In The Beginning

This blog entry is really about the very beginning of Praps and has been the unwritten story, and yet very much told to the people I meet in person. Whenever I meet someone, like the people who respond to my Craigslist ads for help, I generally have a need to tell them the story about Praps.

So in the beginning there were those "feature phones" which pre-date the "smartphones". Back then the coolest thing about these phones was the ability to change out their back case covers for another color or design. I certainly thought it was cool enough to beginning thinking about what others things in life could benefit from a similar ability.

The one product that stuck out in my mind was the backpack. I thought how cool it could be to make my own backpack which could had changeable "faces", that is the back viewable part could be replaced with a different one. So I set out to make me such a backpack. I found some people who could make me some and I indeed had 3 different backpacks made. The common feature was that they all had detachable/replaceable components or the entire back face, which could be unzipped and another one rezipped.

It was kind of cool but there was a problem. I thought, what if people are already comfortable with their own backpack and don't want to buy a new backpack just for the sake of the replaceable features. They certainly would not want to go out and spend some money when they already like the pockets and feel of their existing backpack.

So my next thought was to think of a way to attach designs onto any backpack so the only thing for a consumer to buy would be the designs themselves. That thought process got me started looking at all the existing ways of attaching things. At the time I was looking for ways of attaching fabric designs onto backpacks and some time during that process I began thinking more about attaching photos.

Once I had decided that the replaceable designs should be just plain photo prints, I went on a journey of looking at the existing ways of holding photos in place but none seemed to readily combine that feature with the ability of attaching onto a backpack. And that's when I decided to build my own prototype of such a gadget.

My photo holder gadget was made out of a DVD plastic box with the see-through plastic sleeve serving the purpose of holding a photo. On the back of the box I put rubberbands and safety-pins and made it easy for a person to attach the box onto a backpack. It worked and got the job done, but it looked clunky and cheesy.

There were other disadvantages to my gadget. The see-through sleeve was scratchable and with time would become dull and the photo behind didn't look good anymore. The gadget would need to be mass-produced and mass-distributed. Perhaps the cost of patent protection would be added to the cost of the gadget. My gadget just didn't seem all that great.

Then the blow of death, so to speak, hit me. There would come a day when someone would think of a way to circumvent the use of my gadget by finding a way to do the same thing as my gadget with household items, a do-it-yourself kind of replacement. At that point my gadget would no longer be so popular as a free-way to do the same thing.

At that moment I wanted to be that person who thought of the way to beat my own gadget. I want to find a do-it-yourself way of taking a photo and attaching it onto a backpack. I was going to be the person who made my own gadget obsolete because if I didn't think of the way, someone else would eventually.

The years that followed that adventure, has resulted in praps. There is more to this story during that phase and I hope I can gather those thoughts to share with you. Perhaps I can whet your appetite by revealing that there are aspects about praps that became apparent to me during that phase. These will be forthcoming in future "versions" of praps. You see, praps are more versatile than I first realized.