Listening in Bed

iPhone App - free from SleepPhones

2011-11-30T09:30:00.001-05:00

SleepPhones is happy to announce its new iPhone App! There are 4 popular tracks to choose from. It's a free App that allows you to listen to soothing music all night long. There's even a cute sheep to guide you into serene dreams.

Because it has 4 full-length (30 minute) tracks, the app is pretty large (140MB). It will take a few minutes to download. Go to the App store and download your free app tonight! Just search for keyword "SleepPhones."

Amazon Out of Stock - Temporary

2011-11-29T15:37:00.000-05:00

We apologize for your inconvenience. Amazon has been out of stock for most SleepPhones sizes and colors since Black Friday. They will be receiving shipments today and tomorrow that should replenish their supply somewhat. We have been shipping out as soon as they order, but they have not ordered enough to keep up with demand this year. If you were planning to order SleepPhones through Amazon, they should have SleepPhones in stock again by Wednesday (Nov. 30) or Thursday (Dec. 1) of this week. Thank you for your patience!

Discount SleepPhones Website

2011-11-22T10:08:00.013-05:00

If you are looking for discounted SleepPhones, please check out this website for seconds, refurbished, and older models. They still come with a 6 month warranty because they are coming straight from us. If you purchase off eBay, we cannot offer any warranties.

New Mothers and Sleep

2011-11-20T10:08:00.000-05:00

As a new mom, I have an interrupted sleeping schedule. The baby wakes me up for frequent feedings at night, and sometimes I have a hard time getting back to sleep. There are so many things to worry about! Was he fussy because of something I ate? Should I have changed his diaper? Maybe I should get out of bed to order that attachment for the baby carrier from Amazon... But I might have to get up again in two hours, so I should just get back to sleep.

When I find myself lying awake in bed thinking about random things, I remind myself that I need to just go to sleep. Listening to the music on the Dreams CD really helps me relax quickly so I can get the sleep I need. Because SleepPhones aren't like earbuds that stick into the ears, I can still hear the baby when he wakes up.

It seems that with every phase of my life, I always rely on SleepPhones to help. I guess since sleep is something I need daily, for about 8 hours, it always comes up.

New Places to Find SleepPhones

2011-11-16T11:08:00.000-05:00

Coach House Gifts

SleepPhones are at the Coach House Gifts in the Valley West Mall of Des Moines, IA. If you live near there, please pick one up!
Best Buy

Online, Best Buy is carrying SleepPhones. They aren't in the stores yet, but if you want to see SleepPhones in the Best Buy stores, please let the store manager know!

SleepPhones Continues to Increase Employment During Recession

2011-11-13T09:38:00.003-05:00

Despite these economic times, we've continued to add more help! And we continue to pay them a decent wage.

SleepPhones currently employs 8 part-time workers. 3 of them live within walking distance, so they don't even have to drive to work. I think it's great they don't have to drive to work, which saves them gas money and creates less pollution. I also try to have some of the others work as much as possible from home, especially with handling customer service, marketing, and sales. That also helps to save gas and time.

Since the arrival of Baby, we've been super busy trying to keep him happy and keep up with the SleepPhones work. Thankfully, we have lots of great help. We look forward to a productive holiday season!

Baby and Sheep Pictures

2011-11-11T21:14:00.000-05:00

The lighting was just right, and he was being such a good boy, I couldn't resist taking some pictures!

My Thoughts on Press Releases

2011-08-26T11:16:00.000-04:00

The truth is, so many people are posting press releases now that search engines are the only things reading them. So unless a search engine finds enough good keywords in there, no one will read it. Journalists and bloggers doing research on a topic will likely just do a search for the most relevant keywords.

Therefore, just as important as readability or conveying important information is making sure the machines like it. That means optimizing search engine scores. For press releases, I like to choose 3-4 keywords to target. Often, we want insomnia and snoring. In our latest press release on our new iPhone App, however, we want sleep, iPhone and App. So at the end of writing everything, I check with a keyword analyzer to make sure they are among the top 10 words with 4 letters or above.

Then I write a title that contains the keywords I want and throw in highly charged words that grab attention. If the journalists look through a list of headlines in a listing of press releases, you want to have something that will grab them. I'm not a professional copywriter, but there are various techniques out there. One that I use the most is this headline analyzer. http://www.aminstitute.com/headline/index.htm
I don't know just how effective it is, but it's interesting. I try different words to make sure the headline scores highly on this system.

The other headline gimmick is to use words like "free," "new," "discovered," "amazing," or other kitsch words you see on infomercials. I have a distaste for over-blown exaggerations, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to be competitive in conditions of information overload. We managed to use Free and New for our last press release title.

So to me, the two things that are critical in writing a press release is to have a great headline and SEO optimization.

For the first 3 years of this business, I was the one writing the press releases. Since money was tight, I wanted to make sure that every release that we paid to get out there was completely optimized in every way. I did lots of research, and it made sense to me. One of our earliest releases really helped us to be established in the area of sleep and headphones, our most important keywords. We are still at the top of Google for "sleep headphones." Yay!

New Packaging

2011-08-03T09:00:00.006-04:00

After many months of design, picture taking, revisions, and working with a box printing company, we have a new package! It will be the one you see on stores shelves at the chain stores we hope to get into. We will soon offer them for sale on our website!

Baby Video

2011-07-28T05:45:00.000-04:00

Sheepy has a brother!

Pregnancy and SleepPhones

2011-06-11T12:57:00.002-04:00

The SleepPhones family is getting a new member! The CEO (me) is due to deliver a baby very soon! Here is a picture of me posing in bed wearing SleepPhones.

Nearly all sleep-inducing drugs are potentially harmful to babies when the mother is pregnant and are not recommended. Even Benadryl or Tylenol PM (which also contains diphenhydramine) shouldn't be taken while breastfeeding because they reduce the amount of milk production. Many chemicals can cross the placenta or mammary glands, so please ask your doctor before taking any medications (even over-the-counter meds), herbals (including valerian root, kava kava, and maybe chamomile), or supplements (like melatonin). None of the ones just listed are recommended during pregnancy.

SleepPhones are great for pregnant and breast-feeding women because they are a natural method for falling asleep without drugs. I've been listening to hypnobirthing CDs at bedtime to train myself to relax during the delivery process. Hypnosis is great for general sleep as well as a variety of other things to help the mind think a certain way. The hypno-birthing CD has lots of positive affirmations to reduce pain and fear as well as a guided relaxation technique. I've learned some great breathing techniques, but we'll see if I can actually do them during delivery!

Pandora's Box of Music to Fall Asleep

2011-05-26T14:37:00.000-04:00

Okay, a pandora's box is a bad thing, but this Pandora is a good thing if you want to fall asleep. For those who don't know, Pandora is an Internet radio site that is quite unique -you can basically create your own radio station by choosing artists you like. Then Pandora chooses similar artists to play along with thhem.

Even better - if you have a smartphone, you can download the Pandora app and create a station. Say you like falling asleep to Enya - you simply create that station and it plays both Enya and artists similar to her.

It's quite cool and also rather handy if you are traveling and forgot your ipod but not your SleepPhones. With Pandora, you just bring up your favorite self-created sleep station, put on your SleepPhones, and snooze away!

Governor Corbett's Higher Education Funding Cut Hurts Small Business

2011-03-11T12:55:00.001-05:00

AcousticSheep, LLC is located in Centre County, just minutes from Penn State University, where me (the CEO) and my husband (the CTO) continue to work. We're very lucky to be here because we have easy access to tremendous talent and enthusiasm for our business. Penn State Outreach has been instrumental in helping us grow as a small business.

When we started, we took more than half of the classes through the local Small Business Development Center (SBDC), which is funded by Penn State Outreach, to learn everything from writing a business plan, keeping accounting records (multiple classes), managing employees, and inexpensive marketing (including a separate class on Search Engine Optimization). Those classes were quite affordable for us, and comparable services elsewhere would cost several hundred dollars, which we could not afford as a start-up. Plus, our small business advisor is fantastic. She knows everybody in town, all of the resourses, and continues to help us make helpful connections. We're in touch weekly, and I present in front of her entrepreneurship class frequently.

Last year, our SBDC small business advisor hooked us up with Happy Valley Communications (HVC), a group of marketing students at Penn State who provide their services for free. This (free) service got us a great (free) product showcase in Passport Magazine! From there, we learned what PR firms do and started to work with one when the students were gone over the summer. We have since hired our own PR person who also works at Penn State.

This semester we are working with some engineering seniors at Penn State on some top secret SleepPhones and RunPhones development. For a senior project, these students are required to work with companies needing to develop a product. There are dozens of businesses working with the seniors every year. The SBDC had suggested that we work with them and even helped us with the project proposal presentation.

The SBDC also spearheaded the Entrepreneurship Week last semester in which we ultimately gave 2 presentations about our business. The second presentation through InnoBlue (a student entreprenuership group in Penn State) helped us with free publicity and helped us make contacts with various investment sources like venture capitolists and angel investors.

All of this is to say that we rely heavily upon our SBDC for great local business opportunities. I don't know where SleepPhones would be today were it not for the continued advice from our SBDC advisor and the many Outreach classes which we continue to attend.

The Pennsylvania Governor Corbett is cutting the funding to Penn State by 52% this year. Our fiscal year starts in July, and we expect to see most of the Outreach services cut completely. Our small business advisor's job will likely be cut, and we won't have access to the Outreach classes or her advice anymore. She's the sole breadwinner for her family, which has 2 kids in college (one at Penn State). If her job is cut, then she will need to find another job and may move out of Centre County. The same situation holds for hundreds of other families who depend on Penn State for their jobs. And I know that we won't be able to get the same level of quality advice and service to grow our small business anymore.

When cuts are made to higher education, even local small businesses are hurt. For a governor to talks endlessly about being business friendly, he is making things much worse for us as a business.

Here is a great video about how Penn State helps business growth.

Photo Shoot Feb. 19

2011-03-01T09:28:00.002-05:00

We needed to shoot a new photo for the back of the upcoming package, so our package designer helped us find an impressive local photographer. Here's a video of the photoshoot. (No, we're not the models - just trying out the bed!)

Here's the background. One of the things holding us behind is having the perfect packaging for SleepPhones. We've been working on it since last June. Although it's taking a long time, we really have been working on it for all 8 months.

The first company we worked with wanted to completely reinvent everything. Our color scheme since the beginning has been lavender and gray. Although there were no bolder colors, black and white also go well with the scheme. Our headphones, our stuffed animal Sheep, and any advertising collateral we have out were based on those colors. Most importantly, our customers recognize our color scheme by now. If we were to reinvent ourselves, I guess it's better to do it early on with a new color palate. But they didn't really convince us that we needed to go with certain colors. They just gave us lots of choices for a package that costs more, may not have worked well in a retail environment (there was a flap in the front customers were expected to open before purchase), and completely ignored any sense of color cohesion. There were hot pinks in some designs, which is the last color I associate with sleep. After a few months, and a lot of expense, we let them go.

I had met briefly with the biggest local branding firm about 2 years prior about helping us with packaging actually. One of the firm's partners kept me waiting in the waiting room while she chewed out one of the employees. When she met with me, she basically tore apart our product. I took her complaints to heart and have now made the changes she demanded. But she never did get back to me with a quote either. I guess she didn't want to work with a fledgling company.

To find our current designer, I asked our friends on Twitter. Someone suggested that we talk with a PR person working for our local chamber of commerce and happens to be the wife of my husband's supervisor. She was great and pointed us in the direction of one person: Shannon Lake.

After working with her for the past 3-4 months, I think she is probably one of the best in the area. She worked in Pittsburgh for a larger firm previously and then in State College for the previously mentioned local branding firm. After she had her child, she ventured out on her own so she could have more control over her hours. She's extremely professional, has a great sense of style, and does fantastic work quickly. She keeps me in the loop constantly and turned our colors and ideas into a beautiful package.

WIRED Store Grand Opening Party

2010-11-23T13:57:00.000-05:00

We took a few days to visit New York City this past weekend.

We visited the WIRED Store grand opening on Thursday night and went back on Saturday to get a closer look at everything. The party was crazy! The ground floor had a bar made of ice, and still it was hot from all of the body heat! It's a 3-story structure with lots of little rooms and alcoves. SleepPhones were on the bottom floor, and RunPhones were on the top floor. Lots of people, finger foods, alcohol, and very cool products. Since the party was at 7pm, and we didn't get to eat before, I stood by the food entrance and had a bit of everything.

Here are some pictures of various products. There were lots of retro themes.

While in the City, we met with Dr. Jordan Stern of BlueSleep, the comprehensive sleep center in the financial district. We met with Adil Soomro, a talented Harvard MBA to discuss business. And we visited the 5th Avenue Sleepy's where SleepPhones are offered in New York City. Apparently, SleepPhones are sold out at that location, but they have not been able to get clearance from central purchasing to sell any more yet. We'll keep working with central purchasing!

Choosing a Company Name - 5 Tips

2010-11-16T21:09:00.003-05:00

One of the first steps in establishing a company is choosing a name. This is a critical step, greatly impacting marketing, operations, and ultimately, success.

Unique and memorable
It doesn't need to be anything fancy, but it needs to be unique.
Do a Google search on the name you choose. Ideally, nothing should show up. For example, I just looked up Mary's Cleaning Service, and all of the entries on the first page of Google were for different businesses. If you chose that name, someone looking for your business online may have a hard time finding it.
Easy to spell and pronounce
When talking on the phone, it's much easier to just tell someone a name than to have to spell it for them. The spelling problem applies to pleural words and punctuations too.

Jose Espinosa Graphics 'n Design might seem like a nice graphic design place, but it might run into some problems.
- Is Jose with an accent or not?
- Is is spelled Hosay or Jose?
- Is is Espinoza or Espinosa?
- Is there an "s" at the end of Graphics or not?
- Is the "'n" spelled with the "'" or "and"? Can you even put an apostrophe on a credit card, and do you have to spell it out for the state registration?
Ranks low in the alphabet
You'd be surprised how many lists are alphabetized. If you are listed near the top, you would have a better chance of being seen. If I'm going through a phone book, and there are 50 auto detailing places, I might only call the first 5 places.
Domain name is available in .com
Even if you plan to be a local business, you need to have a .com presence. That means your company name needs to be available as a domain name.

You don't want to have to be the company that puts a hyphen in their name because someone else has it. You don't want to be the one with the .net or .biz name because someone else has the .com.

Once you buy the .com, you may also want to buy the .net, .biz, and .co. Plus, you will also want to buy any potential misspellings of your name.
We have all of the following, for example, and they all redirect to the same place:
sleepphones.com
sleephones.com
sheepphones.com
sleepphone.com
Descriptive of your brand
The bulk of what you do needs to be in the name. If you provide sewing services and alterations, you can't name your place Martha Baker Services, even if your last name is Baker. People will expect you to bake pies for them.

If what you do is in the name, it would be much easier for people to remember you and what you do.

In retrospect, could we have chosen a better name for AcousticSheep, LLC? Probably. But we were new to this whole thing. I don't think we did too badly with the name. It's unique, memorable, tells people that we deal with acoustics, and invokes an image of our cute sheep. However, is it hard to spell. People try to spell it with two Cs and separate the words frequently. It is at the top of many lists because it starts with "a," and we definitely have the unique domain name.

Be sure to do research online for other company naming tips. I only listed the ones I feel are most important, but there are many other potential pitfalls and advice on brainstorming.

Dinner Party

2010-11-08T20:06:00.001-05:00

Now that we're getting busier, I have to start delegating work! Besides, I'm not very good at many things. I'm okay at many things, which has gotten us by so far. But there comes a point in a business where it needs to start looking more professional.

We've retained a great graphic designer to make the nice brochures that people get now. And we have a packaging expert designing retail packaging. Our friend is our website designer now - she helped put together the RunPhones website and is now tweaking the SleepPhones website.

We have another friend doing PR for us now. I run out of things to say on Twitter and Facebook, so while I check them 2-3 times a day, I don't have much to say. He's much better at finding things to say and to spin things in a way to make it funny or more engaging. For example, I would have just said, "someone stole my cousin-in-law's SleepPhones in England." He said, "One wonders how thieves can sleep at night, but this thief likely will sleep fine thanks to illegally-acquired SleepPhones." See, now that's more like it.

All of this to say that with all of the new talent we have, we had to make sure they all meet each other. We held a dinner party last week and took a time-lapse video of the event. 4 hours condensed into 30 seconds.

Packaging Lessons Part 6

2010-10-25T14:51:00.000-04:00

Printed boxes.

A lot of manufacturers have their own custom printed boxes. Of course, we'd like that, but it does add to the cost of each box. Plus, there is the fee to step up the printing too. The benefit to having a printed box is for retailers to more easily identify our boxes. We could just put stickers all of the boxes like we do right now, but that looks pretty unprofessional. We decided that the easiest way for us to put our name on the boxes is with tape. We're getting custom printed tape that says SleepPhones on it. We can then close boxes with that, and it would be quite easy to recognize. We could even put a strip of tape across a few sides to make it that much easier to find our boxes. Here's a pic of our 2” standard packing tape!

Packaging Lessons Part 5

2010-10-23T14:41:00.001-04:00

We have some sample boxes from the box manufacturer right now. We're still tweaking the exact final sizes and designs. The bigger boxes are 44-ECT instead of the standard 32-ECT. The 44-ECT cardboard is thicker, but not quite to the doublewall size.

For a pallet, we would need to wrap the boxes with plastic wrap or strap them with thick bands. I looked around and the commercial plastic wraps all come in boxes of 4, even on eBay. I'm not sure we will be needing to pack our own pallets for more than a few months. We only have one order right now that requires pallets. I really don't want to buy a wrap dispenser ($50) and 4 giant rolls of wraps ($70). I even considered using kitchen Saran wrap. But then I stumbled across U-Haul's moving supplies. It turns out that they have single tubes of plastic wrap pre-packaged on a dispenser. And if you ordered $25 worth of stuff, they deliver it for free! So I ordered an 18” tube and a 5” tube. I'm excited that I found a great low-cost, no commitment solution for wrapping boxes on a pallet!

Packaging Lessons Part 4

2010-10-21T14:35:00.001-04:00

I've been buying boxes from Uline's box stocks. They aren't custom, but they have so many sizes that I can usually find something that fits well enough. They are fast, shipping from about 2 hours away. Unfortunately, they don't have anything close to what I would need to minimize wasted packaging per the requirements of our manufacturer's rep. So I have to start using custom-size boxes.

If you've never noticed before, on the bottom of every corrugated box, there is a circle stamp with the box manufacturer's information. I looked around at what other business use locally and found a box manufacturer about 45 minutes away. They have been quite responsive, and the sales representative that called on us has stopped by a few times with lots of samples to try out, per my specifications.

The problem is my specifications. There are lots of details in box design!

There are the inside dimensions for the products. That's pretty obvious. The typical 32-ECT corrugated cardboard measures about 1/8 inch in thickness. The outside dimensions are usually 1/4 inch bigger. The sides that have the flap doubled would make that side 5/8 inch bigger. But then depending on how they put the box together, there's usually a tab along one edge that would need to be glued down. That makes that corner an extra 1/8 inch in thickness. Add up all of the little extras to get the final inner carton outside dimensions (which is different from one corner to the next actually).

Packing the inner cartons into a master carton involves the same process of determining the inside dimensions and then figuring out the outside dimensions. But wait! If you make things exact, you'll never be able to get the inner cartons out. If they are packed in too tightly, you create no space for air to move around, and trying to get an inner carton out would involve fighting a vacuum. So you have to add an extra eighth or quarter inch around.

As explained in the previous post about pallets, the outside box dimension is important for fitting things on a pallet. I calculated backwards from 48” final outside dimensions to figure out what size the the 6-pack box would need to be. Once I have all of these dimensions, the box manufacturer can finally make the boxes!

Business Cards

2010-10-20T17:20:00.001-04:00

We're working with a talented graphic designer, Tara Tallman, who is a friend of friends. (We live in a relatively small community.) She designed my latest business card! I had no idea how to put RunPhones and SleepPhones on the same card without it looking tacky. But she totally pulled it off! RunPhones are in the white background, signifying daytime, and the SleepPhones are on the black background, signifying nighttime. Curved line makes everything soft, like our headphones. Very cool. It's the one on the right side.

In comparison, the previous card design was made by yours truly (on the left). It's supposed to depict a door hangtag - like the "Do Not Disturb" signs. Get it? No? Oh. Okay.

Shake Up

2010-10-19T13:16:00.003-04:00

We're very excited to be moving forward with a new public relations strategy and packaging designer!

It's been a while since we've been involved in direct conversations with our customers via Blogs, Facebook messages, and newsletters. The reason is because we had employed a PR firm and relied on them to help us with getting our message out. Over time, we figured out that we really need many of the tasks to be done internally or at least locally. We never met most of the people we conference called monthly because they are 5 hours away. Our new PR representative has worked in the field for many years and is a good friend.

And as for packaging, we're discovering talent we didn't know existed locally! Through networking with friends, we found out that Shannon Lake is a local powerhouse of packaging and business identity talent, having worked at firms in Pittsburgh and locally on many household names. Originally we contacted her for help with RunPhones packaging, but then figured that we might as well employ her for the SleepPhones packaging too.

From the business angle, firing the previous organization was a new experience for us. On the whole, it has gone well, and we have left the relationship amicably with the other party. Some business decisions involving people you like is difficult, but it's a little easier when emphasizing that it is just a business decision, not a judgment on the person(s).

Best New Sleep Aid, the Sheep of Your Dreams System, is Now Available

2010-09-28T12:34:00.007-04:00

Do you have trouble sleeping at night? Do you find yourself tossing, turning, and wishing you could just drift off peacefully? Are you kept awake by distracting noises, such as your partner’s snoring or your roommate’s loud music?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, we want to encourage you to check out our Sheep of Your Dreams system, one of the best new sleep aids for anyone looking for a drug-free, all-natural solution to sleeping problems.

New Sleep Aid Kit

The Sheep of Your Dreams sleep aid system includes a pair of SleepPhones™, a soft and cuddly SleepPhones Sheep, the Dreams CD, and a lavender sachet. All of these components work together to promote relaxation, relieve stress, and lead you into a sound and restful sleep. Plus, there is no risk of harmful side effects.

We suggest plugging your SleepPhones™ into your iPod or MP3 player, stowing the music player into Sheep’s back pocket, and listening to the soothing tracks found on the Dreams CD. Don’t forget that your SleepPhones™ can also double as a sleeping mask in order to block out light and keep you sleeping soundly until your alarm goes off. Finally, keep the fragrant lavender sachet close by as you drift off to sleep. Lavender can help with sleep problems such as insomnia, anxiety, and nightmares.

Best Sleep Aid System

The Sheep of Your Dreams sleeping aid system can help you fall asleep faster, so you wake up feeling refreshed and ready to tackle the day ahead. For those who suffer from sleeping problems and want to avoid turning to pharmaceuticals, this is one of the best sleep aids available. With the holiday season just around the corner, it makes a great gift as well!

Have you purchased the Sheep of Your Dreams sleeping aid system already? We would love to hear how this new sleep aid is making a difference in your life. Tell us about your experience below!

Packaging Lessons Part 3

2010-09-07T11:45:00.006-04:00

Now that we have the final package design for this holiday season, we have to box it up. We have been reusing the various boxes we have around from the things that we buy. So our wholesale customers get their SleepPhones in Amazon boxes, Staples boxes, and a variety of other boxes. We'd try to rip off the excess stickers and cover up writing with SleepPhones stickers. It wasn't very professional looking, but at least we were reusing – one step up the sustainability chain from recycling. Our manufacturer's representative advised us to get some more consistent packaging.

Retailers like inner cartons and master cartons. Inner cartons are usually in 6-packs of 12-packs, depending on the size of the item and how they night fit on a shelf. They want to be able to take out a 6-pack, put it on the shelf, and not have to take any back to the stock room. For our medium size product, 6-packs and 12-packs (for 6 of two different colors) seem reasonable.

If the store is a chain, then they would want to take a master carton, open that up, and send out a 6-pack or a 12-pack to their individual stores. A master carton of 24 would be excessive packaging, while a master carton of 108 may be a bit too much.

Ideally, I would have liked to pack 72 into a master carton. I drew out the geometry for that and was quite excited. Unfortunately, when I calculated the final sizing, I figured out that it would be too big. FedEx and UPS both have calculations for what they consider an over-sized box. If the length + 2 (width+height) > 84 inches, then it's oversized. They charge a minimum of 30 pounds worth of stuff for oversized packages, regardless of how much the package actually weights. 72 SleepPhones would weigh about 16-18 pounds. So I nixed that design.

Then I looked into packages of 60 pieces. It would fit in just under the oversized box limit, and it would be easy to carry. It's a nice even number, so people could order 300 pieces or 600 pieces. I did all of the calculations for that, and the final 60-pack box size would be about 31” x 14” x 12”. I took that information and tried to stack it onto a pallet. If someone order 1200 pieces, I'd need to put the boxes on a pallet for easier unloading. (It wouldn't be easier loading since we don't have a forklift, but we could just put the boxes onto a pallet in a truck if necessary.) I tried every configuration I could, and the size was just so awkward for a pallet! A typical wooden pallet is 40” x 48” x 5” and weighs about 15 pounds. The 31” length wasted lots of space around the edges of the pallet. So I finally had to give up that design.

The next design is for 48 pieces in a master carton. I shortened the inner cartons to make it fit, but I finally got a 24” x 14” x 12” box. That meant I could have two 24” boxes side by side on a pallet, so there wouldn't be wasted space. And if I turned the box on its side, I could have 3 rows of that. 6 boxes per level, 4 levels total, for a total height of 61”. 24 boxes would be 1152 pieces per pallet, a pretty good number.

I draw up everything and was about to send it off to our adviser. Then I learned from a box expert that the corrugation on cardboard determines its strength. If the warehouse were to put another pallet on top of our pallet, it would need to withstand a lot of downward force. When I turned the box on its side to fit it onto a pallet, the corrugation would no longer be straight up and down. So...I had to swap the width and height to get it to work. I re-drew the boxes.

Packaging Lessons Part 2

2010-09-06T15:43:00.001-04:00

For the great packaging design, we approached a local print shop to get thousands of these printed. (We're optimistic about holiday sales.) I have been waiting to get these pretty ones in so we could ship some out to Art Van Furniture stores in Michigan. They placed an order earlier in the week.

I stopped by on Monday, and they said they'd have things ready by Friday. On Thursday, they call me up and ask if I can check the proof. So I rush over during lunch to make sure the sizing was correct for the package. They tell me they will try to have them ready for Friday. On Friday, I was on edge all day, waiting for their call, which finally came at 4:30 to say that they were printed but not dry. Without them, we couldn't spend the weekend packing like I had planned. So I wait until Monday. They called up and said that the color wasn't right and asked if we could stop by again. So we went over (3^rd time) to check, and it was too blue. So we wait until Tuesday for a reprint. Late in the afternoon, I drive over again to pick up what they had. It was printed and cut, but not folded. So I only picked up a hundred pieces. That night, we folded, packed, and shipped 7 boxes. On Wednesday, instead of making me drive out a 5^th time, they offered to send their courier van to drop them off. I waited all day long because we just received another order, and I was about to give up when the doorbell finally rang at 5pm.

While it is ultimately less expensive to have the printers do large printings, it was certainly a lot of hassle. We have been using our own laser printer with nice HP paper to do most of the printing up until this point.

Packaging Lessons Part 1

2010-09-05T15:41:00.003-04:00

Who would have thought that packaging is so involved? As complete newbies into the world of business, we're constantly learning new things. This series of posts discuss SleepPhones packaging design.

For retail sales, we have these pretty polypropylene packs that keep SleepPhones nice and fresh. Retailers probably care more about packaging than they do the actual product. That is the first thing I've learned. If the package is really cool, the product will move off the shelves, which means money for the retailer. If the package doesn't sell the product, then it may just sit there forever, collecting dust. Customer don't buy dusty products. And retailers will just return the unsold stuff to manufacturers.

We're in a few small retail stores, and up until recently, I've been doing the graphic design. It's not hideous, but it's not pretty and certainly not professional. So we had a local graphic designer friend fix up the insert that goes on the front to sell the product. We knew about her in our network of local Twitter friends. She was a friend to many of my friends, but I had never met her. But given that her Twitter name had CMYK in it, I figured she probably cared a lot about good print design. I gave her some material to work with, and she turned out a beautiful design! I think we made the right choice.

College Students and Sleep Part 7

2010-08-28T13:02:00.001-04:00

6. How much sleep is right?

So now, there are problems with most college students not getting enough sleep. And then there are problems with a some college students getting too much sleep. Just how much sleep is right?

The short answer is 7-9 hours.

Women who are done with growing and maturation, having started their growth spurt at age 10-12, will be fine with an average of 7.5-8 hours of sleep. If a woman is still possibly growing, 8-9 hours is recommended. Men who are still in their growth spurt which started at age 16-17 should have 9 hours of sleep. You may suspect continued late growth if your parents matured later than their peers.

While college students are legally defined as adults at age 18, many are still growing into physical adulthood. For women, if your breasts are still getting bigger (out of proportion to weight gain), the darkened area around the nipples are still darkening, and you keep getting more hair in the armpits and pubic area, then you're still growing. For men, if you're growing taller, your voice is deepening, your testicle are still getting bigger, the scrotum is getting darker, and more body hair is still showing up, then you're still growing.

Growth hormone is released during sleep, as well as many other hormones, some of which have not yet been discovered. It's clear that sleep is critical to growth and maturation. Most men want to be tall, and getting adequate sleep (9 hours) will help ensure maximal height.

Once a college student is full grown, then the typical adult rules follow. Most adults need 7-8 hours of sleep a night. For the long answer of how much sleep is optimal, please see my previous article, How Much Sleep You Are Supposed to Get.

Customer pictures of Sheep!

2010-08-26T23:27:00.002-04:00

One of our Canadian customers loves SleepPhones and also happens to love rabbits and sheep. But they were hesitant to order Sheep because they weren't sure how their cat would react to Sheep. (We communicate on Twitter.) I told them that we have had many reports of both cats and dogs taking Sheep under their wing. Well, they sent back definitive proof that Sheep is very good with other animals.

"Mr. Sheep isn't here for more than an hour and Marcy T.F. Cat claims her for her own!"

I suggested for them to buy Mr. Sheep a newborn onesie so Marcy doesn't get him all furred up.

College Students and Sleep Part 6

2010-08-21T13:58:00.000-04:00

5. Sleeping too much.

Sleeping too much may actually be a symptom of depression. At least one in five people suffer from depression at some point in their life. Depression and anxiety often go together as stress increases. Being away from home, having to make new friends, working hard in school, discovering intimate relationships, and worrying about grades are all stressful. Add financial instability, having to work a job, family situations, health problems, family history, and it becomes a set up for mood disorders.

Depression reduces sleep quality. Some college students experience insomnia while others sleep too much due to fatigue from decreased sleep quality. The neurotransmitters within the brain don't recover the way they should with sleep because they are imbalanced when a person is sad for an extended period of time.

College students may not understand their own feelings sometimes. A lack of motivation in school may be due to not liking their major or not liking life in general. While it's normal to feel poorly after a break up or poor performance, the student should feel better in a few weeks. It's when they don't feel better for more than a few weeks and start to spiral downwards that depression starts. The sooner they seek help to sort out what is going on, the sooner they will feel better.

Occasionally, sleeping too much is due to a medical condition like mono, thyroid disease, or anemia. Rarely, it's something more serious. The most common medical reason for sleeping too much is a mood problem like dysthymia, a mild form of depression. The Student Health Center at Penn State will have a small pilot study in which all of one doctor's patients will all be screened for depression at every visit. Suicide is the third most common cause of death in adolescents and young adults, so we are very aware of the risks of depression. College students who sleep too much, sleep more than usual, or just feel tired all of the time need to seek medical or psychological care.

College Students and Sleep Part 5

2010-08-20T14:52:00.001-04:00

4. Substances use and abuse. Alcohol.

Alcohol causes most people to feel sleepy. There is a paradoxical reaction in some people, and it causes them to be more rowdy. Even in those who fall asleep more easily, the sleep quality is not as good for a variety of reasons.

The withdrawal from the chemical effects often occur in the middle of the night. Withdrawal effects are the opposite of the initial effects. So that means your blood pressure increases, heart rate increases, and you're tossing and turning more, whether or not you realize it.

Alcohol is a diuretic, so you end up going to the bathroom in the middle of the night/early morning. If you're living in a dorm, you may have to climb out of the loft bed, find your room keys and slippers, sneak out of the room without disturbing roommates, walk down the hall to the bathroom, turn on the bright fluorescent lights in there, use the bathroom, come back, and climb back up into the loft bed as quietly as possible in dim light. Going to the bathroom is a big production that severely interrupts sleep!

To break down alcohol, the liver has to change the chemical several times before it becomes harmless. Some of the intermediary stages make people feel poorly. If there are enough intermediary stages hanging around the next morning from binge drinking, then you get the sensation of a hangover.

Some people drink to help them relax. That's a dangerous justification for the use of alcohol. It's basically self-medicating with a very addictive drug. It is very likely that tolerance will build, and you'll need to use more and more alcohol to achieve the same effects. If anxiety is preventing sleep, talk to either a doctor or a counselor about the problem.

(I must admit that I didn't take my own advice just now. I decided to invent SleepPhones instead so that I could just listen to a hypnosis track whenever I had too many thoughts keeping me awake. Using headphones to listen to someone talking me into relaxing was a great natural cure for my insomnia.)

It is common knowledge that alcohol help people relax. But hopefully I've made it clear why alcohol use only reduces sleep quality and can potentially be problematic. Since most drinking in college is underage drinking (illegal), it's by definition, alcohol abuse.

College Students and Sleep Part 4

2010-08-19T10:43:00.003-04:00

3. Substances use and abuse. Caffeine.

Teens and young adults like to push boundaries. They take risks. Some take bigger risks than others, and the types of risks vary. Alcohol is often abused, as is caffeine, by college students. Both decrease sleep quality. 8 hours of sleep many only be as restful as 6 hours after drinking alcohol or caffeine.

I am seeing an increase in caffeine abuse. The promotion of energy drinks among college students definitely work. In fact, there's a Red Bull car that drives around downtown. Admittedly, it's a pretty cool-looking car with a giant can of Red Bull on the roof.

In my opinion, occasional caffeine intake (a few times a week, in small quantities) is fine. So eating a chocolate cake, drinking a cappuccino with friends, having a cup of tea while studying for a test in the afternoon are all fine ways to enjoy and use caffeine. Someone who has a cup of coffee every morning is probably chemically dependent on that drug. Someone who uses coffee to fend off the effects of alcohol has a serious problem with both substances. If you can't stop drinking daily coffees without getting a headache, you know your body's dependent. If you use caffeine to get high and act crazy to impress friends, you're abusing it.

I've seen students jittery and shaky, not knowing what's going on with their body from ingesting too much caffeine in the form of energy drinks and caffeine pills. One student ended up missing the test she was up all night studying for because she was having severe physical effects.

The slightly older and highly-stressed graduate students develop high blood pressure through their indentured schooling. They don't have as many problems with alcohol, but they certainly love their caffeine. Most hang out at the coffee shops downtown all day long during dissertation writing. Despite a family history of high blood pressure, heart disease, and diabetes, and a steady trend to developing those diseases themselves, the grad students ignore their health in favor of a chemically-induced zombie-like constantly-wired state of being. What they don't realize is that when they stay up late trying to get an experiment done, they are probably making mistakes and will have to repeat the experiment again anyway when they are alert. It's hard to make the right decisions when tired, no matter how much caffeine is in the brain. (Trust me. Been there; done that.)

Caffeine as a drug is underrated. Abusing it is not as shameful as alcohol, and in some circles, is even promoted. Yet, it has harmful effects like high blood pressure, palpitations (racing heart beats), and insomnia. Addiction rates are high. If someone is concerned about sleep quality, caffeine use must be minimized.

College Students and Sleep Part 3

2010-08-18T10:56:00.004-04:00

2. Owl habits.

Teens and young adults are well known for their ability to sleep in until noon. A significant portion of 15-25 year olds are known to sleep scientists as "owls." Their internal clocks are longer than 24 hours. That means, if they were kept in a dark room for weeks, they would awaken and sleep in cycles of 26 hours, for example.

In the case of a 24 hour cycle, someone who wakes up at 8am would be sleepy by midnight. But if they have a 26 hour cycle, they wouldn't be sleepy until 2am. But in both cases, they would still have to wake up at 8am the next day. The owl suffers from sleep deprivation because they can't fall asleep and they still have to wake up 2 hours earlier than when their body is ready.

The best way for owls to deal with the faulty internal clock is to train it every day. Bright outdoor sunlight is the most powerful device for training the clock. Owls should get as much sun as possible early in the morning. Making sure that the dorm room window faces east and opening the blinds first thing in the morning are helpful. Once awake, plan an activity that involves being outside - like studying outside or walking to class. In the evening, avoid bright lights, including bright computer screens. Turn down the brightness setting on the computer screen and don't watch too much TV.

College Students and Sleep Part 2

2010-08-16T19:06:00.001-04:00

1. All-nighters.

An occasional all-nighter is part of the college experience. It normally takes 3 days to recover from one. The first day after an all-nighter may actually be okay. Adrenaline is running high. The test or paper is done. It's time to celebrate! You might feel a little tired, but can usually stay awake all day long, especially with the help of caffeine and salty and sweet snacks.

The second day is the day you really drag. All day long, you can't focus, your eyes gloss over the page, and you feel like taking a nap in class. It's a wasted day where nothing gets done, or gets done poorly and you have to do it all over again later anyway. The third day, you feel a little bit better. By the fourth day, your body has finally recovered from the all-nighter.

The best way to avoid them is to plan better and to stick with the plan. That's easier said than done. Procrastination may be due to not knowing what to do, having perfectionist expectations, giving in to distractions, or lack of interest.

If you have to pull frequent all-nighters, then something needs to change. Analyze why they occur. Try to avoid getting into those situations. Perhaps it has to do with procrastination. Turn off the phone to focus. Seek help from your professor or teaching assistant. Ask questions. If it's a motivation problem, you may need to see an academic adviser.

College Students and Sleep Part 1

2010-08-15T22:56:00.001-04:00

Penn State University's Student Affairs department is working on a module to teach students about sleep. I've been asked to look over the module. I work part time as a physician seeing the students, so I see many of the problems related to sleep. I hope it helps students understand the importance of sleep and how to get it. The goal of sleeping well is to function well during the day and be happy!

College students simply don't get enough of sleep. If I had to choose the biggest problem concerning sleep in college students, it's just that they choose to not sleep. There are many reasons for it. Going out to have fun with friends is often more important. Other students over-extend themselves with taking too many credits and participating in too many extracurricular activities. A growing percentage of students don't sleep enough because of their financial circumstances. They have to work 20-40 hours a week just to pay for school.

These young students have the stamina to stay up frequently, getting by on naps. However, they may not realize that just because they can do it, they shouldn't do it. Ultimately, daytime performance suffers. Over the next week, I will explore some sleep-related topics concerning college students.

Videos!

2010-08-02T17:06:00.001-04:00

I finally took the 5 minute tutorial on iMovie from the Apple website and figured out that you have to press the space bar to play back the movie. Once I figured that out, iMovie was intuitive. We took some footage and uploaded some movies to YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bc4z4gVJlLw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKO8RAFi2xg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th1BdTCcezA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFjfy3DMu4I

And then I edited the movie Brittany made too.

Hopefully the videos are clear enough to explain what SleepPhones are all about. Brittany's video is up to 20 watches after being uploaded about 40 hours ago.

I also went through an made the SleepPhones YouTube landing page into our color, filled in the profile info, and updated friends, subscriptions, etc. Now that I've figured out just how easy it is, we'll probably be able to upload a video every month. Just have to figure out what to film... maybe sheep!

Sheep's Photoshoot

2010-07-26T19:25:00.001-04:00

Sheep is almost too big for our home-made light-box. He has to sit very still and try to smile!

The pictures are turning out well!

Uh-oh! SleepPhones are a big too big for Sheep. He's only about a foot tall.

Sheep Weighs Over a Ton

2010-07-26T19:14:00.000-04:00

Sheep arrived in a big truck.

It took some time to unload Sheep.

Now the ton of Sheep lives in our living room!

On sale now.

SleepPhones in SkyMall Page 65!

2010-07-01T11:00:00.002-04:00

Look for SleepPhones in the July-Sept issue of SkyMall page 65! It cost us a lot of money to be in there, so we're very nervous and excited about the prospects!

New Dreams CD

2010-06-30T10:00:00.008-04:00

New CD! Limited time for $7.95. Normally $9.95.

Joel Steudler is a composer and graphic artist whose work can be found in film, television, video games, and comic books. Joel is equally adept at crafting musical scores filled with pulse pounding action and gentle melodies that will lull you to sleep... and he tries to avoid getting one mixed up with the other. Living in hilly western Pennsylvania, Joel whiles away his days crafting audiovisual media, watching hockey, and digging out from under the snow every spring... kind of like a groundhog.

Laura Raczkowski is an artist we met at the State College PA Arts Fest of 2009. She was one of the artists at the Penn State University student booth. She created some beautiful pictures of clouds and natural images, which we loved. We commissioned her to create the CD cover and CD design for the SleepPhones Dreams CD. She is currently located in Norman, OK.

CEA Lineshow Booth Pictures

2010-06-29T22:02:00.002-04:00

We were at the CEA Lineshows last week. This was the fantastic team representing SleepPhones. Me, Jason, Jeff (Jason's brother), Brittany (current intern, Fall 2010 Happy Valley Communications Account Executive), and Lucy (Spring 2010 Happy Valley Communications Account Executive).

We had lots of interviews.

Lucy had to leave a little early, so Sheep was temporarily named Lucy. When Sheep is delivered, we'll have a naming contest!

When the show was over, we stopped by the Sleepy's on 5th and 39th to check on the SleepPhones there.

Graphic Design

2010-06-20T16:07:00.000-04:00

Up until about 2 months ago, I was still doing all graphic design. It's really quite involved. Airbrushing things, merging pictures, and removing the background all takes so much time, especially if you aren't very good at it, like me. I'm the type of girl who doesn't wear make up, wear heals, or care about the latest clothes. I never had any glossy fashion magazines, and I only had one Barbie that I played with once. I can wear the same pair of jeans for days until it gets dirty from me playing in the garden dirt. So my sense of style is not very keen, as you can see.

They say that if you aren't very good at an aspect of running a business, you should fire yourself and hire someone else to do the job. Well, with some of the high-profile events coming up, I decided it was finally time to pay someone who actually knew what they were doing.

This is the original banner design for the CEA Lineshows.

I think our graphic designer did a good job, don't you?

Here's my version of the next SkyMall ad.

We'll see what the graphic designer does with that!

Cart Abandonment (Part 2)

2010-06-15T20:24:00.000-04:00

Since implementing the PayPal payment option in addition to Google Checkout, our cart abandonment rate has dropped from about 53% to 45%.

From June 4-14, we had 3340 Unique visitors from 102 countries with a bounce rate of 46%. About 1/3 of them actually looked at an item for purchase. There were 244 unique views of the shopping cart page, which approximates 244 different people putting things into their shopping cart. 223 of them proceeded to click on checkout button. 123 people actually completed the checkout process to buy something. For this period, our checkout abandonment rate was 45%.

Free SleepPhones System Giveaway!

2010-06-07T14:13:00.000-04:00

Check out the SleepPhones System Giveaway!

We're giving away four (4) SleepPhones Systems! You can choose which one you want when you win!

Valued at $64.95 - $69.95 [more info]

WHO

Anyone from all over the world can enter! We will ship it to you for free anywhere in the world.

WHEN

You only have until Friday June 11 to enter the giveaway. We will select a random winner on June 12 and contact the winner via the method they used to enter.

HOW

We will select a winner from each of these entry methods. (You can enter once in each category!)

Tweet about SleepPhones using Twitter! Be sure to mention "SleepPhones Giveaway" in your tweet! We will search Twitter for SleepPhones Giveaway to find the winner. If your Twitter settings are private, we won't be able to see your tweets! Please enter via another method.
Like SleepPhones and post a comment on Facebook! Be sure to mention "SleepPhones Giveaway" in your comment! We will check the SleepPhones Facebook Page for a winner.
Write a blog post (if you have a blog) about SleepPhones and send the link to us with "SleepPhones Giveaway" as the subject.
Make a YouTube video about SleepPhones and make sure SleepPhones is in the title of the video. We will search for "SleepPhones" on YouTube to find the winner.

Yummy lunch with Dr. Gurgevich!

2010-06-03T15:59:00.003-04:00

Steven Gurgevich, Ph.D., is a clinical assistant professor at the University of Arizona's College of Medicine, where he teaches mind-body medicine to physicians in Dr. Andrew Weil's courses at the Arizona Center of Integrative Medicine. He has also directed the center's Mind-Body Clinic since 1997. Dr. Gurgevich is an approved consultant and fellow of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis.

We carry his Sleepy Time Hypnosis CD. It's my favorite CD to listen to for sleeping when I have a lot on my mind.

Jason and I just had the privilege of meeting him for lunch. We had a great time talking about healthy food, using mind-body techniques for medical problems like insomnia and irritable bowel, running a business from home, and exchanging great contacts. Both his wife (Joy Gurgevich at Joy of Food) and daughter (Dr. Elise Gurgevich at Penn State University) are big nutrition experts. Since I love to garden and eat, we talked a lot of about our love of interesting foods.

Dr. Gurgevich has been traveling for nearly a month now, teaching at various places. The last place he taught was at Kripalu, the fabulous yoga retreat in the Berkshires of Massachusetts. He visited his daughter here at Penn State on his way home, so we had a chance to meet up!

SleepPhones will be carrying more of his CDs soon, including a series of Hypnotic Tonics, which are clinical hypnosis tracks to help people with various illnesses, including addiction to tobacco.

Cart Abandonment

2010-06-03T13:19:00.002-04:00

One of the banes of online retail is cart abandonment. I heard one statistic where it was about 50%. That means of the people who put something into their shopping carts, only about 50% actually complete the checkout process. That's why big retailers do the One-Click thing, so if you decide to buy it, you click once, and the order is placed. You don't have 3-5 more pages of filling in your credit card information, filling in your address, checking the shipping charges, and reviewing, and then clicking the final okay. Those are all opportunities for a customer to change their mind, get distracted, or grow tired of filling in forms. I hope that using PayPal and Google Checkout will help to reduce those issues because most people buying things online already have accounts through those places. They won't need to fill in their address in 2 different places.

I checked our checkout abandonment rates just now to do a comparison of before and after the PayPal option implementation. I'm hoping that we'll have more people make that final click to order because they already have PayPal, and it's just easy to say yes.

Customers who click to start the checkout process abandon the process about 51.7% of the time from April 27 - May 5, 2010 (n=178). Over that same period of time, we had 3024 unique visitors from 90 different countries with a 42.5% bounce rate. 71% of the traffic came from search engines, 12% from referring sites, and 17% direct traffic (like from Google Adwords). The front page got the most views, followed by downloads, catalog, and SleepPhones System. Of the 3024 unique visitors, 192 unique visitors placed an item into their shopping cart.(1) The Google Checkout button was clicked 178 times. An order was placed 86 times; no order was placed 92 times.(2) Of the 83 orders, 79 actually went through, paid in full, and were shipped.(3)

From March 22-31, we had 3326 Unique visitors from 83 countries with a bounce rate of 44%.(1) About 1/3 of them actually looked at an item for purchase.(1) There were 273 unique views of the shopping cart page, which approximates 273 different people putting things into their shopping cart.(1) 240 of them proceeded to click on the Google Checkout button.(2) 127 people actually completed the Google Checkout process to buy something.(3) One customer changed their mind in 15 minutes.(3) Two customers's credit cards could not be processed.(3) And so far, one person has returned their purchase.(3) For this period, our checkout abandonment rate was 53%.

(1) Data from Google Analytics
(2) Data from SleepPhones.com Order ID
(3) Data from Google Checkout

I will repeat this analysis in a few weeks to see if we have improved the checkout abandonment rate by adding PayPal as a payment option. I expect that it would, but it's certainly not without its hassles. PayPal is so slow to load up compared with Google Checkout. The selections like size, color, or even SKU are not transmitted to PayPal. That means we have to look in 2 different places for each PayPal order. That involves extra time to process each shipment. I'll have to set up new passwords in all of these places so our employee can do the processing.

Help! Which Ad catches your attention? Thank you coupon included!

2010-05-31T22:46:00.001-04:00

Place your vote above!

#1

#2

#3

Thank you for your help!
Coupon Code: BLOGSPOT
You must use Google Checkout to use the coupon. It's for 15% off, and is valid through June 5th.
We don't have a coupon for PayPal unfortunately.

PayPal Working!

2010-05-30T22:20:00.000-04:00

After fiddling around with the checkout process for a month, we managed to get PayPal order processing working!

Up until recently, we could only take PayPal when someone "sent" money to us and told us what they wanted in the comments. Overall, it worked surprisingly well. Nearly everyone remembered to add in the shipping, pay in USD and not their overseas dollar system, and write down exactly what they wanted.

However, right now we have an order sitting in PayPal from 3 days ago that we can't process because the person didn't tell us what color and size they wanted. I've tried emailing a few times, but the person has not responded. It's possible that my emails are in their spam folder. I can't call because I don't have a phone number. I guess I'll wait a few more days and see if they email complaining about not receiving their order.

We use a back up version of SleepPhones.com for testing purposes. We make changes to that and test repeatedly. I've ordered about two dozen lavender sachets for myself using PayPal and Google Checkout, with and without affiliate credit, from PA, outside of PA, and internationally. More than half of those orders didn't quite work perfectly. I guess it's just one of those things.

Once we tested the heck out of it, we rolled it out into production. That occurred at about 1pm today. We tested a few more times, and called it good! We had a celebratory late lunch/early dinner at our favorite Mediterranean restaurant during which time 2 orders were placed with Google Checkout and 1 placed with PayPal, all of which worked!

Now we just have to figure out how to charge for Pennsylvania Sales Tax for the PayPal orders .... Only Pennsylvanians have to pay sales tax since we're located here. If you're from another state, you should be paying use taxes on your annual state income tax return. Many people don't know that, so they don't do that.

RealSleep for Adults Now Available!

2010-05-24T13:12:00.002-04:00

The inventors of RealSleep were interviewed at Boston's NPR station. You can listen samples of the RealSleep CD at "Music That Messes With Your Brain To Help You Sleep."

To order RealSleep by Dr. Horowitz, please see our CD section! They come in Classical music and Ambient music.

Black SleepPhones Most Popular

2010-05-21T10:00:00.001-04:00

Over time, we've noticed that black SleepPhones seem to be the most popular color. It's a particular problem right now because we're sending out a big wholesale order to ThinkGeek. They order all black ones, so our inventory is very low now. We're focusing on making more right now, but we may have a few days where we can't keep up. Our high school student employee is not really obsessive-compulsive as these pictures might suggest. He's the one who packs these. But I might be! I love how they line up!

Smarthome Expresses Interest in Carrying SleepPhones

2010-05-19T15:00:00.000-04:00

I've bought some battery-powered motion-activated LED lights from them before. The staircase down to SleepPhones Headquarters has a nice over head light, but that light is so high up that I'm seriously afraid of it ever going out. I can't imagine changing it! It would probably take a ladder two to three times the height of our current ladder. So I hesitate turning it off and on all of the time. Instead, I got these motion activated LED lights that would prevent me from falling down the stairs in the dark. And we use rechargeable batteries in them, so it's okay - we're not creating too much of an environmental hazard. And yes, we properly dispose of our old batteries.

Well, just like that smart solution for a potentially hazardous staircase, Smarthome carries many other interesting items. If we ever get a new home, we might install a fiberoptic light system, built-in wall speakers, hidden cameras, and all kinds of gadgets. Smarthome has a solution for any home-related problem.

So what about sleeping problems? Well, Smarthome wants to solve that too! They are interested in SleepPhones. They sent us an email asking us to send them a sample for evaluation. We certainly will! There's a lot of paperwork too, so it will take some time, but we're very excited about possibly working with them!

Centerpointe: Holosync

2010-05-18T08:00:00.002-04:00

Centerpointe, the people who make Holosync just contacted us! I think we might have contacted them in the past, but it's nice that they are now coming to us! We hope to be able to forge a relationship with them. In fact, Holosync was one of the technologies we had in mind when designing the product. Over the years, many people have chosen to buy SleepPhones for use with their Holosync CDs. We have a few friends who love and talk highly of Holosync too. If you're a fan of Holosync, we'd love for you to tell them that you're a fan of SleepPhones too!

ThinkGeek SleepPhones Are Flying Off the Shelves!

2010-05-16T18:00:00.000-04:00

We're big fans of ThinkGeek. My last Valentine's present and birthday present were both from there apparently. And I loved the gifts! I've been using them for the garden. I guess that makes me a geeky gardener? So after seeing various inferior headphones advertised on there, we decided that we've got to have SleepPhones in there.

I sent a pitch to ThinkGeek way back in early February about SleepPhones. Something about how caffeinated geeks might need to fall asleep to music. They thought it looked interesting and asked for a sample in late February. I sent them the sample and the buyer there replied in mid-March saying that he liked them. After discussing some details, he placed a first order. We sent it in by the end of March, and they took about a month to put it in inventory, write it up, and take pictures.

On April 27th, we received their newsletter announcing SleepPhones as a new item towards the end of the email, quite small, among many other things. But apparently word spread quickly! The Twitter buzz was tremendous. Within a week, the first order sold out.

We've sent them a second order now, so SleepPhones are back in stock. But I don't know how long that will last because they continue to be very popular. ThinkGeek has just placed a third, bigger order. Our high school student employee is being kept very busy! He's spent the past 2 days working on fulfilling the order. And it will likely take a few more days.

Anyway, we are tremendously excited about working with ThinkGeek! The next step is to see SleepPhones in their paper catalog. :-)

Social Media Widgets

2010-05-15T00:34:00.000-04:00

After attending a CEA webcast about social media networking, I've taking a fresh look at the big ones - Facebook and Twitter. We had played with their widgets in the past, but they were not very customizable. Now that they have great widgets, I've decided to put them on the website! I just hope that they don't slow down the site significantly. Here's the twitter widget.

And here is our Facebook widget.

SleepPhones - The Only Headphones for Sleeping

Promote Your Page Too

PR firm Lotus823

2010-05-10T14:19:00.002-04:00

SleepPhones is excited to begin working with the public relations firm Lotus823. They contacted us last week after finding out that we will be at the CEA Linshows. The managing partner and I talked for a while, and it seemed like they could really help us out. We just had a great conference call with all of the parties involved, and we're very excited about the help they will provide!

We plan to continue working with Happy Valley Communications (HVC) as well, the Penn-State student-run PR firm, when they start up again in the fall.

Baltimore's first B'More Healthy Expo

2010-05-05T21:44:00.001-04:00

SleepPhones had a booth at the B'More Healthy Expo this past weekend. We screened people for Excessive Daytime Sleepiness using the Epworth Sleepiness Scale. And we also demonstrated how SleepPhones can help with sleeping problems.

Montel Williams was there, and he told us his story about being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) and how he lives with this chronic disease. He eats many fruits and vegetable every day, in a juice. And he uses his mind to block the pain from his feet, legs, and right side of the face. He was told he would be in a wheelchair 7 years ago, but he continues to function quite well, walking around during the entire speech. I did notice that he had a limp because his right leg was stiff. He had us do some interesting experiments with our mind to show just how much the mind can control the body. I really enjoyed his speech.

Dr. Puff Enjoys Wearing SleepPhones for Meditation!

2010-05-04T22:39:00.000-04:00

Our new affiliate Dr. Robert Puff makes a great meditation podcast. We are sponsoring his episodes and hope that the podcasts will become more popular. He also produces a TV show called the Holistic Success Show, which will be part of the Fit.tv network soon! His partner is Elizabeth Lozano.

Dr. Puff likes to listen to meditations before going to bed, and he loves his SleepPhones for that purpose, just in case he falls asleep.

ThinkGeek :: SleepPhones Headphones

2010-04-28T02:59:00.001-04:00

ThinkGeek :: SleepPhones Headphones

Posted using ShareThis

Sheep Collected Morels!

2010-04-23T16:41:00.000-04:00

Our stuffed sheep went out an found us mushrooms for lunch! He's very proud.

Polysomnography in a Sleep Study

2010-04-22T14:12:00.002-04:00

Our friend Nicole in St. Petersburg, Florida is studying to be a polysomnographer, someone who supervises patients getting a sleep study. Since the obesity rate is rising, the rate of sleep apnea is also rising. Plus, the increasing stress in society today is causing more and more sleep problems. So more people need to have sleep studies done. She would probably be working overnight, watching the patients sleep and making sure everything goes alright. For example, if a lead became loose, she would have to replace it. Or if the the oxygen tracings were extremely and dangerously low for a sleep apnea patient, then she may have to end the study early. We caught up with each other at the Sleep Health and Safety Conference in early March and had a great time.

Anyway, as part of the training program, she has to try out the equipment herself! Here she is wearing all of the gear and her SleepPhones on top. Hmmm... probably not the best marketing photo.

Affiliates System for SleepPhones

2010-04-11T17:03:00.001-04:00

We finally have the affiliate system working. We had to make changes in our website, Drupal installation, DreamHost, Yahoo website, Google Checkout, and probably a few more places so that everything talks to each other correctly. Incremental changes of trial and error got the system to recognize new orders, talk with Google Checkout, and calculate a commission. Whew! But now the problem is that everyone who places an order is automatically given a user name. They can't do much with a user name, but it definitely clogs up our system to keep track of affiliates. So now we need to debug that. Then we'll wipe the slate clean and run one more test. Hopefully we'll have everything ready by Monday night. On Tuesday, I'll send out invitations to people who have asked to be affiliates. Affiliates have been a long time coming, but the end is in sight.

Sheep Stuffed Animal with Pocket

2010-04-03T18:16:00.003-04:00

Sheep caught a butterfly! Be careful with it - pet gently!

Sheep is watching a baby shitake mushroom grow.

Sheep can finally hold an iPhone in his back pocket!

Sheep is being cloned right now, and he should be ready for sale in a few months. We can't wait!

New Hire - from Bellefonte High School

2010-03-31T10:41:00.023-04:00

We like to hire employees that are local, dedicated to quality, and can represent our company. Our neighbor's son is our latest employee. He's still a sophomore in high school and not yet 16, but he was determined to find a job to pay his dad back for buying him a new (used) car. So when he mentioned that he was looking for a job, we offered him the position to help out a few days a week. He filled out all of the paperwork required by the school system and began working last week! He has packed 300 SleepPhones, large and small soap, and many other random tasks. Plus, he has a wide network of friends at school and church groups who have been curious about where he works. I just gave him some business cards as a sales associate. I think he has been a great hire!

Headphones Splitter and Volume Control Extension Cord

2010-03-30T22:39:00.003-04:00

We are now carrying a headphone splitter and an extension cord with volume control. Customers have been asking about such items, so we decided to start carrying them. We don't manufacture them at this point, so they are made by Belkin and Koss, both good big brands in the audio industry.

BlueSleep in Manhattan

2010-03-30T22:31:00.003-04:00

I met Dr. Jordan Stern at the Sleep Health and Safety conference in DC on March 5th. He's an otolaryngologist (Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor) in Manhattan who has a special interest in sleep. He runs BlueSleep, a Sleep Apnea and Snoring Clinical Center in New York's Financial District. BlueSleep is now carrying SleepPhones! Feel free to visit the clinic to purchase a set of SleepPhones.

View Larger Map

Lumie Elite 300 Sleep-Alarm Clock

2010-03-25T12:42:00.003-04:00

BioBrite is a great company based in Maryland that designs high-quality full-featured light-box alarm clock. It's basically everything sleep experts recommend for you to have at the night stand, packed in one. We now carry their best model on our website. It's the Lumie Elite!

The company was nice enough to offer one to us for testing. The dome is made from heavy, high quality frosted glass that diffuses a soft warm light. The illuminated clock is is easy to program and can be dimmed or brightened as desired. There is a plug in the back for listening to music with SleepPhones. Alternatively, there are nice built-in speakers that play the sleep music. It comes pre-programmed with well-known Meditainment meditation tracks, but you can plug in your own SD card with your own music too. You can listen to the radio too. In the morning, you can set bird chirping and a brightening light as a gentle wake up. As a back up, you can also set a beeper alarm. This elegant little device is choke full of features designed for optimal sleep.

New SleepPhones Pictures!

2010-03-21T11:23:00.000-04:00

Last weekend, we went to Philadelphia to hang out with our photographer, Carina Romano. She took some new pictures for us! We're very excited because they turned out so well. Here are a few.

I've started to use some of these pictures on our website. There will be more to come!

Shifted Circadian Rhythm and Treatment

2010-03-18T19:31:00.002-04:00

Subjective:
M.M. is a graduate student, with a huge work load but no regular work hours required during the research months. So he ends up going to bed at 5 a.m. and waking up at 11 a.m. every day. He eats dinner at 7 p.m. and feels tired after dinner, but he stays up to get more work done. Then he tries to go to bed at midnight because his body feels tired at that time. He finds that his mind is still going though and so he stays up until 5 a.m. Finally by that time, he is exhausted and goes to bed. The next day at 11 a.m., he wakes up still feeling tired but has to get back to work.

He denies having anxiety when he's trying to sleep. He's not really worrying about things, but just stays up thinking about his research. He doesn't have any problems with sleep once he falls asleep. He doesn't wake up multiple times, have nightmares, or pain preventing him from sleeping.

He would like to live in the world of light rather than be a vampire. And he actually functions better in the mornings anyway. He's not as productive at night. He is just having trouble trying to get back to a normal schedule. He's tried taking melatonin at night to help him get to sleep, but he don't find it helpful. He's also tried going to sleep after dinner, but finds that he just wakes up at 2 a.m., which doesn't break the cycle.

Objective:
He appears healthy overall, in no immediate distress. In our dialogue, he does not appear to be sad or anxious, laughing appropriately, and responding to questions appropriately.

Assessment:
M.M.'s problem is that his circadian rhythm is off. He does not have anxiety, depression, or medical problems causing his insomnia. It is simply that his days and night controls within the brain are off. Those are normally set by the body's production of melatonin a few hours before sleep and the exposure to bright blue light upon waking. The current challenge is to make him sleepy so that he goes to bed at a decent hour and is able to get the 7-8 hours of sleep he needs.

Plan:
I recommended that he do the following.
For dinner, eat a light dinner that doesn't have much carbohydrates so he doesn't feel so tired after dinner.
At 8 p.m., take 6mg of Melatonin.
At 11 p.m., listen to a hypnosis CD, such as the one from Dr. Gurgevich.
He should be able to sleep well then.
At 7 a.m., wake up and go outside for a while to get the morning sun.
No naps during the day.

Repeat for 3 nights. That should help get him back on schedule.
After that, melatonin should not be necessary anymore.

New Sheep Design?

2010-03-17T17:09:00.000-04:00

Our graphic designer came up with a new design for our sheep. We really loved him the way he was, but perhaps the new design would depict our product better. But then again, no one would recognize the second sheep as wearing headphones, since our headphones are so non-traditional. Not quite sure about the pros and cons on this. Any thoughts? Thanks!

eBay Coupons

2010-03-16T13:02:00.001-04:00

Well, that's new. Coupons are now being sold on eBay. A special customer gets a nice coupon, and they turn around and sell it on eBay. Interesting idea.
I suppose that's fine with us. It gets us more publicity! Here's an example of such a posting. It's the second time I've seen our coupons on eBay.
And here I am promoting a promotion of our promotion. It comes full-circle.

Medications That Can Cause Insomnia

2010-03-12T22:23:00.000-05:00

If you have chronic insomnia, sometimes it's due to medications or drug-like substances that you take for other purposes. Here's a list of some of the most common medications that can contribute to insomnia.

birth control pills
thyroid medication
beta blockers like Toprol or labetalol
antibiotics like Cipro, Avelox, or Levaquin
antidepressants
Sudafed
caffeine
appetite suppressants
steroids like prednisone or cortisone
niacin (vitamin B3)
ginsing

Sleep Tip: If you have insomnia, check your drugs, over-the-counter drugs, and supplements to make sure they aren't causing insomnia.

High School Students Need 9 Hours of Sleep

2010-03-11T22:54:00.002-05:00

High school students average 7 hours of sleep on school nights and 8.5 hours on weekends. That's not enough, according to Dr. Jodi Mindell, the Associate Director of the Sleep Disorders Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. They should be getting at least 9 hour of sleep every night.

Not getting enough sleep may be one reason why so many students are being diagnosed with attention deficit disorder (ADD). Poor sleeping habits may also contribute to the development of anxiety issues. Even though teenagers may try to act like adults, they still need more sleep than adults.

The National Sleep Foundation and many sleep experts agree that delaying the start time for high school students will help them to function better during class. Allowing teens to sleep in later is more in line with their circadian rhythm, which is that of a night owl. Rather than forcing the students to fight their nature, starting classes later will result in fewer sleepy students. Teachers will have less cranky teens that actually stay awake in class too. In places where a late school start time has been implemented, most students and teachers report a much better learning environment.

Sleep Tip: Teens need 9 hours of sleep a night. Plus, talk to the school board about a later start to the day for high school students.

Shift Work Increases Breast Cancer Risk

2010-03-10T06:00:00.018-05:00

1 in 5 Americans work the night shift. Half of shift workers have a difficult time with sleep.

Working the night shift puts people at risk for many problems including the following.

stomach and intestinal problems
heart problems
cancer
diabetes
depression

In fact, Denmark has classified breast cancer as a shift work injury after a study showed that nurses working the night shift developed more breast cancer. They are compensating their nurses for this risk.

No one knows for sure why this happens. The theory is that the accurate timing of melatonin released by the brain in response to light is protective against breast cancer. Therefore, having a regular schedule and regular exposure to appropriate light would help shift workers to train their brains.

Sleep Tip: Shift workers should avoid bright light in the morning by wearing sunglasses. They should try to wake up before the sun sets at night to get their "morning sun."

Poor Sleep Is Related to Increased Death

2010-03-09T09:57:00.003-05:00

Adults who take longer than 30 minutes to fall asleep have more than twice the risk of death than adults who take less than 30 minutes to fall asleep.

It's okay. That doesn't mean that the next time you have insomnia, you will die sooner. It just means that they have seen a relationship between poor sleep and an increased risk of death. So perhaps people who have more medical problems can't sleep as well. Or perhaps people who don't sleep well develop more medical problems that increase their risk of death.

"Four in the morning and I've got that feeling
Clock's ticking but my heart's not beating
Eyes open and I'm staring at the ceiling"
- Ivy (Watch on YouTube)

Adults who sleep less than 80% of the time they spend in bed have almost twice the risk of death than adults who sleep more than 80% of the time they spend in bed trying to sleep.

In other words, adults who sleep better the entire night in bed live longer than those who don't. That could be because poor health causes people to not sleep well. It could also mean that people who don't sleep well develop more health problems.

In any case, sleep is not to be discounted as wasted time. Sleep is a vital part of our health. Doctors are so busy taking care of diabetes and colds that they often forget to ask you about sleep. If you are tired during the day and take longer to fall asleep or sleep poorly through the night, you should see a doctor to find out why and how to correct it.

Sleep Tip: Insomnia is related to increased risk of death. You should see a doctor if you have insomnia.

Night Owls Should Avoid Blue Light in Evenings; Larks Should Use Blue Light in Evenings

2010-03-08T08:00:00.060-05:00

From March 7-13, we are celebrating National Sleep Awareness Week! There will be a new announcement every day, full of tips about sleep and fun SleepPhones Specials. Currently, we are offering free shipping!

Tip: In the Evening, Night Owls Should Avoid Blue Light Whereas Morning Larks Should Use Blue Light.

People who tend to stay up late and wake up late should try to avoid blue light in the evenings. The brain is very sensitive to blue light shining in through the eyes. It is one of the ways our bodies recognize whether it's daytime or not. Blue light is significant because it's the color of the sky. If the eyes are exposed to too much bright blue light in the evenings, then the brain thinks it's still day time. That makes it harder to fall asleep. This applies most to teenagers who tend to be night owls. They should avoid using computers as it gets later. Or perhaps turn the brightness of the computer screen down a bit.

<< Compact Fluorescent Bulbs

People who tend to get up too early and have trouble staying awake through the evening should use as many bright lights as possible in the evening. Those lights can be from energy-saving compact fluorescent bulbs, bright computer screens, or full-spectrum bulbs. The traditional incandescent light bulbs that get really hot don't have much blue light, so they won't work. The other important point is that the light needs to be close to the eyes. So having this type of light at the desk or near the couch for reading or knitting is good. The problem of waking up too early tends to occur in the elderly because their internal clocks are shorter. They also happen to be the ones living in older homes with older incandescent light bulbs. A great present for your older relative next time might be to change all of their lights over to compact fluorescent bulbs. It lowers their electricity bill, helps them from waking up too early, and doesn't create more clutter.

National Sleep Awareness Week

2010-03-07T20:29:00.003-05:00

From March 7-13, we are celebrating National Sleep Awareness Week! There will be a new announcement every day, full of tips about sleep and fun SleepPhones Specials. Currently, we are offering free shipping!

Sleep Tip of the Day:

Bright sunlight early in the morning helps to set your chronically late-running internal clock so you feel less tired.

The average human body thinks that a day should be 24 hours and 12 minutes long. That means we feel like going to bed 8 minutes later every day and waking up 4 minutes later every day. Perhaps that's one of the reason many of us want to stay up a little bit later at night, and why we want to hit that snooze button just one more time. There are many variations between people, so not everyone feels that way. But apparently, more people have a tendency to be a night owl than a lark.

To help prevent us from going completely off track with a 24 hour day, bright sunlight first thing in the morning is very helpful for our bodies to set it's internal clock back by 12 minutes. If we don't get that sunlight, then we may continue to drag from one day to the next, feeling more and more sleep deprived.

Bugs with the Website Upgrade = Free Shipping!

2010-03-02T20:34:00.000-05:00

Well, the first night, we had left 2 options for checkout accidentally, and a few people tried to check out using the wrong option. Then there were many minor bugs, like missing links and such. Those were quickly fixed. We had the downloads in as a product, but then quickly realized that was confusing people. So we changed that and all downloads are available on a single page again. We didn't have the left side menu up initially either, but the page looked so sparse and shipping was difficult to find. So we decided to put the menu on the left again.

The current bug still unfixed is the shipping. We're still trying to figure out how to charge the base shipping of $5 with this new system. So right now, everyone's getting free shipping!

New SleepPhones Website

2010-02-27T17:21:00.001-05:00

We've finished upgrading our website.

There are many more CD's for you to choose from now. My favorite is Dr. Gurgevich's Sleepy Time Hypnosis, so it's on sale right now. There are also a bunch of accessories to go with your SleepPhones. The accessories are especially great for gifts!

On the back end, the website is now running Drupal 6.0 instead of 5.0. The catalog feature is new, and we now have the ability to have affiliates. We're going to test out the affiliates feature during the rest of this weekend. Next week, we'll get all of our affiliates signed up. There have been many people asking to work with us, but we've had to wait until this was ready. Other than a glitch in the ordering process this morning, the roll out has been pretty smooth!

UPC Symbols

2010-02-19T00:16:00.000-05:00

We've taken the plunge. ... We're getting a UPC symbol. To do so requires signing up with the GS1.org. I don't know how they can call themselves a ".org" when their fees are so incredibly high for very little service. Maybe they do provide some services, but I certainly don't see the justification for a "membership" fee of $1600 for a small company that just needs a few UPC codes. The whole thing is a huge scam. They recommend you getting the UPC codes printed by professional companies, but concede that you can just print it on your home laser printer. They also sell their mailing list. There is an opt-in or opt-out for the mailing list, but I'm sure they make a hefty sum just with the mailing list. Really, if it's a non-profit "dot org," then they must have billions in their coiffures or be extremely inefficient.

Amazon.com is requiring UPC symbols for the new products we want to sell on there now. So that's the immediate reason we're getting it. Plus, we will probably have some retail agreements coming up in the next few months. If any of the agreements are with big companies, we will definitely need the UPC symbols. I suppose it also adds legitimacy.

Oh, just in case you were thinking of just doing a Google search on UPC, you may see a list of companies that will give you UPC symbols. They may not be legitimate companies. Some are just UPC printers - again, you can print your own. You don't need a special printer. Some will sell invalid symbols. So the proper way to go is with the rip-off GS1. It's like with filing patents - there's no cheap way of going about it. You have to do it properly, the first time.

Happy Valley Communications

2010-02-17T06:18:00.003-05:00

We're very fortunate to be working with Happy Valley Communications, a student-run marketing firm at Penn State University. Each year, they select some businesses to help with marketing and promotion. Their services are completely free! Donations are accepted, if we find their services valuable. SleepPhones will be working with them this Spring semester. We are very lucky to be right next to a fantastic University that can offer these types of resources. Even though the students are all very bright and busy with classes, they find the time to get some hands-on experience in marketing. Most of them are communications or marketing majors, and some have previous work experience in the field. They have written a couple of blog posts regarding SleepPhones already. So far, they have helped critique our website, making it a bit more user-friendly. They've also made many suggestions of possible contacts. Just meeting with them has made us aware of new avenues to explore and given us renewed energy for old unfinished projects. We hope that they will be able to make some big contacts for us this semester!

New Fleece Samples

2010-02-13T18:38:00.001-05:00

We have some new sample fleeces from Polartec! The orange and green are from recycled plastic. We'll be working on making these into sample SleepPhones and RunPhones. If you are a friend, family member, or long-time SleepPhones customer, you're first in line to try these out! I'll probably announce in the newsletter when the samples are ready.

Pictures of Snow!

2010-02-12T18:28:00.000-05:00

The early February 2010 back-to-back Mid-Altantic Snow Storms will likely go down in history as a pretty memorable event. Shipments out were delayed a few days. And instead of yoga for exercise, my physical activity was shoveling a path to the mailbox and a path for the mail lady. Many interstate highways around Pennsylvania were at least partially closed. The number of inches of snow is close to breaking all-time records for February, even though we're not even half way through the month. Thankfully, the sun has come out for a few days and helped to melt some of the snow.

Here's a picture of our mailbox at dusk, along with the trees and hills to the East.

Meanwhile, my gardening friends and I are just itching to get some potting soil from the store... it's time to start the early seeds!

Picture from the Health and Fitness Fair

2010-02-04T20:39:00.001-05:00

Here's a rare picture of Jason and me posing together. This was in front of our booth at the NBC 4 Health and Fitness Fair in Washington DC a few weeks ago.

A Small Mountain of Envelopes

2010-02-03T18:04:00.002-05:00

Well, shipping was free if we ordered 3000 envelopes! Ironically, shipping can be quite costly for bulky shipping supplies... so here they are. Oh, yes, there is also the leaning tower of 8x4x3 boxes. One day, we'll be able to use them all up. The bag in the front is full of lavender sachets.

Epworth Sleepiness Scale

2010-01-30T00:52:00.000-05:00

The Epworth Sleepiness Scale is a standard scale you will find at sleep clinics everywhere. It is used to determine just how sleepy you are. If you score over 10, then you should talk to your doctor.

Use this scale...
0 = would never doze or sleep.
1 = slight chance of dozing or sleeping
2 = moderate chance of dozing or sleeping
3 = high chance of dozing or sleeping

Here are the situations...
___ Sitting and reading
___ Watching TV
___ Sitting inactive in a public place
___ Being a passenger in a motor vehicle for an hour or more
___ Lying down in the afternoon
___ Sitting and talking to someone
___ Sitting quietly after lunch (no alcohol)
___ Stopped for a few minutes in traffic while driving

Add up the numbers for your total score. Remember, if you scored higher than 10, then you should see your doctor about your excessive daytime sleepiness.

SleepPhones' Different Versions

2010-01-28T18:52:00.001-05:00

I think I'll start calling SleepPhones by version types now. We have had a number of upgrades over time. This will help everyone keep better track of stuff. Currently, we are selling what's left of Version 1.0 on Amazon. We are selling Version 2.0 on eBay. And Version 3.0 is on SleepPhones.com.

This is our prototype, hence Version 0.3. It had a nice fuzzy fleece, but it was too hard to work with. Plus, it didn't come in our core colors: lavender and gray. The wire was also too thick. I think we bought the wire from RadioShack.

This is our Version 1.0 SleepPhones. I made all of them in 2007. Then I had some employees make some in 2008. We bought the fabric for this version from JoAnn Fabrics. We would buy out the entire stock of lavender from the store or from online sometimes when it went on sale. In the picture, I am wearing a special edition red one for February. The wire is in the front coming out of an eyelet. Version 1.0 had a cute sheep eyelet. But then the eyelet company stopped making the sheep and refused to make us custom eyelets. We had bought bought out all of their sheep eyelets apparently. So Version 1.1 had just a plain eyelet. The left speaker is fixed in place, and the right speaker is adjustable by pulling on little strings affixed outside with a bead.

Version 2.0 was primarily made by our employees, though I did make quite a few. It's actually a better product with an interesting design that made it possible to remove the speakers in order to wash the headband. Plus it uses recycled Polartec® fleece and improved speakers. The only problem with it is that it was complicated to remove and replace the speakers. This version didn't last too long because we soon came up with the next version.

For some reason, people didn't like the wire coming out the front. It was always so confusing for people, even though we had many pictures everywhere of the wire coming out the front. And it was in the written instructions. We figured that the wire being in the front was better ergonomically for sleeping. But we had so many confused customers that we decided we'd make the wire in the back for Version 3.0. We also added Velcro. The speakers remain removable for washing.

NBC 4 Health and Fitness Expo

2010-01-27T10:33:00.005-05:00

Jan. 16-17, SleepPhones had a booth at the Washington DC Convention Center for the very big NBC 4 Health and Fitness Expo where people could get free health screening, check out new products, and get lots of information about health from major organizations. The National Sleep Foundation had a section there called the Big Sleep Show. SleepPhones were a part of the Big Sleep Show and were one of the biggest hits in the section. Our booth was constantly busy with people trying on SleepPhones and asking about them. We ran out of brochures by and sold out the first day and had to scramble to get more available for the second day. Shout out to Office Depot in Rockville, MD for staying open late for last-minute copies!
Thanks to our employees for their long days of hard work!

Jacklyn Bruce, JD University of Richmond School of Law, sales extraordinaire
Christopher Gordon, up-and-coming business entrepreneur from Towson University
Patrick Reinheimer, up-and-coming economist from UMBC

Sheep Version 2

2010-01-24T14:36:00.001-05:00

The first sheep was so perfect we only had one change to make. The back pocket had to be bigger. The sheep now pictured is version two, but it has the same problem - it still doesn't fit an iPhone. So it's going back again for one more revision. It must be able to fit an iPhone.

Stolen SleepPhones Shipment

2010-01-23T20:03:00.000-05:00

The shipment of SleepPhones that were to go out on Tuesday, January 19, are missing. We are not sure where they could be at this time. Sometime between 8:30am and 1:30pm, someone took them, and it was not the post office. This incident was reported to the police on Friday, Jan. 22, and we are working with the police to investigate this matter.

Tuesday, January 19, was the Tuesday after Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. We had orders from Friday Jan. 15 to Tuesday Jan. 19 in that shipment. It was a very large shipment, so we are quite upset about it. We are also upset that customers who ordered on Jan. 15th would have to wait until until Jan 27- Jan 30 to receive their package now. The international orders that normally take 2-3 weeks will have to wait even longer now. It's definitely an anomaly in our customer service, and we hope our reputation of 4.8 stars out of 5.0 stars on Google does not suffer.

It's been a bit of a nightmare in other ways. We will refund the rush shipping charge for all involved customers. All customers were notified by email of the incident. We have to ask for refunds for all of the postage we used to send out the original ones. I have unarchived all of the orders involved, but I cannot "re-ship" them with a different tracking number. So customers will have to receive a new tracking number email. We have received a few complaints so far, and I am anticipating more. Some customer spam filters are set in such a way that our emails do not reach them, so I'm sure I'll get some phone calls about this. We talked with the police last night, the postmaster this morning, some neighbors, and the county dump. We had to meet with our employees to pick up some finished SleepPhones from them on short notice. Our weekend will be spent trying to catch back up on all of the orders. Since the merchandise is likely lost forever, we will have to talk to our CPA about writing off this loss. And we'll have to talk to the police throughout this week to see what happened.

Record Low Sales in a Day

2010-01-21T21:10:00.001-05:00

Today's sales is tied for Christmas Day = very few. It's the slowest day of the year so far. Yesterday and the day before were great days. It's so strange how that all works.

Last night we decided to take the Full Night MP3 Players off because they are just too much trouble to make. We charge them up and load them with the 8 hours of ocean waves and 15 minutes of bird chirping. Then we test them. It is difficult to keep up with that task so we have decided to stop selling them temporarily.

In the process of removing the Full Night MP3 Player, I forgot to take off a picture. So the page was slightly misaligned. I wonder if that's why sales are down today. Perhaps potential customers were scared off by a mildly nonsensical webpage.

Google Checkout's Store Gadget

2010-01-19T00:52:00.000-05:00

Recently, Google launched the ability for easy commerce via Checkout.

Polartec and Repreve Join Up

2010-01-18T13:10:00.000-05:00

We use Polartec® fleece to make SleepPhones. We're very excited to hear that Polartec® is joining up with Repreve® to produce 100% recycled fleece in the future! Our current fleece is already 88% recycled plastic bottles, and 12% spandex. That probably won't change, because we need the spandex for the stretch. Every pound of Repreve 100 yarn converts 27 water bottles and saves a half gallon of gas. Their products should reach you in 2011.

Sheep Goes Back to Mary

2010-01-13T23:59:00.001-05:00

Our baby sheep has to go back to Mary for a check up. Mary will take good care of him and make sure that he's getting his measurements taken. That way, one day, we'll get 2400 of his brothers, sisters, and counsins back! In the meantime, he's looks so despondent!

Dark Lavender SleepPhones Now Available!

2010-01-12T00:08:00.000-05:00

We are now offering a beautiful dark lavender SleepPhones color - for a limited time! We bought a color not normally produced, so it will never be carried again. It will only be available for a few months most likely. All three sizes are offered. Get yours today!

Big Sleep Show Jan 16-17 at the Washington DC Convention Center

2010-01-11T13:00:00.003-05:00

SleepPhones will have a booth at the Big Sleep Show next weekend! The Big sleep Show is part of the NBC 4 Health Expo. The National Sleep Foundation invited us to be part of the Expo, and we're very excited about attending.

We've done smaller local booths in the past, and we walked around the Big Sleep Show in Chicago last year. This will be our first booth at a national expo.

We've hired 3 people to work for us. Chris and Patrick grew up together in Germantown, MD and are both going to school in the area. Chris is majoring in marketing, and Patrick is majoring in economics. They both worked door-to-door selling windows in the past. Jackie has a Juris Doctorate but prefers marketing. During the week, she does marketing for a big law firm. She loves talking to people so she finds opportunities to work with new products at expos on weekends. They are all fantastic people, and we're happy to have them helping us out.

We did our usual trick on Craig's List to find people. :-) It works! But we did screen out the people who couldn't spell or write a complete sentence. The people who did not provide a good reason for us to contact them or provide enough contact information were screened out. Some people had modeling experience and sent us great pictures - but scantily clad. Others sent non-professional fuzzy pictures, like from a webcam. It's important to show professionalism when looking for a job, even one that's just for a day. There are many other qualified good candidates who responded, but we found the few we needed within a day.

This picture is from our previous booth at the Entrepreneurial Women's Expo in October.

New Special Offers Page

2010-01-10T08:19:00.002-05:00

All new offers will be listed here on the Special Offers page. It will include coupons, discounts, and promotions. Here are January 2010's offers.

$1 off Instant Discount 3-Question Survey
Orders over $100 will automatically receive a tin of lavender-scented hand cream or a 3 ounce bar of handmade soap, whichever is available.
Orders over $200 will also receive 2 ounces of Teavana's Tranquil Dream® herbal tea.
Orders over $300 will also receive an insulated SleepPhones shopping bag.

New Photos!

2010-01-09T08:58:00.001-05:00

We hired William Ames to hire some models and take some pictures. Everyone came to our house to take pictures in the spare room Thursday. The pictures turned out great! We'll be using them for the website soon. And when we go to our Expo next weekend, we'll have a big banner up using one of the pictures. Now we just have to decide which of the 330 pictures to use. Talk about information overload in the digital age!

Mr. Ames was wonderful to work with. Many photographers are used to doing weddings, landscape, and portrait shots. The non-professional photographer just wants decent pictures of people and their activity at the time, so a person standing in front of the Eiffel Tower is a good enough picture. In product photography, there are a whole different set of rules. For example, instead of focusing on the eyes and the face, the photographer may focus on the product itself. Paying attention to stray hair, decreased distractions, and model expressions are much more important. Also, choosing clothes on the models that differ enough from the background helps in photoshopping the picture later. The color of the clothes can be easily changed. The background can be cut out and replaced. He taught me these tricks and worked with me to implement the poses I needed for the application I needed. Photographing for print is different from web design, for example. I didn't realized how important it was to be so specific about my needs until talking with Mr. Ames. I highly recommend William Ames Photography.

Comment Moderation

2010-01-06T23:59:00.000-05:00

As this blog gets older and continues to generate new content, it ranks higher and higher on search engines. Ranking highly on search engines is generally good. But now we have to deal with comment spammers trying to piggy back on the high rankings. After finding a few spam comments (porn and internet marketing spam), I decided to begin moderating the comments. Sorry to all of the legit readers!

Year-End Accounting

2010-01-05T00:01:00.000-05:00

Whew! I think I'm up to date on finances! Our accountant has been hounding us for year-end info to do tax estimates since November. But the holiday sales and personal obligations for the holidays have made that impossible. Having these past two weeks off from my day-job has been so nice and allowed me to catch up on many things.

I did inventory the night of December 31st. Lots of counting. And then on January 1st, I updated all accounts in QuickBooks. Now I need to send this information off to our accountant who will tell me how much to enter for amortization, depreciation, inventory adjustments, and stuff like that. After that, we'll have our profit numbers for this year. Currently the profit does not reflect some of those accounting adjustments. The amount of money we took out in owner distributions does not reflect profit in the accounting sense. If our profit was just the amount of money we took out, then we'd quit this never-ending exhausting entrepreneurial job. The accounting profit numbers would make us feel much better. Our growth and gross sales look great on paper. And our cash flow is very respectable. But for 3 years of hard work in addition to having demanding day-jobs, we'd certainly like to see more cash in our own pockets.

I think this coming year will finally make running this company financially worthwhile. Then we can cut back on our day-jobs and devote more time to building the company. We are quite conservative when it comes to money. We funded the company in the beginning with our own money. We don't have any outside investors, and we don't have any loans with the bank. We pay our credit card bills off every month. The company is our investment for our future, not a risk for our future. But because we have had to build it slowly with limited funds, it's been a long process.

This past holiday season sales haven't been too shabby. I think the economy is coming back. People are spending more in the discretionary category.

Mexico!

2010-01-04T20:04:00.000-05:00

You'd think that having been on all of the continents of the world including Antarctica, we would have already sent SleepPhones to all of the countries in North America. But alas, we are now finally sending our first shipment to Mexico! Yay!

Wearing SleepPhones

2010-01-04T14:49:00.001-05:00

I think I know what's in there! A nice picture of SleepPhones in action.