the iRagz story
As an international business traveler, I rack up a lot of frequent flyer miles on the airlines and on my mobile media devices. I was recently on a ‘Five Countries in Five Days’ European tour, and as you can imagine, I was in a lot of trains, planes, and automobiles during that time. Spending so much time in airports and train stations gave me plenty of opportunity to put my greasy hands all over my iPod and Blackberry.
To keep my iPod and Blackberry clean, I had been carrying a microfiber cloth that came with a new pair of glasses I bought - and it worked great for cleaning the screen and the body of both devices. However, I did feel a little obsessive pulling the cloth out of my pocket to clean my face-grease (gross - I know) off of my Blackberry after each call.
But then I noticed a lot of people wiping their cell phones on their shirts or jackets, or whatever else they could find to clean their own little 'cooties' off of their phones. And, when I saw someone 'cleaning' the screen of their iPod with their thumb, I had had enough! I mean, come on! Trying to clean the screen of your iPod with a greasy thumb – I don’t think that is going to work!
Upon my return to the States, I started using my new iPhone, and that bad boy gets seriously dirty. Don't get me wrong, a little grease on the screen is a small price to pay for the beauty of the iPhone. Now, you have LG and Samsung bringing their touchscreen phones - the Dare and Instinct - to the market, with many more to follow, I'm sure.
So, with all of these new touchscreens hitting the scene, I thought it would be fun to come up with some dope/fashionable/sophisticated designs for microfiber cleaning cloths to help us keep all of our stuff clean. And thus was iRagz born.
I hope iRagz helps you keep your stuff stylishly clean!
iRagz going retail
So, iRagz.com has been up and running for a quite a while now, and we have had fun selling the product online. We thought it was about time we start talking to some retailers to see if we could find some partners to carry the iRagz in their stores. As the iRagz are great for cleaning cell phones - especially the touchscreen cell phones - we thought we would start with some small cell phone retailers.
We made a call to a local retailer and spoke with a guy in their purchasing department. Now, I don't like to be on the other end of a cold call either, but I thought the guy's response was really funny. When I explained what the product was and told him about the positive feedback we have had from our customers, he explained that his customers are totally fine wiping their cell phones on their shirts or pants (that's trousers for our UK friends). He said, "why would I need a cloth, when my shirt will do the trick?" That is like asking 'why own a snowblower, when I already have a shovel?' or 'why use a Kleenex when I have the back of my hand?'
I thought, come-on man, step into the 21st century. All of these sweet mobile media devices need a little love and attention, and iRagz are the perfect companion!