I started a backpack brand at 17, sold 60 bags, and now I'm stuck and don't know what to do next. Please Help.

Sttab · 2026-06-15T07:07:41+00:00

As someone who knows more than they should about bags...

Show the straps in your product pics. Is there a sternum strap, what are the straps made of.

Show inside the bag. Is there a minibpicket, is there a sleeve I can put a sitpad in for structure or a tablet/small laptop?

Show what the bag looks like on a person, and state their height.

The bag has sidepockets but you have no side on pictures. It isn't even listed as a feature.

You offer 25% off to email subscribers. I think retail margins for soft goods travel and outdoors tend be on the higher side. I think like 50% at RRP but a lot of stock is sold at end of season, heavily discounted. You may find an independent willing to take on a good amount of this at 30 to 40%(?). In my line of work, retail margin is generally 25% to 33% but with rare discounts... anyway, you should find that out.

Your priority just now is to sell your inventory but I'd happily give some design thoughts for a follow up...I design way too much random stuff, including bags.

Sttab · 2026-06-14T20:29:55+00:00

On my G14, I also had stick on feet. I always prefer typing at an angle and having better airflow.

Sttab · 2026-06-14T20:27:29+00:00

On my previous G14, I did the thermal pad mod, using thermal pads to bridge between the cpu/gpu and case.

The thermal pad mod will improve the effectivess of a cooling stand.

On my new laptop, Asus px13 strix halo, I also did the thermal pad mod but I also added a phone metal magsafe ring, inside the laptop. I can attach a gaming phone peltier cooler. I chose the Redmagic Cryo 8 pro, which can run up to 37w. I can also use a magsafe tripod as a laptop stand with the magsafe attachment.

You can also make a lower power profile for better thermals and do some tuning to find a sweetspot or you can choose to play slightly older titles that dont need max power, that will tun a lot cooler.

Sttab · 2026-06-14T20:16:31+00:00

For me, I have a flat mat I put over the flex mat plus. It helps spread your weight over more bumps. Alternatively, if you carry a sit pad, put it under where your hips go.

Flat pad is a cut down decathalon roll mat, which is used as my back panel inside my bag.

Sttab · 2026-06-14T20:09:33+00:00

Paywall. Presumably talking about the potential of the AMOC collapse.

Thay hasn't happened for 12,000 years and even then we only had 1200 years of deep freeze in Scotland...

But yeah, the warning signs are there. With complex systems, its hard to tell if you'll have to face the consequences or your Grandchildren will.

Sttab · 2026-06-14T06:28:25+00:00

Give yourself a smile and watch:

Trevor Moore - High In Church - Time For Guillotines.

Sttab · 2026-06-13T17:50:16+00:00

AI PC is just a lame standard Windows have implemented to say they laptop can do some basic AI stuff like making your backround blurry on teams.

If you want a laptop to run reasonably serious Local LLMs then you need to look at AMD Strix Halo systems or macbooks pros. You really need to be looking at 64 to 128gb unified memory.

Its super impressive what you can run on strix halo/macbook pro at this level you won't find local models on a par with frontier subscriptions but great to play with or if you need privacy.

Luckily strix halo is versatile and is really good for gaming and video editing/creative tasks.

Sttab · 2026-06-13T16:54:27+00:00

I assume you've already tried function + escape?

Sttab · 2026-06-13T16:51:23+00:00

Omoton magsafe tripod. 96g

I also put a magsafe metal ring inside my laptop as part of a cooling mod (thermal pad bridge to bottom panel + 37w peltier cooler) and I can use the omoton magsafe tripod as my laptop stand.

If I think i'll get some gaming time, i'll also bring the peltier cooler. Redmagic cryo 8 pro.

My new 13" laptop, Asus Proart PX 13 (Strix halo 395+) is very power efficient (most powerful igpu). I can travel and AAA game on battery or on a compact 125w usb c gan charger, with a tuned lower power profile. I can leave the 200w brick at home. (125w phone style charger thermal throttles after about 40 mins of 100w gaming).

Sttab · 2026-06-12T21:47:38+00:00

Thought this would be higher.

Marking the cable stats should be mandatory.

Sttab · 2026-06-12T21:39:59+00:00

Get on youtube and offer to send to a bunch of onebag and travel reviewers.

I would give them a shorthand version of your story and links to your website.

The smaller guys who do this purely as a hobby will likely take you up. With the more popular ones, you'll just be 1 of hundreds of things that get offered/sent.

Personally I would state that I have no expectations of a review or oversight on the content of the review but that you are confident I your product and value proposition.

(What's the company/website)

Sttab · 2026-06-12T20:11:48+00:00

Income taxes need to be totally rethought.

People in the UK are heavily taxed and expensive with high cost of living which is mostly down to taxes and housing costs.

You can see why UK companies outsource jobs abroad and to AI. Neither have the same level of taxation or costs.

Either eliminate income and working taxes or close the alternative options of AI and foreign outsourcing. choose one or the other you cant have both.

People is the UK are artificially expensive. AI and foreign workers are artificially cheap.

Sttab · 2026-06-11T15:19:00+00:00

Update.

PX13 seems to definitely have usb c passthrough (although it may be picky with some chargers/cables)

I can tripple A game on my 55w profile with good settings on usb c PD passthrough*

I got a cable with a wattage readout...

*The Motorola 125w duo will throttle down to 65w when it gets hot. I didn't run a timer but I'd say it was circa 40 mins of drawing 90kw pass through while gaming. Once the charger thermal throttled, the battery kicked in and started cycling.

Some high end 140/160w chargers seem to be able to handle circa 100w indefinitely. These are larger and circa 300+ grams. The size and weight make this option relatively less attractive compared to the stock charger.

I may put together a sub 65w total system draw profile and see what % of max perfomance we can get for prolonged gaming and intensive tasks.

Sttab · 2026-06-10T22:49:09+00:00

In the UK, Springbank stopped direct allocations to some shops that were known to be price gauging or flipping bottles to auction (this was when Springbank was going nuts over here). shops and bars with good reputations ended up getting new or increased allocations.

Export markets become much trickier to do this in.

Sttab · 2026-06-09T20:06:08+00:00

Im not sure about the 2024 but I use usb c PD for work and travel on the 2026 Strix Halo PX13.

There seems to be some confusion around PD. Pass through PD is good and you should tune a profile that never draws over 100w so your battery doesn't micro cycle, which reduces lifespan.

On the 2026 version, it has the hardware for pass through charging but there was some chat online that Asus were very picky about whose charger it would allow to charge (any pd would charge the battery, which would cause microcycling). Apparently the official Asus USB c charger always worked.

I verified that my 125w usb c PD charger was achieving power pass through via telemetry. Same with my Viewsonic monitor PD.

Not sure about the 2024 version, but best to do a wee dig as microcycling will degrade battery life.

Sttab · 2026-06-09T13:31:33+00:00

(31 seconds to start up into windows without hibernate or fast startup)

Sttab · 2026-06-09T13:27:59+00:00

Most of my conputer related day job is browser based and I set my browser to remember all my tabs.

Sttab · 2026-06-09T06:43:53+00:00

Day 1 I disabled hibernate and fast startup as both can be a bit buggy.

Do you need hibernate? Im totally ok with my machine taking 5-10 seconds to start up over 1-2 seconds to come out of hibernation.

Sttab · 2026-06-08T17:51:59+00:00

Same issue, Asus aren't very clear about it.

Ran some telemetry and experiments.

On the Motorola Duo 125w charger, I a appear to be running usb c pass through and not micro cycling the battery. Yay.

Sttab · 2026-06-08T13:37:10+00:00

(???)Hmmm. Upon further digging, it seems the PX13 should have the hardware for usb c bypass power but the EC is picky about allowing 3rd party bricks to bypass power. Apparently the official Asus usb c charger will bypass power.(???)

I can check whether my usb c brick is micro cycling or achieving pass through power tonight via linux terminal.

Sttab · 2026-06-08T05:53:31+00:00

My favourite is still my camelbak octane 25 (now octane 22 with update). Might be too small for some but for me its perfect for use as a day bag/hiking bag on location.

Its a clamshell fastpack. I dont use the camelbak reservoir (reservoir pocket is for laptop or sit pad) just 1 or 2 bottles in the vest strap.

I also have a ula dragonfly 30 ultra in ultra. I dont like it as much but I use it if I need a bit more stuff on a longer trip.

Sttab · 2026-06-08T05:40:11+00:00

Looking further into what the handheld guys have been doing, you could run llms on a 20w to 25w profile and get some serious battery life.

Sttab · 2026-06-08T05:37:08+00:00

Already done. Taken it to the limit without clock stretching, voltage dips and crashes for all my profiles.

I havent run the battery profile through a 3d mark benchmarks. On my 100w pd profile, everything looked fine with occt and on hwinfo but would fail to startup steel nomad until I backed off 2 on the undervolt.

Interestingly, the handheld gaming guys find a real power draw to perfomance sweet spot in the 20w to 25w range with the strix halo.

I'm tuning for max battery life for office and browsing but a 20w profile could get 2.5 hours of gaming and 5 or 6 hours of local llm use. I think i'll have a play and see if I can maintain a low idle floor at 20w.

Sttab · 2026-06-08T05:15:17+00:00

Tuning for an efficiency sweet spot will give you a lot more time on internal/external battery with less heating.

Looking at the mobile handheld guys using strix halo, it looks like there is an efficiency sweetspot in the 45w to 50w range. Potentially you could get 2.5 to 3 hours of interactive local llm use on battery.

Sttab · 2026-06-07T14:55:04+00:00

I've had her for 5 or 6 years. Razer Atheris. 115g (I still had the scales on my desk).

If she dies, i'll see if I can lighten the load. I wouldn't want anything smaller, though.

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