been the the most challenging, maybe surprise is what I would call fabrics and colors. So, you know, I'm a typical male. You know, I uh you know, I get up in the morning, I throw on blue jeans, you know, and a and a and a black t-shirt and a and a and a gray hoodie. Um and and so, and I don't really think much about the fabrics. But you have to think about what colors people want and why, and you have to do a good job with that. And believe me, I relied heavily on my wife uh and also on some outside designers to give me advice for that. And then the other thing is fabrics, there is a whole world out there of fabrics with different characteristics, different strengths and weaknesses. I think I mentioned the aerobic fabric that we use for the Pentaf and One Packable duffel, which is very expensive, but it's also extremely strong and terror resistant while being incredibly light. That's also what our packing cubes are. So um, you know, finding the right fabric for the right application is really critical. And you need, you know, you've you need specialist advice on that. It's not the kind of thing that you'll just know. And so, you know, we've done our research. Um, I spent a day uh with four Japanese engineers and YKK zippers in their New York City laboratory figuring out the tensile strength of all the zippers on our system. I have never before then figured out the tensile strength on a zipper. So it was a was a unique experience for me.

SPEAKER_05 47:16

Doing your everyday life.

SPEAKER_02 47:19

But you know, that's what an entrepreneur does, Alexa, is you know, they basically say, okay, I don't know everything, but there are people who do. My job, my job is to knit those people together into something that makes sense for everybody, and that's what I tried to do.

SPEAKER_00 47:34

That's what innovation is, yeah, right? It's that you have just defined how to be innovative. If you if you don't know something, then you go ask and make it work. You find the people, find the resources, get their input. I love it. Is there a feature in the bag that you're especially proud of that folks might overlook when they first see it?

SPEAKER_02 47:55

Let me mention a couple of things. One of these features that is really valuable, but a lot of times isn't noticed in the sales process. And what it is is if you look at our spinner, what you'll see is that it has side pockets, which most spinners don't. And those are really useful for water bottles, umbrellas, things like that. And so we thought it was pretty obvious to put the side pockets in the spinner. So we ask ourselves the question why don't more spinners have side pockets? And the answer was, well, a lot of them run the zipper right down the middle there. And so if you have a zipper that's unzipping the bag there, then you can't have side pockets. But what we realized is that actually creates another problem because the zipper then goes right through the bottom, and so it weakens the base. And that's where you can get wheel problems. So what we did is we designed that spinner with a solid one-piece molded base. It isn't, I will I want to say indestructible, it's probably not indestructible, but um, but the idea is it's extremely strong and stable. And we needed to do that because we are hanging bags on each side. Right. And so and so we needed a better base. And it turned out that by thinking through how to get the side pockets on there by not having a zipper there, we were able to get the solid base, and then we figured out the expansion to be on the front so that it again didn't disturb the uh the solid base. So we ended up with, we think, a much better and stronger spinner that has features that most spinners don't have. So that'd be one example of you know, kind of the little things that you know that that uh end up being better because you've really kind of challenged why is the traditional design done that way.

SPEAKER_00 50:04

One of the things when I was reading, you have information that you sent about the bag that kind of, you know, when you get the bag kind of smart to read through this because there's so many features. One of the kind of warnings that you share is that the if you depending on how you pack that spinner, it could lend tend to lean forward. And I've used a lot of bags where they fell forward, you know, because of how I packed or whatever. So it'll be interesting as we travel more with this and we're rolling it through airports and all my stuff is in it and all of that, how it lands. But I love how the base is solid, and you have to be aware that it could tip over if you have so many things on the front. But it's this is a solid tape.

Overlooked Features Side Pockets Base

SPEAKER_02 50:52

Yeah, we give because we've just made it with a modular design, you can use it in a lot of different creative ways. So that's the good news. The bad news is some people will find creative tool ways to use it that are bad ideas. There was one person who called us who said, I put my two bowling balls in on the rear unit, and it keeps tipping over. And I almost, you know, it's it's one of those things where you kind of say, Of course. But you know, since nobody had never made a bag with two backpacks on the side before, you know, it it occurred to you know, the us that, you know, we'd never said that. So we then basically put out guidelines that says, yeah, if you're gonna have both bags, you shouldn't have more than a certain number of pounds on your front of the bag, or it might get tippy. You can still use it, but you know, but it it might get tippy. Similarly, if you're gonna expand everything, then you probably don't want it all together. You want it to be in the double pack and the spinner separately, because otherwise you have something that is 71 liters, and the only thing it's good for is if you're checking it. Otherwise, it you know really will be too expanded to be useful. So there are some things that the modularity gives you the potential to do things that don't work very well, and that's why we have that on our website so people can avoid them.

SPEAKER_00 52:21

Yeah, yeah. Well, and it's not every day that someone is traveling with two bowling balls in their yeah, you meet you make you re you meet amazing people when you make a new product. Speaking about the base of the suitcase, I just want to point out that another great thing is some wheeled backpacks or some wheeled suitcases, the wheels will take up space inside of your suitcase and you have less space to pack. And because of how you have innovatively designed the base, the wheels are not taking up a lot of room inside the suitcase, and you still have this depth that you can you can still pack in this space. Like it doesn't end where the top ends. The other thing I love is that it's not a clamshell. You know, you talked about on these side pockets, if there's a zipper going through, a lot of suitcases are kind of clamshell.

SPEAKER_05 53:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:23

I really prefer this, I don't know, I call it a top loader. There's probably a word for what it's called, but I definitely prefer this and not having to open your bag side by side. So I'm really glad my my latest carry-on was a clamshell and where you had to kind of fill both sides. And also when you're at the hotel, like those are harder to set on a luggage rack or something like this. But this, because it's a top loader, I don't know what you call, but the way you've designed it, you can set it on your luggage rack and just lift the top up and you're good to go. So I love that about your spinner. This is our series Roam to Home. And so we've talked about different ways that your system is really good for travel, but your system is also really good for home and on the everyday. So before we dive into that, is there anything else you want to cover on the travel side?

SPEAKER_02 54:10

Well, so I mean, the other thing we try to do is the two backpacks are very good as everyday bags. Now, for years, when I was working in the investment company I worked for, I would take a double pack basically when I got on the train to go to work each day. And so they are good as commuting bags or as everyday bags. That's why we have, you know, the phrase that we c our company is called only travel. We say it's the only bag you and you know, actually, one of the advantages of that is if you're gonna, you know, go to the office for a day and then go straight to the airport, your commuting bag is also your travel bag.

SPEAKER_05 54:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:48

So you don't have to think about, oh, I gotta go on a trip. I gotta look in my commuting bag for all the stuff that I normally have in there, you know, and make sure that I put it into the suitcase. You you know, it's already there. You just attach the you know the other unit and you know, and you're ready to go. Yeah, I do think that we extend beyond travel to you know, sort of everyday usage and everyday carry applications as well. Agreed. And the duffel, the duffel is great as a gym bag or uh, you know, or a go-to-the-beach bag or those kinds of things.

SPEAKER_00 55:23

Yeah, I think that it definitely supports a flexible lifestyle. And like you said, a commuter bag, there's enough space for it to be not only your work bag, but your gym bag and your lunch, right? I don't have like a day job like most normal people. Um, but still, like most people when they have a day job, they wanna go to the gym and they've got like their routines and they've got their things that they're doing. And having this bag that can have everything you need. You've got your you've packed your lunch because you're gonna be healthy and save money. And so you're gonna bring your lunch, your healthy lunch using products that we share with you on our podcast. You're gonna pack those things in your bag, but you're also gonna have your gym clothes and your work, all the work stuff you need and all the cables. And, you know, you've got your cords and chargers bag with you, and you've got your toiletries to freshen up after the gym, and then you're gonna go out and meet someone for dinner right after. Like this system can facilitate that just in your everyday life. So I love that it's not just for when you're traveling, it's for your on this on-the-go lifestyle that we talk about so much.

SPEAKER_02 56:35

Yeah, there's over 20 pockets in the bag, and and you know, so some obviously some of them we thought about as having specific purposes when we designed it. But part of the benefit of that is each person can use their own individuality to say, I'm gonna use this pocket for this, you know, and and that way you get your own system within a system that can help you travel in a much more relaxed and enjoyable way.

SPEAKER_00 57:03

Now, was there a moment when you realized that for you the system was not useful just for the travel, but in these everyday routines like going from coffee shops, running errands before a flight, things like that?

SPEAKER_02 57:17

You know, I I think because I designed it, you know, basically after that experience in Sioux Falls that I told you about, I already had the idea. I was already a digit, you know, call it a digital nomad, a uh a road warrior. I was already traveling, working sometimes in coffee shops, working sometimes in conference rooms at the companies I was visiting, you know, et cetera. I was already living that lifestyle. I just wanted to do it more effectively. And so for me, that meant doing everything I could to avoid checking a bag. And then the other thing for me, which is not true for everybody, but for me, most of the trips that I took on business were call it two to four days. And so for that, what I found personally, and again, I want to emphasize this is not something that everybody may feel the same about, but for me, I found that I could do that out of the double pack without taking the roller most of the time. And the benefit of that is having both hands free because you don't have one hand on a roller. So if you actually get to the point where you pack light enough that you can travel just with a lightweight backpack and still have everything you need for shorter trips, then you have this incredible benefit of you can have your Starbucks in one hand and your phone in the other hand. And so now that's that happens to be my style. There's a lot of people who would agree with that philosophy, but really want a rolling back. And so they give up one hand, but they get the comfort of being able to glide through an through an airport, and then they still have the two backpacks uh, you know, when they get to their destination. So but for me, that was where I realized that it spilled over into everyday life was you know, when I can get on the we live in Boston, so we have an old antiquated public transport system. And so when I would get on the tee to to go into downtown Boston for work, and I knew I was then going to go to the airport, and I'd have my double pack with me. And so one hand would have my thermos with my coffee, the other hand would grab the tea so I didn't fall over as it jerked and rolled.

SPEAKER_05 59:44

Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 59:44

Everything is and then and then I had everything I needed when I went to the airport. So for me, the system had personal benefits just in making my life easier.

SPEAKER_00 59:55

Yeah. And and what's great is if you if you are rolling your backpack, right? And so you if you have a hand on that roller, there are enough compartments in the bag anyway, like in the tote, like if you've got the tote in your spinner, your phone can slide right into the top. You have space for drink holders. There are ways that even if they're not right in your hands, their your hand can access it super fast.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:22

The the phrase we use is one zip access to everything you need.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:25

How again, very innovative of you, Dave. And speaking of, I had just discovered you have like this cool on the spinner, you had this little tiny bag on the uh zipper on the top where that's easy access to phone and or passport or something easy.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:42

Yeah, or or tickets or the tickets, receipts, that kind of thing. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, well, we call that a quick stash procket. There's two of those on the front of the of the uh front bag also of the expandable toad pack. They're they're they're great for you're checking out of the hotel, you need your uh statement for your expense report, so you you grab it and stash it in there.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:05

Yep. And deal with it when you get home.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:08

Yeah, exactly.

One Bag For Travel And Life

SPEAKER_00 1:01:09

And because it's your work bag also, you just bring that bag to your desk and everything you need is right there. It just adapts from your travel life to your home life and your everyday. And so, do you think that the future of gear might be less about owning lots of different bags and more about maybe having one adaptable system?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:30

Yeah, but particularly if you want it to work together. We have this phrase, the only bag you need, because it really does bridge between travel applications and everyday and commuting applications. It does, it does both very, very well. Now, you know, there there are specialist applications where you will always need another bag. You know, we went to a travel convention and show a week or two ago, and we had to have all our gear for display, which include pull-up banners and all of our brochures to hand out to customers, and we needed electronics to show our movies and videos and all that. That isn't gonna fit in the trilogy modular system. So, you know, that I what I wanted the balance I'd like to strike is that you know, we think we have a bag that basically will do almost anything you need for most travel and most everyday applications. You're still gonna need specialist bags if you're gonna take all your gear to uh to a big convention. If you're a golfer, if you're a skier, you're still gonna need specialist bags for that.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:40

Or you're ukulele. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:43

Or in your case, if you're a musician. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. I have a I have a uh a brother-in-law who is a uh roadie, and uh so all of his his guitar and all of his gear, you know, that isn't gonna go in, you know, in in the in the uh trilogy. But but for all of the normal applications, it works very, very well.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:05

So good. Those of you who are golfers, we do have we had an episode where we shared with you about the golf club that can fit in your suitcase and it gets you all 18 rounds with one golf club. So I'll try to remember to add that in the show notes too. So golfers can use their only travel bag when they take that.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:28

So yeah, it's very innovative. It's very innovative of them.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:34

Well, that's cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:34

So I love how this bag system is very from Rome to home friendly. I love how it just becomes kind of your everyday go-to. It's it's my home base when I'm traveling, and then it gives me an on-the-go tool for my everyday. Thank you for creating this. I am excited to continue using it and learning more and developing my own kind of like, I'm gonna put this here and this here, and all of that. So before we close out, do you have any final thoughts that you want to share with us?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:12

You know, what I would say is there's an interesting balance between innovation and continuity. What I mean by that is if you think about the goals of travel that you really enjoy, that you get joy out of, it's traveling faster, more flexibly, and more freely. Those haven't changed in a long time. In 1978, I wanted to travel flexibly to wherever I wanted to go, as I wanted around Europe. I wanted to travel freely, and I wanted to solve the problems that travel created for me along the way.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:48

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:49

You know, that that's that's been what travel's been about for thousands of years. You can actually go on the internet and find the first backpack ever known, which is about 4,000 BC, and uh you can see how they solved their travel problems back then. But what the evolution of the way we travel has done has created constant opportunities for innovating to travel better with what we have now, with airplanes, lighter travel clothing than we've ever had before. You know, a lot of things that didn't exist in 1978 now are phones, now take up 20 functions that in 1978 would have been separate guidebooks, a separate compass. Right. You know, it's and I could go on and on. So, you know, if you if you take the long view, there will always be the opportunity for innovation, but the overall objectives of basically travel nourishing the soul by you know enabling you to get past the difficulties of travel and enjoy the stunning things that it brings to you, that isn't going to change. I think that's The balance. We're bringing out a new product called the Modivo Modular Travel Pack, which has some of the pure ideas, the same ideas as we have discussed with the trilogy. The difference is it's for people who really don't want any wheels at all. You know, they just want to travel with a backpack. But it will further advance the idea of what can you do with modular travel and with the ability to have your bag anticipate the problems that you may face as you travel and solve them for you before you before you even know that they're going to come along?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:34

You are so innovative and creative. Do you have any advice for someone who they have an idea for a product and you know they just have the idea? Like you you didn't just freeze and leave it there and go, man, I wish there was a better suitcase. Like you did something about it. So what advice would you give someone who has an idea that wants to be innovative and turn it into a real product?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:57

So well, first I I guess a couple things. One is don't be scared. It's again, it's easier to do now than it ever has been in the past. You know, if you think about it, if you want to make something, you can literally go online and find factories that'll make it for you if you design it. You can find designers that will do the detail work that you don't know how to do, or at least that I didn't know how to do. You can find fabric experts that will help you choose, you can find color experts that will tell you that the that transformative teal is the color of 2026, uh etc. etc. Um there are a ton of resources out there that make it easier to be an entrepreneur and to develop something than ever before. Now, that said, be realistic. And you know, it's a lot of work. When you start, you have an idea, but you don't know everything. And so you have to take the time to learn the things that you need to know of that complement your idea and make sure everything is brought together in a package that that is good for people. So I would say don't be scared, you can do it if you want to, but it's a big commitment and be realistic about you know how much time and effort you want to put into it.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:20

Right. And so, depending on if you need to keep your full-time job, that your innovation and your your inspiration that turns into innovation, you might need to add a lot of patience to that.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:34

Yeah, or it takes you longer to get to the point where you're ready to say, I'm ready to cut over and just do this. Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:41

Yeah. Well, you are so inspirational. We've got I for inspiration, which is we hope we've inspired you today, not only to go purchase this backpack, this modular system because it's super cool, but also inspire you to think about how you can travel wisely and how to bring innovation into your travel. Experience that innovation for you happen to travel.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:07

Well, thank you so much, Alexa. I really appreciate you having us on the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:11

Thank you so much, Dave. So glad to have you.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:14

Alright, take care.

Closing Requests And Where To Follow

SPEAKER_00 1:09:18

We hope we've inspired you this episode.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:20

So join us next time.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:21

Please subscribe to, rate, and share our podcast with your friends.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:24

Or whomever.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:26

And please like and follow us on Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:29

We're also on X and on all social platforms. We are at The Romies. That's T H E. R O A M. I E S. And our main hub is our website.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:40

At www.theroamies.com.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:43

That's right, that's T H E.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:45

R O A M.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:48

We'll be there until next time. Yeah, thanks for listening. Bye.