Benefits needed: The perfect container.
Concept/Takeaway: Our reusable tin container is designed to fit anywhere a deck of cards would. It sits conveniently in the front of your backpack or bag, so that you never have to rummage around for/in your toiletry bag again.
The Story: “Sydney!” she whisper-yells, “you ready?”
“Ah, shoot,” I say in a normal-level, half asleep voice. “Nah.”
“Shh! Remember George isn’t coming. He’s asleep right out there.” She motions with her head to the living room.
The rooms are made of glass but I had spread my curtains out, hiding myself from the other house guests, and subsequently forgetting that I was not the only person on earth.
“Yeah alright,” I half heartedly, half whisper back. “Give me 5, Meg.”
A nod of approval and she’s out.
I’m rummaging around in the dark, my clothes already laid out, trying to find my toothbrush. As you recall, the house is made of glass, and even with the curtains one light one could light the whole place on fire. Well, that's what it would feel like for lucky old sleeping George at least.
I can’t find my toothbrush and lightly debating sparking the place up with a bedroom lamp. Finally, I realize my whole toiletry bag is off to the side of my dresser. I whisper-swear to myself, snatch up the bag, and head to the outdoor bathroom.
I walk out, glare at the palm trees for seeming all too chipper at 2:30am, and start the slow, horrible process of unscrewing my toothpaste.
Maybe a long, overly-fun night, having ended only just an hour prior, was not our best idea.
“Hey!”
Erica doesn’t seem too off-put by the one still sleeping on the couch, nor the unconstitutional hour.
“Sup,” I toothpaste-full-mouth say back, slightly more chipper now that I’m not the only one disregarding the noice regulations.
“This is going to be fun,” she says.
“Should be sick.”
I spit.
We finish brushing and rinse out our mouths. “Let’s do this.”
She nods in agreement. Two minutes later we meet out front with the other three.
We’re taken on a bus and given breakfast. I’m obviously livid that we had a 2:15 wake-up to subsequently sit in a room with 50 strangers to eat a 3:30am, 45 minute-long breakfast. Sleep > Food, 100 times out of 100 for me.
After that, we actually do a pretty cool hike. It’s up a volcano, Mt. Batour, and we summit just before sunrise. We get to enjoy the slice of bread that was packed for us (lol literally. It’s hilarious), and bask in the pastel rainbow pouring out across the entirety of the sky all the while.
Now, I did think of this event multiple times while creating Co-Pilot’s Daily Travel Supplement. What a classic travel story! It’s an organized, adventurous tour, and kind of a must-do in Bali. There’s similar tours across the globe, doing whatever adventure activities the locals thought to market for the tourists. (Which is good for them and good for us.)
Now, my thinking of this day while creating Co-Pilot this may seem like it was for one obvious reason: needing energy to hike that volcano on no sleep. Well, sure, that wouldn't be necessarily wrong. Oh, or maybe I thought of it and that's why I decided to make sure Co-Pilot promotes more restful sleep. I mean, I was mad I was so tired, wasn't I? Well, sure. Also true. But the true contribution this memory served for our beloved travel supplement actually didn’t lie in the benefits. The true benefit came right in the first few sentences of this story. Right where I can’t find my toothbrush, I swear under my breath to myself, and finally remember my toiletry bag is in a different location.
I thought of how inconvenient that was. How not only could I not locate the toiletry bag, but afterwards I had to rummage around for a toothbrush, when all I wanted was to be asleep. Brushing your teeth is the WORST when you're that tired.
Anyways, I didn’t want taking your vites to be a bad experience. Something anyone hated doing when they woke up at 2:15am, when they were just trying to get through the wake up. So, we needed ease of use.
I had already decided that the container would hold exactly 60 supplements, so that we wouldn’t waste any space. I hate when cylindrical bottles come half-full and take up way more space than the singular-solution vitamin inside is worth. Not to mention, cylindrical?! ... CYCLINDRICAL?! The LEAST convenient shape for travelers because the bottle basically also takes up all of the room around the bottle, because nothing curves inward to use that extra space.
I had also already made my decision that if a bottle of Co-Pilot ever washed up on shore, then we had done more harm than good as a company, and would need to be euthanized immediately. No ifs ands or buts. So, I had all of these criteria, and now I had one more: My container couldn't be inconveniently stored in the already-overflowing, inevitably-misplaced toiletry kit.
Well, once I realized that, everything else snapped into place. Almost suspiciously well, if I do say so.
Every backpacker has a deck of cards holder in their backpack. In proper backpacking-backpacks, but also in typical, school-style backpacks. For some reason, they always have one. Tons of other style bags have very similarly sized pockets, too. Well, what if I could make it the size and shape of a deck of cards? That’d be easy, right? So, I walk over to my backpack, I pull out the red deck of cards that always stays there untouched, and I take a full 60-count (30 day supply) trial pack of vitamins, and I head to the closest table.
“No way. This would be way too easy,” I think to myself.
I pull out the cards, dump in the vites, and sure as blue, it’s perfect. (The color blue? That blue exists? Idk man, it’s early.) So that was that. My non-plastic (later to become reusable tin) containers would be the size and shape of a deck of cards. Easily storable and locatable: right at the front of your backpack or bag. Now, you never have to scramble around for them, and you never forget to take them. Easy.
Of course, getting a supplement manufacturer to agree to put them into these tins and subsequently figuring out how to acquire such tins is a whole other 12 processes. But, for deciding on the shape, it really was that simple.
