The last week or so @ Tinkeru

Hello team!

Thanks to all that have joined me on this journey. I sent out the first edition of this newsletter last week, which was actually about a week after it was initially written. So, it’s been about two weeks in Tinkeru land, so let’s get into what’s been happening.

School holidays + study+ Tinkeru + sick family = 🤪 

I have a young family and in Australia we just had two weeks of school holidays. For the first week, we decided to head down to Melbourne for a week to catch up with old friends, be tourists in the big city and just hang out as a family of 4.

This first week coincided with two large assessment pieces due for TAFE, which I found myself submitting pool side late one afternoon. I got there though, and I’ve received positive results from my efforts. Success!

It was a great week, but it meant little/no work was done on Tinkeru. This was by design, with relaxation and quality family time the goal of the week. In saying that, there was one very Tinkeru moment during this week, that I will share in the next section.

The second week of the school holidays rolled around, and the family started dropping like flies with colds and fevers. First my wife, followed by my eldest and a day or so later, the youngest. All in all, it was a full 7 days (and ongoing for the youngest) of just a rubbish cold. This saw the second week being very slow, with lots of movies, and lots of “Dad/Mum, I’m hungry!”, “Mum….Mum….Mum….” and repeat.

Throughout this second week, I struggled to balance my time across family, Tinkeru, TAFE and found myself getting frustrated at not being able to do more on Tinkeru. Taking time to sit with my thoughts and think through these feelings, I realised family is #1 and a benefit of self employment is you can be flexible with your time and things can wait. I stole random 5, 10, 20 or 30 uninterrupted minutes to do things to keep things moving.

In the end I’m cool with how the second week panned out. Some things got done (see below), and others got parked or pushed back a week, and I got to chill with my family a WHOLE bunch! All in all, a good time was had.

Tinkeru Moment #1 - What the hell was that?

One of the core car issues that lead me to start exploring the idea of Tinkeru, was back when we purchased our current car secondhand a couple of years back. At the time, I read about a known issue with a certain manufacturers panoramic sunroofs having leaks. I did ALL the things to ensure the car WE were looking at didn’t have an existing sunroof leak. This involved ALL the research, forum deep dives, Reddit post after Reddit post until we made the call to purchase the car. And at the time of purchase it didn’t have a leak, but during our recent trip into Melbourne it appears it now does.

So I did the internet search, car diagnosis, fix, repair, bullshit rabbit warren dance and after an hour or so, I had a fairly good idea of what to do. Well, like, one video told me to do X, so I went with that.

But first….I needed to get something to “fix” the issue once and for all. And what fixes a leaking sunroof I hear you ask…..well …. Clothesline wire from Bunnings. I ain’t even joking here…

I won’t go into the details of all the steps required to inspect, attempt to fix the leaking sunroof, as there are 1000 ways to do it (according to the internet). But, with parts (clothesline wire) and tools (1 x multitool was all I packed….idiot) in hand and and a vague understanding of how to access, and what to do, I set to work.

The first step, was to pop the bonnet (hood for those OS), find 3 clips and remove them in order to access the drains. I found the first clip, pulled it off easily, and did the smart thing of placing the clip on the engine block. As I did this I recall thinking, “hmmmm…probably should put that in my pocket” and as I went to grab it, I knocked it down into the depths of the engine bay making this ‘tink….tink….tink’ sound as it made it’s way down into the abyss. Classic! Hello 5 minute job that now has a new, as yet unknown, timeframe attached to it, glad you could make it.

As I stood there, kind of annoyed at myself and the situation I now find myself in, my MacGyver instincts took over. For those younger than I, MacGyver was a TV show in 80s where this guy MacGyver would get himself out of sticky situations, with genius simplicity, which is what I needed in this very moment.

The clip didn’t hit the road, so it must still be in the engine bay. I grabbed my phone out and turned on torch mode and started looking. After a minute or so, I spotted the clip. I tried to reach it by hand, but it was in an impossible spot. But I reckon I could get it with like, a stick or something.

I started scouring the place we were staying for items I might use to retrieve the clip. I found a bamboo plant stake in the garden almost immediately. I had a thought next to check the fridge for a suitable magnet (Q. Do other countries cover their fridges in magnets? Answer that in the comments). As luck would have it, there was a perfectly suitable magnetic paper clip on the fridge. When the bamboo and magnetic clip combined forces, a new invention was created (it wasn’t) and off I went to retrieve my clip.

Long story short, it bloody worked!

I’m basically this guy at this point.

As for the rest of the sunroof leak fixing process, yeah it didn’t work. Turns out, the clothesline wire did help me confirm the drains are clogged with gunk, but it’s not rigid enough to budge it. I’ll have to do another internet search rabbit warren another day to see what to do next….yay….so yay. (not at all actually yay).

Branding

Last week I was pondering what I could spend my limited time working on for Tinkeru. One thing I had initially put in the plan to do, was a full branding build out, spread out over the entire length of the program. At the time, it seemed like a key piece of the puzzle. And whilst I do believe that branding is a key piece for a business, it’s too early. Tinkeru isn’t really a business … yet. In fact, it isn’t really anything more than an idea and a half-baked MIRO board (I joke), so is it the right time to be building out brand strategy, guidelines, tone and voice etc? Given time constraints, my want to not overthink or over commit to much time to each activity, it makes sense to park the branding exercise….for now.

However, I am an absolute logo/typography/font nerd. I love branding and have bold visions of Tinkeru, the brand, being known throughout the world. People will cop merch and wear it proudly. We’ll get mouse pads made and there’ll be a t-shirt cannon and we’ll visit motoring events shooting shirts into the crowd……you get what I’m saying?!

And whilst I love me a letter, I am terrible at designing logos, pairing fonts etc. I just can’t seem to figure it out, so it does give me immense respect for those that design in that space. And whilst we aren’t yet a business, we need to be visible so we need something visual to show people who we are.

The current working budget for Tinkeru is roughly $0 (in this economy?!) so cue Fiverr (note: referral link), and me trawling through the plethora of logo designers, font designers, brand strategists, brand designers. I stumbled on a designer who’s folio was fairly decent and when I messaged him, they said they liked cars, so I was sold.

I am friends with a lot of designers (shout out to all the hardworking design peeps out there, you rock!) and I have huge respect for everyone in this field. I know about working with quality/legit freelance designers from a previous role and I felt this designer knew their stuff, right from the beginning. They provided me with a solid design brief to complete and I fleshed that thing out as I wanted to give them the best idea/vibe of what I am trying to create here. Sure, I used a LOT of JDM and vintage car part brands as reference pieces, but like….ya gotta!

After 24 hours I had 3 logo options, and I gotta say, they were all pretty good. No major red flags, and I sent back my revision requests, that were quickly actioned and sent back to me. Rinse and repeat, and after a few days a logo was delivered!

Is a logo a “brand”? No, because a brand entails who we are, what we stand for (and stand against), our visual identity, tone and voice and be based on a whole bunch of information and data. We need something visual to represent us for now, and this will do that. Much like other aspects of this project, I don’t wish to be bogged down (or filled with gunk) spending too much time on things at such an early stage. It’s all about moving fast, committing and moving on. Logos can adapt and change as we figure out who we are, what Tinkeru is and what we stand for.

However, merch anyone???! I’m tempted tbh.

So, dear readers, thoughts on our new logo? Leave a comment and let me know.

What actual work happened?

Whilst it sounds like not much got done besides me being on holiday for a week, being sick for a week, me being MacGyver (you know it) and me paying a designer on Fiverr to do a logo in a few days, things actually have been progressing in other aspect of Tinkeru. I won’t go into the finer details today, as this newsletter is already long enough, but will aim to share more in the near future.

What was worked on over the last week or so:

1. Built out newsletter on Beehiiv

2. Shared newsletter publicly ✔️ 

3. Assumption mapping exercise ✔️ 

4. Key assumptions identified ✔️

5. Research plan ✔️ 

6. Research piece #1 = survey ✔️ 

7. Logo sorted ✔️

8. Signup form on www.tinkeru.com ✔️

9. Start posting on socials ✔️

10. Survey has been sent out….(sooon) ❌ 

11. Business plan has been started ✔️ 

12. Financial plan has been started ❌ 

Still to be done:

1. EVERYTHING ELSE 🥳 

2. Fix leaking sunroof 🖕 

Thank youse*

• A huge thanks to you, the reader. Thanks to those that reached out on LinkedIn, or through my networks offering words of support. It means a lot. I’m enjoying this so far, in part because of all the support. Share/repost if you can, it helps get the word out.

  • On this: I’m regularly in Melbourne city, so if anyone wants a coffee, send me an email.

• To Amir on Fiverr, you rock, my dude! Thanks so much for helping with a logo for Tinkeru.

• Oh, shiii…I didn’t mention it in this newsletter, but last weeks StartupCV masterclass was from Hayley Rose of We Are Archer about experimenting and testing FAST!….and it was dope! It took me back to a time in my career where I did all of this stuff, all of the time…..and that got me excited! I’m back in my happy place! You can check it out here - https://startupcv.com.au/experiment-to-triumph/

*Youse is an Australianism in place of saying ‘you guys’.

Let's Connect!

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Keep on tinkering! 🚗 🔧 

ps. I tried a little harder with the photos/images this week. Let me know your thoughts. I still want someone to do some doodles perhaps. Hit me up if you’re interested. 😃