Toast Talk

Big announcement: Sally and I are going to New York Fashion Week (!!!!!!!).  Insert screaming.  We are so over the moon with excitement and have been dying to tell all of you the news… The natural reaction from people when a blogger shares this kind of announcement is, “That is so cool!  How did you get that??”  On the one hand it’s completely understandable – blogging is such a new and developing industry that everyone is curious how partnerships happen, how opportunities develop, and why some bloggers get offers that others don’t…  On the other hand, when it’s you and your blog getting said opportunities and partnerships it can be really awkward to discuss (many bloggers are very hush hush) and you don’t want to seem like you are boasting or bragging in any way.  But it’s Fashion Week – we aren’t going to pretend that we aren’t excited and we wanted to take you all through a bit of the back story so you can get an idea of how it all came to be.

A little over a week ago we shared you a newly-launched mobile app that we are completely in love with – Swirl.  Hopefully lots of you have downloaded it and use it as much as we do… At the end of our post about the personal shopping assistant, we hinted that we would be working with Swirl during Fashion Week.  Cue the announcement above  Or relationship with Swirl began back in July after they discovered us through Pinterest and expressed interest in potentially working together on upcoming opportunities… They explained what the app was all about and how we could possibly be part of their launch.  Guys, I am not exaggerating when I say that we get 10-20 emails a day from companies, brands, and PR firms pitching stories, ideas, and potential collaborations.  This just goes to show that a) we really do read every single email and respond to them, b) you never know where things can go once the ball gets rolling, and c) the fact that they found us through Pinterest shows how important it can be to have a presence on other media platforms aside from just the blog.

After I emailed them back (cautiously saying how we enjoy building meaningful and mutually beneficial partnerships and that I would be interested in learning more about Swirl) we set up a call, chatted for a while about who they are, who we are, and how we could maybe work together.  I loved that the product was a shopping app that was about discovery and inspiration (similar to Pinterest) and that they put the customer first and foremost when designing every aspect of how it would work and function.  I also loved that they wanted us to work with them in a way that would be completely genuine and authentic.  A second conference call led to more details about the ins and outs of the app (the more we learned, the more we loved it) an invitation to Fashion Week to help them officially launch the app, and them telling us, “We have a really good, gut feeling about working with you – we want to grow with you and you with us.”  OMG.  Dream come true and how the heck did we get so lucky.  

More conference calls, emails, and ideas happened and then in early August the app was finally ready for download and use… We were SO proud of Swirl – all their hard work produced an incredible product that we genuinely loved.  It was everything they promised and more.  A perfect way to search, save, and organize all the products we loved from the places we shop most.  Even though we had nothing to do with the design or function of how Swirl came to be, we couldn’t help but feel like we were watching our first born graduate from college… Or something sentimental like that. We were giddy, excited, and kind of nervous to share our first post about Swirl on the blog.  We wanted all of you to be just as excited as we were about the app, and we wanted to be 100% authentic when talking about how much we really like and use Swirl.  No, we were not paid to write the post and we were not given specific text or links to include.  Everything you read came straight from us – a true testament to Swirl’s desire for us to “be ourselves” and not influence our words or conversational writing style.

More conference calls and emails (communication is everything) about logistics for how we will be partnering with Swirl and the details of Fashion Week and here we are today.  We are really looking forward to sharing more details for how Fashion Week and Swirl will come into play here on the blog while we are in New York next week… I really hope you guys can see how truly thrilled we are to be working with Swirl – Fashion Week is huge but having a partnership with a company like them is a dream come true.

Does all that kind of answer the, “How did you get that??” question?  I could have made a long story much shorter with, “They found us, we talked, we clicked, we both decided that it’s a perfect fit for a relationship.”  But let’s be real, blogging partnerships are a bit mysterious and we wonder just like you how some opportunities actually happen… I think that most of the time it’s just luck and timing.  We started this blog for fun, not with the intention of quitting our jobs, making money, or getting to work with ridiculously great companies (like Swirl).  We just post about things we like and write a lot – and we feel SO lucky that you people read what we have to say and that we have formed an unspoken bond and friendship with you.  We feel lucky that all of our collaborations, partnerships, and opportunities have come as a result of them reaching out to us and that they have all been based on a mutual respect and liking for one another.  Sally and I have been so fortunate to evolve and grow A Piece of Toast in the most natural ways possible and we hope that our transparency is obvious and relatable… We are normal girls that have gotten lucky by being ourselves!

Stay tuned for more on Swirl and Fashion Week… Kiss kiss

(Image via 5 Inch and Up)