Blog
The On Your Terms Manifesto
The first step to creating a movement is to publish a manifesto. Today, we start the On Your Terms movement. I submit to you the On Your Terms Manifesto first drafted, not coincidentally, on January 20, 2017, Inauguration Day. Travel On Your Terms Travel is part of your life, not
If Your Business is a Secret, It's Probably Bullshit
A rule of thumb, particularly for digital nomads: > If you can't tell a stranger what you do, you may not have a real business. I've found this secrecy prevalent in dropshipping, Amazon sellers, and Amazon affiliates. Warren Buffet often talks about building defensible "moats&
Clearing Out Inventory
In Silicon Valley, every company wants to be a platform. Platforms make money by taking a skim off of every transaction. The platform business model promises VCs unlimited upside and no hard costs like inventory or equipment. Amazon started by buying books and storing them in its warehouses. Now, sellers
How to Build a Men's Capsule Wardrobe for Traveling
Updated: 2/23/24. This page is a living document, which I update with new items from time-to-time. Dressing well should be easy for men, but most guys fail at it. I’ve found a “capsule wardrobe” to be the best way to dress well, pack light, and minimize the
I Fucked Up (and You Can Too!)
> Below is the text of an email I sent to the Tortuga team recently. I've omitted a few numbers from the original email because they are for Tortuganaut eyes only. The most important one is still included. Hi Tortuganauts, I'm writing to share the story
The V-Commerce Tech Stack
Greetings, future v-commerce entrepreneur. This post is a guide to what you need to get started selling online and is meant for bootstrapped v-commerce companies [https://www.fredperrotta.com/bootstrapped-vcommerce] like Tortuga [http://www.tortugabackpacks.com]. Let's run down the important tech you'll need to get
Bootstrapped V-Commerce
In my last post [https://www.fredperrotta.com/reinvesting], I outlined how we've improved our products by increasing our investment in materials and design. The Outbreaker backpack [http://www.tortugabackpacks.com/products/outbreaker-travel-backpack] and daypack [http://www.tortugabackpacks.com/products/outbreaker-travel-daypack] each cost twice as much to make
Reinvesting in Our Products
> We want our products to be more premium. I said this to Patrick the first time we met [http://blog.tortugabackpacks.com/coming-soon-tortuga-v3-patrick-on-the-design-process/] over beers. A few months later, I saw that line again in the brief for Tortuga V3, which later became the Outbreaker backpack [http://www.tortugabackpacks.
Getting Specific: Tortuga's V3 Strategy
At Tortuga [http://www.tortugabackpacks.com], the V3 project was all about getting more specific. Going more niche. The Outbreaker backpack [http://www.tortugabackpacks.com/products/outbreaker-travel-backpack] isn't just a new product, it's the next iteration of Tortuga as a company. For the launch, we redesigned
Optimal Newness
Raymond Loewy has been called "the father of industrial design" and credited with "invent[ing] Americana." I'm embarrassed to admit that I only learned about him recently from a misleadingly-titled Atlantic article [https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/01/what-makes-things-cool/508772/] . The article