It was wild going back to Swinburne the birth place of so many Ichpig ideas. People don't realise but Ichpig was actually the core thesis topic for my honours degree I completed in Industrial Design, the question "How does Ichpig create a cult like following?" being my main question. So many things came from that course and sketch book I had for those 2 years. Was confronting reliving all the memories that fed into what IP has become.
Anyways the talk was focused around some of the main points that I had learnt so far as a young businessman. The first point we discussed and probably one of Ichpig's main focusses was point of difference. The concept of not just putting another hood or tee into the world is probably one of our core beliefs. Every single thing we put out has a message and greater meaning behind it. Relentless progression fuelled by hunger and you can build a business that is successful that doesn't rely on the exploitation of 3rd world manufacturing! Even one of our oldest product's the Anorak Hood is slightly different to your average hood.
Another point we talked about was hunger. I discussed how I was never the most talented student (Alex has always been the brilliant one here) I was ok at sketching, rendering and form design. But the one thing I always was exceptional at was out working people, whether that was thinking through an idea or going the extra mile with my practical experiments. One time we had this prac about creating a system focused around user interaction. Anyways I basically went on a tram and stuck these piece of paper with a pen attached underneath. The paper had in the middle "Once a upon a time..." And people would basically come up and start writing and adding to the story. I sat on the tram all day just watching what people did with it. I even watch some peanut come on the tram, look at the paper and say "This is fucking lame" and tear it down. All the while I was just sitting there watching hahahaha.
Some of the other points I talked about were the need to control all aspects of your business from conception of idea right through to the dispatch of the final purchased product to the customer.
It's been amazing creating this community so far and now being able to employ more and more customers and friends is truly humbling! I just want this thing to get bigger so we can give more heads opportunities. At the moment we are actually trying to fill a design assistant role for Alex which has been super exciting.
But ae, thanks for your time in reading this if you have made it this far! I promise to try and do more of this at some stage :)
Much Love
Jez
