We recently connected with Kali Gordon and have shared our conversation below.

Kali, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

As a meditator I began a regular seated practice around 2015, I was going through some big changes and realized the immense positive impact the practice of meditation was having on me. It wasn’t until 2017 that I felt a pull to really start a business of my own in the wellness space and focus on meditation and mindfulness and how I could bring it to others. As my background is in design and architecture, naturally I started to think of the products and spaces I used for my practice and what was lacking in the current market. I decided to get to work on a prototype of what is now our flagship product, the full meditation cushion set and I remember drawing sketches of the patterns and shapes of the product line during my lunch break at the architecture firm I was working at. It was my husband who mentioned that I should run a kickstarter campaign to bring the product to market and capture funding for the first round of production and this seemed like a great way to launch! We got to work on refining the product, telling the story and capturing video and photographs, our kickstarter campaign ended up being a success! With the help of social media and a landing page we were able to capture emails, followers and interest in the product and brand during the process. From this point I knew that the next missing piece was to find a local manufacturer that could help us make hundreds of the product so we could fulfill the kickstarter orders and launch the website soon after. At the time I was lucky enough to find someone in my network that recommended a great local manufacturer. With their help I was able to fulfill all our kickstarter orders on time, build out the production of our product line and launch our online website. Now it was time to take the momentum from launching a product into building our brand.

Kali, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My career passion has always involved solving problems through a design and creative thinking lens. This led me to obtain a Bachelors degree in Industrial and Visual Communications design, with a focus on sustainability and a Masters degree in Architecture with a focus on affordable housing, community architecture and multi-family residential. My life long personal drive for self improvement brought me to the practice of meditation and mindfulness around 2010 and eight years later after a move from Canada to San Francisco, these two passions collided in the development of project full.

Through mindful design, we have created a modern, 100% organic, sustainable and ethical product line of accessories and tools for the practice of meditation and mindfulness. We strive to provide beautiful, ethical and ergonomic products made locally in the Bay Area of the best raw materials possible sourced from all over the U.S.

We pride ourselves on putting people and the planet over profits and as such we have attracted and collaborated on some amazing partnerships through the years. You can find our products endorsed by the likes of Marie Kondo and goop and available through brands such as Anthropologie, Urban Outfitters and Free People.

What we are most proud of though is our non profit partnerships and give back programs. We have worked with BIPOC in the wellness space, low income public school students and rural Cambodian women to help bring mindfulness and meditation and the benefits of these practices to ALL people as we truly believe that a full life is one built on the foundation of meditation, mindfulness and awareness.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I feel that our brand loyalty has come from our biggest focus and priority : organic, sustainable and beautiful products! I really believe that because my mission and focus was to develop the very BEST products possible in the market, using the most organic / sustainable materials and using local, ethical production our products really stand out as not only modern and visually striking but of the highest quality.

Our aim was and has been to prioritize these aspects over making the least expensive product overseas ( like many ecomm brands these days ) and with great products, we have a very, very low return rate and have amazing, loyal and happy customers!

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

We made the decision very early on that we wanted to manufacture our products locally within the U.S and even more so within California. In the initial stages, I had learned how to sew and designed and prototyped all our products in my tiny San Francisco apartment. Once I had the products ready to go to market I canvased my network to find a manufacturer. At the time I was teaching architecture and design to public school students and a colleague of mine who taught fashion design had a connection to a new manufacturer in San Francisco.

It turns out this cut and sew manufacturer was also getting started up and she was willing to take on small minimums for our first production runs. We worked together to make the first samples for production while I sourced all the raw materials and notions and created the tech packs. It took a lot of trial and error and research to find these supplier sources and it turns out I’ve learned that this info is not readily shared among other entrepreneurs and almost kept a secret. After a couple years with this cut and sew manufacturer and fulfilling and shipping orders from my garage, I realized that we needed to find a manufacturer to scale with and that could also provide 3PL services ( warehousing, fulfillment and shipping ).

With a better idea of what I was looking for after a couple years in business – an internet search brought us to our current manufacturer who we love working with! I’ve learned that developing these relationships is the MOST important thing when you have a product based business. I’ve also learned that manufacturing locally is way more expensive than overseas, but totally worth it. During the pandemic with all the slow downs and supply chain issues our manufacturer was able to stay open and was just 50 miles away, in turn we were able to meet demand and had our best year in 2020.

We really need more businesses / entrepreneurs to see the value in manufacturing locally and support these local operations though, as they are really few and far between and many have had to shut down after the pandemic.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.projectfull.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/project.full/
• Other: Pinterest: @projectfull0219