Starting a product-based business is a beautiful experience.
You come up with an idea. You convince yourself it is brilliant. You spend countless hours researching, designing, planning and talking about it to anyone who stands still long enough.
Then, eventually, you do the scariest thing of all:
You spend real money.
Then You Spend the Money
Not pretend money. Not “I’ll put it in the budget next month” money. I mean actual, hard-earned, could-have-been-used-for-something-responsible money.
I could have bought a heater for my pool. I could have taken several vacations. I could have renovated something, paid down some bills or simply left the money sitting peacefully in my bank account where it was safe and minding its business.
Instead, I bought hundreds of pieces of luggage.
Because apparently, I looked around my house one day and thought, “You know what this place needs? Inventory.”
At the time, it felt like a brilliant investment. I was not just buying bags—I was investing in my dream, building a brand and preparing for all the orders that were definitely going to start rolling in immediately.
And some orders did roll in.
The rest of the bags rolled directly into my house, where they unpacked nothing, made themselves comfortable and have been living rent-free ever since.
The Part Nobody Puts in the Business Plan
When you imagine launching a product, you picture orders coming in, boxes going out and customers telling everyone how much they love what you created.
You do not picture yourself walking past the same boxes every day while whispering:
“Your people are coming. I promise.”
Yet here we are.
The luggage collapses flat. The inventory boxes? Not so much.
COLLAPSO® was designed to help customers save space while simultaneously eliminating all the space in my own home.
Some people have a room with a sofa and a television. I have a fulfillment center that happens to have a sofa and a television in it.
At this point, the bags do not live with me. I live with them.
Every entrepreneur talks about passive income. Right now, I have passive inventory. It sits quietly, asks for nothing and watches me walk by several times a day.
I have considered charging the bags rent, but since I already paid for them, that somehow feels like I would still be paying myself.
“Build It and They Will Come” Left Out Some Important Details
I truly believed that once people saw the bags, the product would speak for itself.
And it does.
Unfortunately, products cannot create social media posts, run advertisements, answer emails, pack orders, build wholesale relationships or explain to strangers why they absolutely need collapsible luggage.
Apparently, I have to do all of that.
Who knew?
Creating a great product is only one part of building a product business. You also have to teach people that the product exists, show them why it matters and earn their trust—one customer, video, email and awkward sales conversation at a time.
Some days, I feel like a confident CEO.
Other days, I stare at my inventory and wonder whether I started a luggage company or opened an unpaid storage facility.
Believing in Yourself When the Boxes Are Still There
This is where entrepreneurship gets real.
It is easy to believe in your idea when everyone is excited, the launch is new and your friends are telling you how proud they are. It is much harder when the initial excitement settles down, sales are slower than you expected and the boxes are still sitting exactly where they were yesterday.
That is when doubt starts asking questions.
Did I order too much?
Did I move too fast?
What if people do not understand the product?
What if I risked all of this for nothing?
Then I remember why I started.
I created COLLAPSO® because traditional luggage takes up entirely too much space when it is not being used. I wanted travelers to have a sturdy, stylish bag that could hold what they needed, roll smoothly through the airport and then collapse for easy storage when the trip was over.
The problem was real when I started, and it is still real today.
A slow season does not make the idea bad. A house full of inventory does not mean the dream failed. It means I am standing in the uncomfortable space between creating something and getting it into the hands of the people who need it.
The Trials, the Tribulations and the TSA Locks
Building this business has tested my patience, confidence and ability to look at a stack of boxes without becoming personally offended.
I have learned that entrepreneurship is not one giant leap of faith. It is a series of smaller decisions to keep going.
Send another email.
Create another post.
Follow up with another organization.
Try another partnership.
Tell the story one more time.
And yes, pack another order—even if it is not as many as you hoped to pack that day.
Every time an order comes in, I celebrate twice—once because someone believes in my product and again because one more bag has finally moved out.
Every bag that leaves my house reminds me that someone saw the vision. Someone trusted the product. Someone decided that their next trip would be better with something I created.
That matters.
The Dream Is Still Very Much Alive
Would I love for all this inventory to disappear from my house immediately?
Absolutely.
I want these bags traveling, not sitting around holding family meetings in my fulfillment center.
But I still believe in COLLAPSO®. More importantly, I still believe in myself.
Starting a product business requires a strange combination of courage, patience and just enough delusion to believe you can turn an idea into something real. You have to keep believing before the sales numbers, customer reviews and overflowing order notifications give you permission to.
So, yes, the boxes are still here.
But so is the vision.
So is the product.
And so am I—still learning, still laughing, still taking risks and still determined to see just how far this idea can travel.
If you would like to help one of these bags finally move out of my house and see the world, visit CollapsoByXan.com.
Trust me—it is packed and ready to go.
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