Being a long time Apple product user, I was quite excited when the Apple watch was released. I have upgraded as each new release has come along, collecting different color and style bands as time went by.
I started off with just the one that came with my watch but slowly collected one band after the other. One day I was looking for a particular band and couldn’t find it. I started prowling all my usual hidey holes throughout the house. I found a few in the bedside table, a couple more in a drawer in a table in the living room. Three in my desk drawers. One in my car. Several more in purses I had abandoned and switched out long ago, well, you get the picture. They didn’t really have a home. I thought back to the last time I traveled. I took a few options with me in a plastic bag, well of course those ended up in the bottom of my suitcase, half a band here… half a band mixed up in my clothes. I thought “there must be a better way”.
This was around Christmas time 2017 when I went scouring the internet to find a storage solution for my band problem. I have a friend that was having the same problem and decided that I would do some Christmas shopping (for me too!) I did find some, most of them were bulky cases with elastics and zippers that take up way too much space in a suitcase or display cases, wooden with glass – I did not want another thing sitting out waiting to be dusted, I don’t live in a store, I don’t want them on display. What I really wanted was a way to store my bands in a book, I would be able to flip through the pages and see what I wanted and then put that book of bands up on a bookshelf when I wasn’t using it. I didn’t find this anywhere. I begrudgingly ordered the bulky zippered case, which only held 15 bands and then would have to buy another case. I gave the gift to my friend even though I was not at all happy with it.
In January 2018 I kept thinking about how I was just not happy with that case. Then I thought! “If I have a need and can’t find the product, maybe other people have the same need” so I decided to create an LLC and source and manufacture my dream case. It was quite a learning process. I had never ran my own business before. I have worked in retail and now supply chain for other companies but never for my own. So many decisions and things to do! I just kept chipping away at it and launched Bandkeeper in July 2018.
Bandkeeper offers a storage solution for watches, watchbands, sterling jewelry (its airtight!) in pages that lie flat in a suitcase for easy travel. I can add pages if I need more storage, or buy a big binder that holds many, many pages. I can organize my bands into colors, materials or styles much to the content of my OCD. I can put them away on a shelf when not using it. Many Apple brand bands are $50 or more, if someone were to break into my home it would just look like a book on a shelf, not a whole stash of expensive bands. My friends and I have started trading bands from time to time. We just grab our books and flip through them and decide which we are trading, easy to carry from home to home.
Thank you so much for checking out Bandkeeper. Where do you keep your bands?