It’s hard to believe that this year has nearly come to an end. And what a year it has been!
First off, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for being part of the Tripulse family, in whatever shape or form that may be - a customer, a partner, or simply a person who likes to follow us along. It’s YOU that makes my work with Tripulse so incredibly special and worth it.
I’d love to share some of my reflections of this year with you, including our main highlights, but also some of the main challenges we were facing. As much as I love talking about the positives, I think it’s also important for you to understand the sweat and obstacles that are a natural part of our journey in building the most sustainable, health-friendly, and ethical activewear brand. And I want to keep it real with you.
Main Milestones of 2022
Let’s start with the highlights and main milestones of this year:
- Our Tripulse family is steadily growing. We now have customers around the globe in nearly 50 different countries, ranging from Sweden, Germany all the way to the USA, Japan, Singapore, and Australia. And all that without a dime of investor money, simply through hard work, a dedicated team, and YOU who are supporting us, choosing Tripulse, and spreading the word. It means the world.
- We’re over the moon that you love our products. It’s not only the fact that they are sustainable and good for your bodies, but also that our activewear helps to relieve your skin allergies, prevents nasty smells, makes you feel strong and confident, and makes you want to wear it all day every day. We received 96% 5-star reviews. THANK YOU for all your great feedback and heartwarming emails.
- Through choosing Tripulse you helped to avoid releasing an average of 252,000 harmful microplastics into the water PER WEEK (that’s assuming you usually wash your activewear 3 times/week). You’re our hero!
- We launched the ZeroWaste Shop to offer you “perfectly imperfect” clothing the life and love they deserve instead of discarding or even burning them (as so many fashion brands unfortunately do!)
- We got Climate Neutral Recertified. Yes, we did it again and measured, offset, and reduced the CO2 emissions that are connected to all of Tripulse, not only our products. And we even offset more than what is required from us making us literally a Climate Positive brand.
- We finally could meet you physically! We were part of 3 big events in Sweden this year and did a few smaller physical pop-ups and events around Sweden - what a great way to connect to people and learn all about your preferences.
- Thanks to your purchases and on top of the reforestation work we do as part of our Climate Neutral Certification, we’ve planted nearly 500 trees with our partner organisation Onetreeplanted in the areas it matters most such as the Amazon or Indonesian rainforest to help protect biodiversity.
- We’ve donated 550 EUR to the Red Cross to support the people in Ukraine.
- We arranged our very first virtual race “5K Race for Breast Cancer Research & Awareness” - and thanks to your participation, we donated to the Swedish Breast Cancer Association.
- Tripulse activewear is now also sold in a physical store in Stockholm - the sustainable product store Green Little Heart - come check it out if you’re around.
- We partnered with amazing people and professional athletes that support us in our new product development, amongst others athletes from the Swedish floorball and soccer national teams.
Let’s Talk Challenges
As much as I’m enthusiastic about all these great results, navigating through this year as the founder and CEO of Tripulse has not been easy. As you might imagine, the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the after-effect of the pandemic, and the energy crisis also left its mark on us.
As a company that makes clothing we’re working tightly with our European partners who develop our carefully selected materials and who are making our activewear. But due to these external events, availability of materials is generally more challenging and costs of materials and production are much higher than they used to be (at times more than 100%!). This means that materials and production of new products we planned to launch this year were hugely delayed and we had to move it to next year.
At the same time, and understandably so, we notice that people in general become much more cautious about purchasing things (which we of course are all up for), but at the same time we saw an even bigger tendency of choosing “cheap and fast” products over those that are fairly and responsibly made and that come with a slightly higher price tag. This trend is of course not only affecting us, but also our peers in the “sustainable & ethical products” segment, and beyond - and we’ve seen many businesses having to go “out of business” because of this.
My Hope for the (Near) Future
While I know for some people this could be a big ask, my hope is that in these difficult times we will unite even more, continue to “vote with our wallets” and support those (small) businesses that truly and authentically create positive change in the world.
My wish is that we adopt the “buy less but better” principle and start regarding truly sustainable products with a higher price tag as an investment not only in our personal and environmental health, but also in future generations and in a new era of responsible businesses.
Instead of buying “fast and cheap” let’s instead choose to buy responsibly of the “slow and good”. And instead of purely consuming, let’s rediscover the joy of “DIY” (do-it-yourself), repairing, re-using, and caring about things like our grandparents did.
So that in the end of this crisis and recession we’ll still be blessed with an abundance of creative impactful small businesses and won’t only be left with those big corporations that base their business model on “fast and cheap” at the expense of the wellbeing of people, our health and our home planet.
This is a call to action and a reminder to all of us, including myself, that we all have the power in our hands and can choose to make conscious decisions every day. Let’s be part of the solution and co-create the future we all want to have.
Outlook for 2023
With all that, I feel blessed to be able to do what I do in a time where we so urgently need action NOW, and where we still have the power to turn things around and can create the future we want.
I’m excited for new Tripulse product launches that are based on our community’s wishes and feedback, and for continuing to innovate with making Tripulse the most sustainable, health-friendly, and beloved activewear brand. There’s a lot on our agenda for 2023, and we’ll for sure keep you posted on all the exciting things that we have in store.
THANK YOU again for being part of our community - without you we wouldn’t be able to create meaningful change.
With love,
Franziska (founder of Tripulse)
P.S.: And for you who read this post all the way to the end - you are my star, thanks for your time and ear :)
And if you’d like to stay informed of all the exciting things coming up in 2023, sign up to the Tripulse newsletter here. And if you’d like to get a bit more involved with us, sign up to our Tripulse Tribe partner program here.
