So, first things first, I should say hello! Whether you have found your way here intentionally or stumbled across this through the magic of the internet, I am more than happy to have you here. For those of you who don't know, this is the page for 'Chunks of Norfolk', my small business that sells the creations that I have designed and 3D printed. With that in mind I thought this first blog post would be a good opportunity to give the story of the business and how it got where it is. At the time of writing, we are in our third year of business and things have been growing steadily. It all started, as the best businesses do, in the spare room of my parents house with a Christmas present of a 3D printer. Originally this was just an interest of mine as I am a geek at heart who loves any bit of technology, and 3D printers are about as cool as they get! With that said, I got started on learning how to design and print a whole variety of different objects from plant pots to dog tags. Some of them, admittedly, were absolutely useless but there were many more that were actually very useful. This got me thinking that if I found something useful then it is likely that other people would too. With a bit more research I realised that there was great potential to start selling what I was making and the Etsy shop was started.  There was a slow start, as should probably be expected, but when the first order came in it felt like success! As time passed more orders started coming in and more products were added to the shop. One of the most successful lines has focussed on paddle-boarding and kayaking. These sports are another one of my hobbies and it works to make what you know as it is far easier to robustly test the products and make sure they actually solve the problem as intended. One of these is our clips that hold your paddle to your board. Below you can see the product in action and see an example of my amateur acting skills as a bonus!

As the video shows I have been, and am still, on a learning curve that involves not only the designing of the products but also marketing, packaging, and customer service amongst new and unpredictable challenges. For example, last month we had to deal with Royal Mail stopping all international shipments while trying to get orders out to the USA, Australia and Singapore which certainly left us scrambling! Overall, it has been an interesting and exciting adventure so far with lots more planned moving forward. I am keen to get new products out that are currently in the prototype stage, and continue to share the adventures through our social media and website. In terms of this blog I want to use it to talk about what running the business is like along with sharing what is going on and some of the things I get up to living in Norfolk. So with that I will say goodbye for now and hope you come back for the next one!

Airon - Chunks of Norfolk