Giantnerd®

Refer-A-Nerd

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 11:54:00 -0600

We have an exciting announcement to make. Our members have been asking for a referral program and after putting our nerdy heads together we delivered. On behalf of the entire Nerd Herd we are proud to present REFER-A-NERD.

How does It work you ask? Well, kindly let me tell you :)

For each friend you invite, Giantnerd will credit your account with $15 Nerd Dollars after your friend’s first purchase has shipped. There is no limit to the amount you can earn.

REFER-A-NERD can be found once you login on the right side of the header.

Sharing is the new black now go on and Spread the Love!

With Love,

Lewis

“My Job Is To Not Be Easy On People. My job Is to Make Them Better.”

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 20:26:00 -0600

Steve Jobs you are an inspiration, a genius of our time, a user experience savant. Your passion, brilliance, and innovation will be missed

Some of our favorite Steve Jobs quotes:

I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non successful ones is pure perseverance.”

“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.

“In most people’s vocabularies, design means veneer. It’s interior decorating. It’s the fabric of the curtains of the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service.

“I’m the only person I know that’s lost a quarter of a billion dollars in one year…. It’s very character-building.”

“My job is to not be easy on people. My job is to make them better.”

“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.

“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”

“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.

“When I hire somebody really senior, competence is the ante. They have to be really smart. But the real issue for me is, Are they going to fall in love with Apple? Because if they fall in love with Apple, everything else will take care of itself.

They’ll want to do what’s best for Apple, not what’s best for them, what’s best for Steve, or anybody else. (this actually reiterates my oft-repeated mantra of “ubiquitous evangelism” in companies)”

“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.”

“Recruiting is hard. It’s just finding the needles in the haystack. You can’t know enough in a one-hour interview.

So, in the end, it’s ultimately based on your gut. How do I feel about this person? What are they like when they’re challenged? I ask everybody that: ‘Why are you here?’ The answers themselves are not what you’re looking for. It’s the meta-data.”

But innovation comes from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30 at night with a new idea, or because they realized something that shoots holes in how we’ve been thinking about a problem. It’s ad hoc meetings of six people called by someone who thinks he has figured out the coolest new thing ever and who wants to know what other people think of his idea.

“Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it’s really how it works. The design of the Mac wasn’t what it looked like, although that was part of it. Primarily, it was how it worked. To design something really well, you have to get it. You have to really grok what it’s all about. It takes a passionate commitment to really thoroughly understand something, chew it up, not just quickly swallow it. Most people don’t take the time to do that.

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.

“That’s been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”

“Picasso had a saying: ‘Good artists copy, great artists steal.’ We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas…I think part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians, poets, artists, zoologists and historians who also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world.”

“[Y]ou can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

“My model for business is The Beatles. They were four guys who kept each other’s kind of negative tendencies in check. They balanced each other and the total was greater than the sum of the parts. That’s how I see business: great things in business are never done by one person, they’re done by a team of people.”

“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”

“Stay hungry. Stay foolish.”

With Love,

The Head Nerd

Randall Weidberg

@GiantnerdCEO

Giantnerd is Powered by LOVE!

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 10:30:00 -0700

Our mission at Giantnerd is to be the web’s best outdoor social shopping community and we have received a number of prestigious press mentions for Giantnerd’s progressive and innovative social commerce platform. It seems as if Giantnerd has been consistently “in the news” since we launched into beta earlier this year. Mashable, Facebook, and Techrunch to name a few have all reported postively on Giantnerd Social Shopping.

Just yesterday we were honored to be featured in a major business magazine. Entrepreneur Magazine listed my top 5 Twitter feeds to follow to stay on top of new and emerging trends in e-commerce. If you use twitter like I do this list is pretty invaluable.

In a relatively short amount of time Giantnerd continues to exceed expectations for disrupting the large retail market for outdoor sporting goods by integrating social networking with ecommerce best practices. Here is a big Powered by LOVE thanks for the loyalty and support of the Giantnerd Members, The Nerd Herd, and our strategic brand partners. As it is written in our founding description, “Giantnerd is a coalition of product-savvy members, passionate vendors, and a small group of caring employees dedicated to serving the needs of the Giantnerd social shopping community.” We wouldn’t have experienced the success and growth without your Love and we are forever grateful!

Now for the fun stuff. We couldn’t be more excited, driven, and hungry to continue to enhance the Giantnerd platform and our members experience in 2011. We have a laundry list of exciting new features and partnerships we will proudly unveil in the upcoming year. Think more social integrations, more ways to engage and interact, and more of the world’s best outdoor gear. Our 14 core values have served The Nerd Herd well allowing for cooperative progress revolving around the best interest of our members. The Nerd Herd is passionate, determined, and nothing short of obsessive to deliver a fun and rewarding social shopping experience. Happy Holidays and Happy New Year. Here is to a Giant and Nerdy 2011 Powered by LOVE!

With Love,

The Head Nerd

Randall Weidberg

@GiantnerdCEO

Let It Be A Nerdy Holiday

Thu, 18 Nov 2010 09:32:00 -0700

We love the holidays at Giantnerd®. Maybe it is the way the Giantnerd HQ’s in Boulder looks covered in snow, or the festive mood everyone has but something about the holidays gets us going. There isn’t a better time of year to be Powered by Love :)

We only represent products we believe in and a testament to that is how much The Nerd Herd’s holiday shopping lists (and personal gear closets) are filled with the products we represent.

Right now we have promotions on all of our Patagonia and Marmot gear. We also have promotions running on our Smith goggles and helmets to please the skiers and snowboarders on your list.

The biggest addition to our holiday offering for our members is a brand new one-deal-at-a-time website called NerdyRevenge. If you want to take revenge on full price come check it out. At NerdyRevenge you will find amazing last-call deals on some of our best inventory, from fully-assembled bikes to gear and accessories. Just keep in mind, when we say last call… we mean it!

We are really excited for the holidays this year and are happy to assist any nerds out there who need gear recommendations. Be sure to stay updated on NerdyRevenge with text updates and/or email updates. Also be sure to check back on Giantnerd for Black November, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and other promotions we will be running up until Christmas day.

As always we want to send our love to all of our members. Thanks again for being part of the Giantnerd community.

With Love,

@jefflesser

Wikinerdia - Sharing Information Is Vital

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 17:25:00 -0600

One of the unique benefits of Giantnerd is the ability for members to share their expert knowledge of outdoor sports with a community of like minded nerds. Giantnerd Core Value #4: Open,Honest, Communication Is Vital talks to the importance of sharing information in a transparent environment. The more knowledge members share, the more informed the community becomes. Ultimately Giantnerd acts as a guide for making smart educated decisions.

A favorite Giantnerd feature of mine is Wikinerdia. Wikinerdia is a resource offered by Giantnerd in an effort to help build a community where everyone can share knowledge in an open and honest way about products, brands, and terminology. This is a call out to all nerds in the know; help out the less experienced adventurers, pass your knowledge on or it will be lost forever! Add to it and make edits as you see fit. As with everywhere else on Giantnerd, your collaboration will shape the way members treat and view products, categories, and the outdoor lifestyle—it’s critical to making the Giantnerd community the best shopping site on the social web!

Giantnerd is a community of people who are all deeply engaged in the outdoor sports world. Every member has a voice; and at Giantnerd, every member is given the tools and the platform to express his or her nerdiness as loudly as they want! So help build the Wikinerdia and experience the true power of teamwork. Your participation will not be forgotten.

With Love,

The Head Nerd

Randall Weidberg

@GiantnerdCEO

Fast and Effective Is Sometimes Preferable to Perfection

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 21:43:00 -0600

At Giantnerd we are constantly innovating to improve our member experience and deliver our nerds progressive developments ahead of the competition.

Giantnerd Core Value # 11: Fast and Effective Is Sometimes Preferable to Perfection: While it is an undying dream to achieve perfection in everything we do, the people at Giantnerd know that to be perfect is impossible. To be first to market on a new innovative idea, however, is perfectly within our grasp. Giantnerd works in an agile development process. Everything that we do at Giantnerd is done to the highest standard and must be done with the discipline to surpass our competition. Sometimes this means being fast, effective, and first instead of being perfect.

The Nerd Herd has been working double time and we are proud to announce the recent launch of new and exciting features. We completely revamped our item page to make it more intuitive, friendly and feature rich. Highlights include: enhancing the social section “the social wall”, better video display, improved nerd recommendation zones, and implementing the first phase of Facebook social plugins. Big shout out to our friends at Facebook for their continued assistance and support.

With Love,

The Head Nerd

Randall Weidberg

@GiantnerdCEO

We Control Our Own Destiny

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 22:43:00 -0600

It’s not easy in this day and age of uber competition to lead a company with the #1 Core Value of Powered by LOVE. You can’t sit on the sidelines or be out the door at 5 or 6 or even 8pm. You need to successfully guide a team of dedicated and smart individuals who embody, believe sincerely in, and execute day in and day out the core values that make Giantnerd best in class. I take pride in our core values and try to lead by example with a hands on approach.

The reality is that no CEO or Head Nerd can do it on her own. She must have faith and trust in the team to execute and be accountable each day, each hour, and on each decision made to reflect the spirit of the mission statement. It takes true sacrifice by the Nerd HERD to ensure Giantnerd is the leader in online social shopping and making our member experience a memorable one Powered by LOVE.

Sometimes late at night I reflect on how far we have come and how much further we plan on going and I couldn’t imagine doing it with any other group of Nerds. At the end of the day, we control our own destiny and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Giantnerd Core Value #6 We Control Our Own Destiny: We will be faced with many challenges. It’s how we overcome these obstacles that are important. We are accountable and take ownership for all things Gianternd® and act accordingly with our solutions. We understand that when we collectively put our heads together we can solidify our success. Accountability and responsibility among our team, both individually and collectively, will lead us to great things. As a company, we’ll never run out of ways to improve—mostly because we’ll never run out of problems that need solving. And in that lies the inherent beauty of what we do: in a world of unlimited challenges, we have an unlimited list of successes that await us.

With Love,

The Head Nerd

Randall Weidberg

@GiantnerdCEO

Open & Honest Communication Is Vital!

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 20:05:00 -0600

Open, Honest, Communication Is Vital: Sharing information is vital; and for Giantnerd®, the ability to reciprocate productive criticism is critical for improvement. Open, honest communication is a catalyst for continual improvement, which means the more of it, the better.

We always confront and discuss the brutal facts head on and communicate open and honestly about what needs to be done to ensure Giantnerd’s® success. The atmosphere in which we operate is reliant on understanding, collaboration and consistent success; and the relationships that emerge internally between ourselves and members are the kind that, when built on open communication, will last a lifetime.

With Love,

The Head Nerd

Randall Weidberg

@GiantnerdCEO

Periodic Table of Giantnerds

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 19:35:00 -0600

At Giantnerd we are constantly discovering and experimenting with new and better ways to enhance our members experience. Our members mean the world to us. In order celebrate our members and keep our Core Value #8 front and center, we developed a Giantnerd periodic element. Hey, its also super Nerdy to do something like this which always makes it a priority over here at Giantnerd :)

Giantnerd Core Value #8 - We Are Explorers: Part of working at Giantnerd® is abandoning traditional process and thinking outside the box. We are listeners; we are risk-takers. We make creativity a passionate pursuit—no matter where we are at the present, we can always take our innovations and our ingenuity further.

We aren’t afraid to experiment with new technologies and practices—the difference between us and our competition is a strong sense of our evolving abilities, and sound measurement of how to adjust our course based on our results. We are constantly evolving as explorers and with innovation and progression and risk comes mistakes.

We celebrate our mistakes, learn from them make the necessary adjustments to our course, and make a promise as a Giantnerd® not to repeat them. Not more than a decade ago, selling outdoor equipment online—and ecommerce in general—might have seemed crazy. But now, a shared sense of adventure gives us the ability to innovate and create new ways of social shopping to become an integral part of outdoor sports culture. Giantnerd® is designed to cultivate imaginative, unconventional thinking; it is critical that we immerse ourselves passionately in this practice at all times.

With Love,

The Head Nerd

Randall Weidberg

@GiantnerdCEO

LOVE For the Giantnerd Community

Sun, 13 Jun 2010 09:34:00 -0600

New Giantnerd icons representing our love and commitment to the Giantnerd member community.

Community may be the most important word on this site. Because when we talk about community, we’re talking about the nuts and bolts of the whole operation.

The community determines which products we sell: if demand for a certain item becomes overwhelming, we’ll find it and make it available at the best price anywhere. The community helps design the evolving look and feel of the site itself: if something needs to be adjusted, it’s because you said so. And the community drives innovation across every arena of outdoor sports imaginable through collaboration and ideation among peers, with help from members of the Giantnerd® HERD team.

This is a community of people who are all deeply engaged in the outdoor sports world. Every member has a voice; and at Giantnerd®, every member is given the tools and the platform to express his or her nerdiness as loudly as they want! So join the community and experience the true power of teamwork. Your participation will not be forgotten.

In order below: Powered by love, 365 Day Returns, and Nerd Dollars.

Continuous Improvement Is Better Than Delayed Perfection

Mon, 24 May 2010 12:00:00 -0600

I just watched a live presentation from Threadless CEO Founder Jake Nickell. Jake leads his company out of the great city and Giantnerd HQ’s of Boulder, CO. I am impressed with Jake as an innovator and happen to be a big fan of Threadless!

After watching Jake, I did a little due diligence and found his personal blog. His most recent blog post parallels the Giantnerd philosophy of incremental development changes to our platform. Jake starts off his post by quoting Mark Twain. “Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.” Jake goes on to say:

“We are working in short intervals on small chunks of things really quickly…like a few days or a couple of weeks max. After each chunk, we hope to be able to launch whatever the things is we are working on…It’s a fun way to work and in the end, i think you end up with something even better as it is a constantly evolving work in progress rather than something you go into a vacuum on for a few months and hope it works when you launch it.”

In essence, Threadless and Giantnerd are making small changes quickly rather than large changes slowly. In the end, we feel our members benefit from a platform and company that is continuously improving with timely enhancements making for a better overall member experience.

With Love,

The Head Nerd

Randall Weidberg

@GiantnerdCEO

Giantnerd in The Denver Egotist

Fri, 14 May 2010 11:42:00 -0600

Giantnerd is featured today on the Denver Egotist homepage. The Denver Egotist does a great service to the Colorado creative community. As the trusted creative resource from Colorado, the Denver Egotist features progressive work, talent, resources, and events. Denver/Boulder has some amazing talent and we are honored to be featured.

Giantnerd Featured in Entrepreneur Magazine

Thu, 06 May 2010 12:56:00 -0600

Its always nice to get positive press and publicity. I don’t think anyone will deny that. Giantnerd recently had the honor of being featured in Entrepreneur Magazine. As the visionary of Giantnerd, I personally try not to let it effect me much and I continue to push forward according to our 14 Core Values with the same hard work and never settle approach for our members each and every day.

Besides the positive effect of the additional publicity and traffic to the site, press can be especially important to your staff. I am for example, extremely grateful to the Nerd HERD. They work their tails off night and day and have to deal with the extremely aggressive and fast paced lifestyle of the startup world. While the CEO’s in the room often get the recognition, none of us would be able to accomplish much of anything without a talented and hard working team to support and execute our vision.

The press is great for Giantnerd and being quoted and seeing my name multiple times on Enrepreneuer.com sure is nice. What makes me most proud about our most recent publicity is that the staff at Giantnerd (Nerd HERD) can see tangible results for all their hard work.

The HERD can now show their friends and family that they are making a positive difference, are at the forefront of their respective positions, and working for an exciting forward thinking company. While it doesn’t take a magazine article to prove this, it’s nice to get recognition for the HERD and it helps in keeping moral high and passion high which are important to our success. Nerd Herd, congratulations!

With Love,

Randall Weidberg (The Head Nerd)

@GiantnerdCEO

The other night I went to a Johnny Cupcake Suitcase Tour event...

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 11:07:00 -0600

The other night I went to a Johnny Cupcake Suitcase Tour event in Denver. I ended up waiting in line for 2 hours to get a shirt. Luckily I had some great friends with me to hangout with otherwise I wouldn’t have stayed.

While in line, which spanned a block and a half, I saw the built up Tommaso Augusta you see above. When something is all black it garners the term “murdered-out,” as in “that Range Rover is murdered-out.” This Augusta was the opposite of murdered-out. It had a white frame, white rims, white handlebar and even white tires. I’m not sure what the opposite of murder is but if you know inform me and I will send you some Giantnerd® stickers or something.

There were some black components on the bike, with a single piece of flare, purple platform pedals. I love seeing bikes we sell around town. I love being able to stop and talk to the people and get a little follow-up on what they think of the product. This guy was a bike polo player and this was his bike polo bike.

If you have an interesting story or feedback from a product we sell go write a review on our site, I will love you for it, and so will our members.

With Love,

@jefflesser

Chrome, who we have expressed is one of our favorite companies...

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 10:38:36 -0600

Chrome, who we have expressed is one of our favorite companies here at Giantnerd®, did a promotion called Turds For Gold where you sent them a pair old old beat up shoes and they would send you a brand spankin’ new pair of tricked out Chrome kicks. There was a two day window in which to send the shoes in and Chrome said the expected to receive around 500 shoes. Boy where they wrong, they claim they got over 5000 shoes!

Today at Giantnerd® the people who dared to send in their beat up sneak were rewarded with a package of Chrome shoes. It costs us about $8 to send our old shoes in, this is without question the cheapest pair of shoes I’ve ever purchased. Which is quite the coincidence since they might also be the best shoe’s I’ve ever owned.

I’m excited to go ride my bike now! You can pick up a pair of your own Chrome shoes right here, we will ship them to you for FREE and you will get 10% of the price of the shoes back in Nerd Dollars to put towards more sweet gear like their bags that I constantly rave about.

With Love,

@jefflesser

Making A (Small) Change For The Better

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 09:54:00 -0600

At Giantnerd® we are constantly on the lookout for ways to improve our business. Recently our buyer Patrick came up with a new way to conduct our weekly meeting that would improve our company in two ways. Before today each person would print out their update for everyone and bring it to the meeting. We would spend a few minutes making sure everyone had the appropriate documents and then begin. During the meeting we would have to ask questions like “are you looking at page 2?” or “do you see where it says X% on X product?”

Meetings took longer than necessary and it got to a point where we would time them to see how much time we were spending every week meeting instead of doing.

Last week Patrick introduced us to his new method and we tested it this morning, it worked great and our meeting was shorter than ever.

We use Basecamp and had everyone upload their documents to a project that was specifically created for our weekly meetings. We were then able to load everyones documents and our notes on the laptop and connect it to a projector to get everyone on the same page, literally.

Now every week we save paper, save time, and are a more cohesive unit. We transformed our meetings from mediocre to excellent in one small step. It is these minor enhancements to our business that can have a large impact. The less time we spend meeting and the more time we spend doing the more we can do for our members.

Airborne Bicycles Take Off At Sea Otter Classic With Launch Of New High-Performance Mountain Bikes

Fri, 16 Apr 2010 20:22:00 -0600

Monterey, Calif., April 15, 2010 - Airborne® Bicycles, the new face in high-performance mountain bikes, will make its industry debut with the launch of six new bikes at this year’s Sea Otter Classic. To introduce the brand to the biking community, Airborne and its recently selected Flight Crew members will be on-site April 15 – 18, in Monterey, Calif., to give riders the first look along with a chance to take a test ride.

“We are really excited to showcase our great new line of bikes to all the riders at the Sea Otter Classic,” said Reed Pike, Airborne brand manager. “Each model features 6061 aluminum frames and carefully selected high-performance parts. Whether it’s a hard tail or single pivot suspension, we’ve developed a great line for a wide range of riders.”

For the hard tail fanatic, Airborne offers riders two options, the Specter and Specter Sport. Both include a strong, durable aluminum frame and are built to handle all the twists and turns of the trail. The Specter features a SR Suntour fork with an 8-speed SRAM X-4 drive train. Its counterpart, the Specter Sport, offers riders a RockShox Dart 2 fork and 9-speed SRAM X-5 drive train.

Riders looking for a suspension bike now have a few more options with Airborne’s new Zeppelin, Zeppelin Elite and Marauder. The Zeppelin features 125mm of travel, a RockShox Dart 2 fork, Marzocchi coil F rear shock and a Really Red frame. Airborne’s 125mm travel Zeppelin Elite includes a RockShox fork and rear shock, 9-speed SRAM X-7 trigger shifters and a ghost-like, White Light paint scheme. Finally, the Marauder, with its cool Jet Blast Blue paint job and 150mm rear travel offers a Marzocchi rear shock, Spinner CARGO 340 fork and SRAM drive train.

For the speed freak looking to fly down the mountain, check out Airborne’s new TAKA (Japanese for Falcon). This downhill specific mountain bike has performance at its core, offering a full 200mm of suspension travel, premium parts and a very cool matte Desert Tan paint scheme to match the dirt on the trails. It’s built to handle even the gnarliest descents with ease while giving riders a thrilling and premium experience.

To make purchasing quick and easy, Airborne has teamed up with a fine retailer to offer its premium, hard-working bikes exclusively through Giantnerd® Social Shopping (www.Giantnerd.com). Giantnerd® gives riders an ideal customer experience thanks to its social shopping platform and a talented staff dedicated to customer service; whether it’s helpful information, product recommendations or simply a quick call to talk bikes.

“Airborne Bicycles has developed an exciting high performance mountain bike lineup that will resonate with bike enthusiast of all levels,” said Jeff Lesser, Giantnerd® Marketing Manager. “We are excited to showcase, on our social shopping platform, both the quality and value of Airborne to our Giantnerd members.”

Airborne Bicycles will be available for purchase at fine retailer Giantnerd® beginning April 15th. MSRP on the new bikes are: Specter - $599, Specter Sport $999, Zeppelin - $1099, Zeppelin Elite - $1499, Marauder - $1,199 and TAKA - $2,500. For more information, images and complete specs of all the great products offered by Airborne Bicycles visit www.AirborneBicycles.com.

About Airborne

Launched April 2010, Airborne® Bicycles offers an array of high- performance mountain bikes for every type of rider. Featuring premium- quality components; durable, lightweight frames; and innovative designs, Airborne delivers a top-notch product at a competitive price. Available only on http://www.giantnerd.com/, Airborne is dedicated to providing the customers with superior customer service. For more about Airborne® Bicycles, visit: www.airbornebicycles.com.

About Giantnerd®

Giantnerd® is designed to be the web’s best social shopping community. It’s a place where outdoor enthusiasts can utilize cutting-edge social technology to communicate, cooperate and collaborate with others, ultimately making smart, educated purchases in a hive minded community. It’s a transparent environment where our users have the opportunity to share knowledge, opinions, and ideas about products among like minded gear nerds who are essential to a positive social shopping experience. Giantnerd is a coalition of product-savvy members, passionate vendors, and a small group of caring employees dedicated to serving the needs of the Giantnerd social shopping community. Ultimately, everything we do revolves around the best interest of our members. Giantnerd® is Powered by Love™. For more information visit www.giantnerd.com.

Some Of Our Favorite New Products

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 16:05:24 -0600

Working in the outdoor and cycling industries has it’s perks. For one we get to see all the new products and know them in depth. This is great especially for our customer service so they can help our members get the best new stuff. We get new products in every week and you can be the first to know about them either by using Product Alerts or by checking the New section.

Last post we made was about Chrome who is without question one of the most liked brands at Giantnerd®. Another favorite is Osprey Packs. We like Osprey for many reasons, such as the fact that they are a Colorado company, they make some seriously innovative stuff, and they are incredibly environmentally friendly. We just received some of their brand new hydration packs and they are seriously incredible. They feature an interior system to squeeze the hydration bladder to keep the water from bouncing or sloshing around while you run, bike, hike, or party down at a festival. Check out the Manta Series or the Raptor Series, both feature the new hydration systems.

Giantnerd® HERD staff members are also very excited about The North Face products we have recently received. The North Face is a hugely respected brand, we have all been putting this stuff to the test for year in the bitter Boulder cold or on the slopes. We got in some North Face jackets, shoes, sleeping bags, and tents which much more to come later. The new products all feature some crazy innovation, especially the shoes which North Face has constructed with Gore-Tex, some wicked smart rubber, and a footbed that will fit your foot like you’ve always wanted a trail running shoe to snuggle your foot.

As we continue to get new products in we will highlight some favorites but you should check the site and decide for yourself what you like. While you are at it let me know what products are making you drool by writing a review, asking a question, or using the groups to discuss.

With Love,

@jefflesser

Chrome Bags & Shoes In Stock Now!

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 16:24:00 -0600

Chrome Industries makes some of the best cycling bags available. Started 14 years ago in Boulder, CO they began exclusively with bags. They then parlayed their success and knowledge into apparel and most recently shoes. Who knows where they will venture next but one thing is forsure, we are going to follow them wherever they decide to take their product development.

Chrome is a company that is rooted in passion. They got into the game because no one could give them what they desperately needed, durable bags. More specifically, durable bags for commuting via bike and being a messenger. They kept their design highly functional and built products to the highest standards. It wasn’t long before they developed a large and loyal community.

This is exactly who we aim to partner with at Giantnerd® and having just received our first shipment of Chrome bags and shoes we couldn’t be happier to carry their products.

I am impressed by the Chrome Berlin Messenger Bag, the new version of the old school Kremlin. It features a smaller back profile while adding more cargo space, wrap your head around that! I first saw it at Interbike and when they pulled out the second shoulder strap my mind was blown. I immediately thought about how riding home with a 30-rack would be less painful on my right shoulder.

I am personally proud of their shoes. About 2 years ago some friends and I had the honor to work on a series of urban cycling shoes with a team that developed what is now the Chrome shoes. They listened to what we wanted and drastically expanded on our ideas to make what are some of the most comfortable and durable shoes around. The Chrome Saipan is a brilliant shoe with excellent ankle support, a sole that transfers power to the pedals, and a side zipper so you don’t have to untie the laces when you’re done two-wheelin’.

We will be getting more Chrome products in including apparel and more shoes/bags so make sure to check the site frequently for new goods that will impress you, hopefully as much as they impress me.

With Love,

@jefflesser

It's Not Where You Start, It's Where You End Up

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 11:08:00 -0700

In an effort to post more often I promise to keep my posts short and sweet. When I look at the evolution of the Facebook homepage i am reminded that it is not so much where you start but where you end up. You simply cannot allow your management team to rest on their laurels and past achievements no matter how successful or arduous a task it was to achieve. Strategic improvements must consistently be identified and executed speedily and effectively.

Facebook has grown to become one of the most dominant internet players of our time but they sure didn’t start out that way. Facebook set their site on what many proclaimed experts thought to be an insurmountable goal. In addition, their behemoth competition including Friendster and later MySpace didn’t view Facebook as much of a threat as these companies dominated the marketplace.

So, why did Facebook have a meteoric rise while their competition time and again lost market share? Facebook did many things right and their rise didn’t happen by chance. What is most notable to me is the path of continues improvement and incremental changes Facebook made to improve their platform including opening it up to application developers (smart move) once it launched. This is in sharp contrast to the closed environment with lack of enhancements and strategic improvements Friendster (just typing this name gives me the creeps) and Myspace took. In essence what you do with the platform and the changes and enhancements that are made once you launch are actually more important than what you launch with.

We are extremely proud of the current state of the Giantnerd platform and our launch but we are not naive. We have a lot of work to do and need to make the categorical improvements that will catapult Giantnerd ahead of our competition.

Giantnerd has a lot of exciting features that will launch in the next few weeks. We will simultaneously be working on both stabilizing the commerce experience and making the platform more social. From a best practices ecommerce perspective keep an eye out for improved search and navigation and a more efficient checkout process. From a social standpoint we are working on more intuitive ways for members to interact and participate in the social shopping experience.

In yesterday’s 4 hour marathon whiteboard meeting, (@jefflesser made the brilliant decision to supply us in the 25^th hour with skittles to keep our sugar levels high enough to stay focused. ) we detailed a plan to make incremental improvements to the groups, Q and A wall and email notification functionality. We discussed a lot of ways to improve the platform but in the end, our highest priority items are ways to increase participation in the Gianterd community.

I will conclude this post with what is most important to our decision making process at Giantnerd. Nerds, what features do you want? We need your feedback so we can work tirelessly to make Giantnerd the webs best social shopping platform.

With Love,

The Head Nerd

@GiantnerdCEO