c o l t r

Upgrade

admin — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 21:46:52 +0000

I’m excited to say that we’re moving the headquarters to a bigger and better location this Thursday.

This all began out of my parents attic, with the business I started when I was 17. Soon my Dad allowed me to move into his shop and occupy a small corner. Next my Wife and I moved houses…2 hours away… which meant a super tiny downgrade to my In-laws garage.

Luckily some family friends soon offered their single car garage…which the company outgrew before I even moved in.
Next my Father-in-law connected me with someone who had a series of empty buildings…in the ghetto. The cashier right next door had been shot in the head a year earlier; it was freaky at night. The owner wanted me there just so the crooks who were breaking in and stripping out the pipes for copper would know it was occupied and hopefully stop. It was huge, and free (except for the exchange of labor) so I accepted.

After about 9 months on South 9th I was finally able to afford an 800 sq ft shop for $220 a month (and went up to $400 over the next year). We started to grow and soon took a neighboring space as well…which was two doors down. This means constantly walking back and forth between the office and the warehouse.

After 8 years: we’re bursting at the seams. It’s time to upgrade.

Goalpost

admin — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 16:57:16 +0000

I’m working on an app with my friend Benny, an amazing designer & thinker, out in SF, and we are calling it Goalpost. It started out as an extremely simple php project I wrote so that I could post my goals online and keep them handy for viewing. I began using it right away, and all the time, posting my small, medium, large, and “impossible” goals, dreams, and wants. After a week or so I cleaned it up and showed it to Benny.

He start texting me like crazy (a fairly often occurrence) saying it reminded him of an idea he had about learning how to become like other successful individuals, I told him I know, his idea had partially inspired mine . Long text(s) short: we decided to turn it into an app; and so he proceeded to drive 2 hours from SF to the central valley. We worked from 7pm to 4am in the morning and thanks to that sprint we had a much better looking version and a new name: Goalpost (prior to that I was just calling it Coltr).

Then we tried to wrap it with Phonegap so we could deploy and quickly realized we (I) had done it wrong…so over the next few months I slowly began to rebuild the back end in my spare time.

Today is September 9th and I’m currently on Bart headed towards the Mission to meet Benny and wrap-up (or at least get extremely close to finishing) Goalpost. We are launching the most simple version possible. Even if no one else uses it, I don’t care, this has been fun.

John Doerr @ Stanford

admin — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 18:31:14 +0000

Here’s John Doerr speaking with two KP associates. I admire their company priorities (I’m paraphrasing):

1. Family
2. Team Members
3. Portfolio
4. New Ventures
5. Giving Back

I also appreciated that he covered the importance of being a missionary company rather than a mercenary company. I wholeheartedly agree that passion and purpose are necessary ingredients in companies, otherwise what’s the point?

INTJforum

admin — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 18:58:06 +0000

Ever since a friend reintroduced me to the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator I have been obsessed with it. I am an INTJ or “Mastermind Type” which I am okay with . The type supposedly only makes up 1-2% of the population, which makes the task of finding fellow INTJs in the real world kind of hard (although both my wife and father-in-law are INTJs).

I’m glad that I found INTJforum; the site is full of fascinating topics (imo — and who’s else is there, it’s my blog ). I mostly just lurk and absorb as much information as I can, which I hear is very characteristic of me .

So if you haven’t already, take the test (although this one appears to just be based on the MBTI) and visit the forums, whatever your type may be.

When

admin — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 18:38:58 +0000

Here is a short poem I wrote last October.

When

When will the dreaming cease to be dreaming alone.

When will action spring from these bones.

When will words, now carelessly spoken

Begin to be words that are carefully chosen.

When will my thoughts, lowly and undirected,

Begin to be focused, calm, and collected.

When will my wants give way to my needs.

When will life’s lessons, begin I, to heed.

Johnny Cupcakes

admin — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 22:34:18 +0000

I mentioned that I like independents as well as brands with cult followings. Johnny Cupcakes is the epitome of both. He built his apparel brand from the ground up and without the help of wholesale distribution; his products are only available through him. This level of control allows him (and his team) to carefully create their customer experience. The amount of detail that goes into the packaging, let alone the clothing, testifies to the fact that Johnny has build something special. Read his story here.

Addy.co

admin — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 20:17:05 +0000

I would invest in Addy.
This is a start-up that turns your street address into a tiny link.

As someone that deals with shipping (USPS, PayPal, Fed Ex, and UPS) 4-5 times a week, I see this as a huge opportunity.

Instead of filling out forms with 20 fields (First Name, Last Name, Street Address Line 1, Line 2, City, State, Zip, Phone etc). What if these shipping companies accepted Addy url’s? What if when I was going to ship an item to someone with an even-more-complicated-international-address I could just type/write To: addy.co/john.doe | From: addy.co/colter. That would be amazing.

What if instead of texing someone a long address you could just send them an addy url?

What if when I moved to a new address I could just log on to addy.co and change my address immediately, instead of going through USPSs ridiculous paper/time wasting channels?

That would be amazing.

Hello world!

admin — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 20:08:14 +0000

Hey there, my name is Colter Bergh and this is my next attempt at blogging. I am a 24 year old founder, failure, & success. I started my first company when I was 17, and I funded it by selling my car (a gift from my grandparents [Bestemor & Bestefar] [ Norwegian]) and buying a bunch of silk screening equipment online. I started designing and screen printing out of my attic in 2004 and haven’t looked back since (sort of). I now run Mass Reserve – a start-up that co-founds and manages apparel brands for artists — among various other projects.

My interests lay in:

My wife Casey, my daughter Charlie (4), and my son Gunnar (1).

Observing & building brands with cult followings.

Streetwear + independent clothing companies.

The internet: development (php/mysql + html/css) + tech startups.

Investing

Human life-extension, the singularity, immortality.

Philosophy

Building something from nothing.

Changing the world.

Zen+ Wisdom

I will document more of my interests in this here blog.

Peace and thanks.