JogAlong Update March 2019

jogalong update

Hello everyone,

During the last two months, the design team and I have been working to incorporate changes based on what we learned building the prototype in December. All in all, we turned things around quickly and are on the verge of ordering parts to build another prototype to verify those updates. I am anticipating this next stroller will be one I bring home for more real world review with some of you and also to show investors. Our plan is to get that done by the end of March or early April. Things are moving fast now.

Winter weather has been full of ups and downs for many of us and I was trying to figure out what to do for a picture this time. Piper to the rescue! I had been wanting to rig up a harness for her and thankfully we had a few hours of sun this afternoon before an Artic blast hits us again tomorrow. We did a few test jogs up and down my block and she seemed to enjoy it. Her modeling fees and demands are ridiculous though; treats to get in the stroller, treats to stay in the stroller, and when we went inside, she ran to the spot by her food dish where I usually give her treats.

Ok, yeah, I gave in. But the second time we went into the garage, she went over and jumped in by herself!

I am looking forward to this spring. Piper is too small and not built for long distance jogging; this will be a nice option to get her out of the house and get in a run. I think it would work for medium to large dogs as well. Maybe you have an older dog that can’t jog with you anymore. Our weight limit will be 75 lbs / 34 kilos, so that would accommodate a good-sized dog. I took the seat pad out and put in a piece of nylon fabric mat so she can get some grip with her paws. We will have to make an accessory out of all that once we are up and going with our main focus, you and your child.

For those of you wondering, that pink harness you see is an off-the-shelf around-the-chest harness. I made a small assembly of a plastic buckle that clicks into our existing child harness attachment points and a short adjustable strap that clicks into the harness. I kept it short so she can just stand up but with no extra slack.

Some other things are going on in the background. We are working to add more detail to our distribution plan. I had originally thought we could get by with one location at the beginning and air freight from there, but in the end I realized it is too expensive. And even though for now we dodged the tariff increase to 25% to bring products into the US, there is so much uncertainty that we need to position one of our distribution points outside the US. And to our UK customers, we are watching to see what will happen with Brexit. Even the distribution people I talk to in the EU are not committing to anything. It is hard to know how it will work. If one of you reading this has some ideas for distribution and what will happen with the certification standards in the UK, please let me know!

I am gearing up to head back to the manufacturer soon. I will keep you posted.

By Mike Dresher

Mike Dresher is a mechanical design engineer who enjoys running and biking. He is the founder of JogAlong Stroller.