Reflecting on 5 weeks in Guangzhou - Part 1

Tomorrow I fly home to Sydney after spending 5 weeks in Guangzhou China. That got me reflecting on my time here and this is Part 1 of my thoughts.

I arrived here 5 days after we launched Shoes of Prey and when I think through everything that's happened in that time it feels like 6 months rather than 5 weeks. In addition to being in another part of the world it feels like I've been in a time warp.

Here's some of what's happened:

• We've had some great press with the highlights being spots in Marie Claire, QWeekend Magazine and, judging by the traffic that followed, a popular Auckland morning radio show.
• We've had some amazing feedback and learnt a lot from our customers which will direct our work over the coming weeks.
• We've had days of strong sales and days of 0 sales.
• We've set things up to start working with a second supplier.
• We've spent 5 days at the Canton Fair and explored a whole range of new, potential products for future businesses.
• We've experimented with offline sales at the Bondi Markets and Sydney Fashion Weekend.
• We've hired Vanessa, our first full time employee.

And biggest of all, we've gone from being unsure of whether our 9 months of work to launch Shoes of Prey would bear fruit to realising that while there is a lot of work ahead of us, the business is looking promising and we're confident we can make it work.