What a year it has been!
Looking back at the past 365 days, I'm closing this year with a big smile and a deep feeling of gratitude.
First of all, THANK YOU our dear community for being with us, for supporting us, and for sharing our mission in the world. It is because of YOU that Tripulse can exist and bring our vision to this world. Our Tripulse family is growing around the globe and it makes me so happy that Tripulse activewear is now worn in over 50 countries - from Stockholm to LA, from Japan to Singapore, in the heat and in the cold.
2023 was a tough year for us for many reasons, but we managed to stay strong and started into 2023 with our heads held high and an optimistic mindset - ultimately nearly tripling our impact compared to last year.
I want to share a few of the main highlights with you, but also some “behind-the-scenes” and challenges we faced.
Let’s start with the positive stuff.
Main highlights and impact in 2023:
- We launched the Pro leggings which so many of you have asked us for.
- We pre-launched our very first “next gen sports bra” via a Kickstarter campaign and even smashed our funding goal thank you YOU, our dear community.
- We upgraded our Original leggings and Tshirts to versions 2.0 - all improvements based on your valuable user feedback.
- We learned from many of our customers that they have now replaced their synthetic activewear with Tripulse completely and have overall reduced their activewear pieces - in fact, many of you LIVE in Tripulse gear. Which means a big reduction of microplastic pollution, harmful chemical exposure, and overall less clothing purchase. AMAZING!
- We planted 1000 trees with NGO Onetreeplanted - which we do for every product we have sold and the reviews we receive from you. We planted these around the world in the places it matters most, including the Amazon rainforest, protecting endangered species and biodiversity by increasing forest cover and flora and fauna diversity, restoring mangroves, reforesting lands impacted by forest fires in Canada, and restoring native woodlands in Europe. Isn’t that cool? All this we did thanks to you:).
- We got Climate Neutral Recertified - meaning we measured, compensated and reduced our CO2 emission. We offset them by investing in nature-based climate solutions such as avoiding deforestation and educating local communities to protect and restore critical ecosystems.
- Sharing is caring: We contributed as co-author to the recently published book "Circular Economy: New Solutions for a Better Tomorrow“ with Tripulse as a case study.
- We visited our wonderful material and manufacturing partners in Portugal, meeting them in real life and deepened our relationships.
- We had some cool IRL events, fairs and pop-ups - getting the chance to meet so many amazing people in person, giving you the chance to experience Tripulse first-hand and doing an empowering dance event with our friend Marica from Flowandglow Dance in Stockholm. Nothing beats real human connections and we love to do more of these going forward.
- We've build a group of some pretty cool mentors and advisors on board which help us SO much in building the Tripulse brand and (hopefully) helps us avoid too many mistakes:).
- We got amazing angel investors on board that genuinely share our mission and want to help us grow and “spread our wings”. I feel deeply humbled and thankful for their trust and belief in us - it is fantastic to now have a bigger team that helps us create a bigger impact.
- We got wonderful Christie as our social media manager on board - she is a gem and we’re so happy to have her in the team.
Main challenges and lessons learned
Okay, now let’s talk about some of the challenges we faced - and what we learned from them:
- An ongoing recession and global economic and political instabilities lead many people to revert back to buying cheap and not prioritising sustainable and ethical alternatives. This simply taught me that we need to do an even better job in sharing the true value of our products, why “less is more” and being ultra-transparent about our pricing and sharing more what it means to buy cheap. I created a long blog post about this topic.
- One of my biggest motivations with Tripulse is to show that truly sustainable and ethical business is good business. We can’t wait for governments to do positive changes for us - we simply have no time. While Tripulse has been going strong this year, I have witnessed a number of small (and sustainable) businesses shutting down due to a significant decline in customers and lack of resources. At the same time many unethical businesses are growing, oftentimes using greenwashing and unwholesome marketing tactics to lure people to buy into their (fast fashion) dream, pretending that our planet can afford this overproduction and -consumption. Seeing this happening around me truly saddens me. On the flipside, however, it teaches me that we need to do yet a better job in making people understand what it means to choose “cheap and fast” and to see the true value that exists in products that are fairly made and where nature and people are not treated as a mere resource to be exploited, but are actually given a fair value which is represented in the price tag. Change is painful, change takes a long time, but I believe there is no other option. We simply can’t do business as usual any longer. And we need a revolution of customers who no longer support unethical and planet-damaging businesses.
And yes, there is a silver lining
I have understood from day 1 when we launched Tripulse that challenges are a natural part of building a business: We launched in the pandemic, followed by a huge energy and supply chain crisis, two wars, and a major recession. And surely all of them impacted every single human being on this planet significantly - ultimately also impacting us, and shaking us every time.
I share this for you to get a realistic look behind the scenes on what it means for small (and sustainable) businesses trying to establish themselves and do good in this world. And to empower you that your actions do matter.
This year taught me once again that a big vision and purpose, a positive outlook, a flexible mindset, and resilience are incredibly important to be able to survive, and thrive, in this world.
It is about getting up every time we fall, to reflect on our failures, and to do things better the next time. It does not help to find excuses or blame the unfair or unjust situation, or the bad guys, and to become complacent.
It’s about staying agile and nimble, to do things even better than the best, and to keep on moving towards our northern star, not to be distracted and discouraged by all these challenges. It’s the most helpful to see these obstacles as a tool, a gym equipment, that trains our resilience "muscle” and helps us get stronger over time.
By doing what we feel is right and ploughing our way towards a better world, we can hopefully inspire others to follow suit. Taking action is empowering. If we all do something good and stay true to our values and realize that in fact we are all one, sharing one precious home together, the world will be a much better place already.
Closing this up, I want to ask you - what will you take action on in 2024 that aligns with your values and helps our shared home called Earth regenerate? Let's all do something and let our actions inspire others to follow suit.
Wishing you all much health and happiness - let’s make 2024 a year of positive action, and a step closer to a more sustainable, healthy and active planet.
Much love,
Franziska (founder)
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