We design and hand-craft leather accessories for tech geeks, artists, and everyone in between. Our goal is to spoil our customers with top-quality goods that cater to their everyday needs. We source our leather from Italy, craft our products in LA, and distribute to 10 countries. The quality and care of our products have helped us grow 50% year over year and nail partnerships with companies like The Wall Street Journal, Facebook, NBA, Stephen Colbert, Apple, and Warner Brothers.
Everyday, we accumulate more tech—chargers, wires, tablets—but until now, there hasn’t been a savvy way of organizing them on-the-go and look great while doing so. This is Ground is designed specifically for living in 2016. All of our products—from the cord taco that keeps your headphones detangled, to the Mod which handles everything from your laptop to your sunglasses—are crafted to make living with technology easyand stylish. That’s why we design goods for tech giants such as Facebook.
Our products are ultra high-quality and designed—by designers—for creatives of all types. At first glance, This Is Ground looks simple and minimalistic. But we’ve designed our products meticulously (a strap for your sunglasses, a sewn-in Tile to find your lost bag) to ensure our customers always have the tools they need.
We first focused 100% on direct to consumer sales with almost zero advertising. Now, we’ve also set our sights on business customers and a larger international audience. With this funding we will fuel our advertising, open our flagship store in Los Angeles, sign more business clients, and expand aggressively in Europe and Asia.
“I have my favorite pens in here. Everything sort of fits in one convenient spot and it looks beautiful.”
– Ithyle Griffiths, Director & Photographer
Ithyle uses the Mod with a Everyday Insert.
“I’m an actor, writer, musician, This Is Ground super fan. I don’t leave the house without my mod. I require it, both on set and at band practice…
When I go to band practice I switch out my insert and I’m ready to go.”
– Allison Scagliotti, Actor $ Musician
Allison uses the Mod with a Bookish Insert.
“You’ve got to bring the office with you.”
– Geoff Gouveia, Visual Artist
Geoff uses the Mod with a Shooter Insert.
Two years ago, Mike designed and patented the Cord Taco which is now licensed to brands all over the world. We’ve since partnered with incubator Science Media, collaborators like Tile, and streamlined our production in Italy and distribution in the UK.
Partners with Science
Science Media took notice of our first products and brought us into their internal advisory program for promising young companies.
Apple Endorsement
Apple starts selling Cord Tacos just months after we officially launched.
First Enterprise Customer
Subscription service Birchbox takes us into the big leagues with our first large enterprise order.
Factories in Los Angeles
We added two local factories in the garment district of Los Angeles to ramp up production.
Design Patent for Cord Taco
Graduated from Science
After a year of world class advice and connections, we graduated from Science Media to strike out on our own.
Italian Sourcing
We make fine leather goods. So we flew to Italy and spent five months sourcing the best leather in the world from tanneries in Tuscany.
New Headquarters
Our new space in East LA is massive! We now have a design studio, warehouse, and showroom all together in the up and coming Los Angeles Arts District.
UK Distribution Hub
With products now being made in Italy and a large portion of our customer base in Europe, we moved our primary distribution center to England.
$250k Wholesale Order
Recent focus on large branded B2B orders is bearing fruit. We just landed a $250k contract to produce custom products for a large online furniture retailer.
6 New Products Launching
This is a big month for us. We’re releasing six wholly new products from our design studio on the East side of Los Angeles.
New Partnerships
We’re partnering with Karma Wifi in Seattle to turn our bags into traveling Wifi hubs. Tile will soon be included in every bag so customers can track their stuff anywhere in the world. And Joey energy will outfit our bags with batteries to charge all the electronics in your life.
Flagship Store
We’re honored announce a 10 year lease on a flagship store in a prime location in Downtown LA. We couldn’t be more excited about the location and neighboring stores that will drive foot traffic to This Is Ground.
How does CEO Mike Macadaan use his personal This Is Ground product?
Watch Mike’s hands as he designs one of This Is Ground’s first products.
Three years ago I started telling a story. It started with sharing how hard work coupled with tapping into the creative part of your mind could result in a product that would first make you laugh and ultimately appeal to your heart and mind. I was sharing this story with my two sons who thought I was silly for spending time on a product that was fashioned after a taco that I had for lunch. It was really fun to show them that as silly as that idea was, it was possible to turn something that you conceive into a family business. The notion of a family business was short lived as what my sons and I didn’t totally realize was that this was actually turning into a larger growth business that didn’t seem to have many limitations. This appealed to me as that’s the world I thrived in prior to inventing the Cord Taco. I had 14 years of experience working in tech where it was nonstop growth. To date, we’ve sold over a million Cord Tacos and my sons are starting to pay more attention to my silly ideas.
Our brand was started with a foundation of storytelling and because the growth has been built on one story after another, there’s a lot of heart and soul within the environments from which we dwell. At the very core of what we set out to do, it’s all about solving real world problems. Of course we do this in the context of our mission which is to enable people to create anywhere. This doesn’t mean that we’re simply for artists, this means we’re connecting with people that create. Our audience is made up of creators of all stripes, all with a common appreciation for the qualities that we happen to believe in as well. The functions we implement within our leather accessories are practical but don’t scream utility. Leather gives us this rare opportunity to work with a medium that’s a renewable natural resource, can last forever, ages beautifully, and puts to use a material that would otherwise create large scale waste and health issues. Because of it’s origin, leather has an inherent organic and warm quality that when mixed with hardware, creates a nice contrast.
With my background and network, I have the opportunity to work with investors that I know. The decision to meet new investors on Wefunder is about community and hoping that in addition to raising the needed funds, that we also start new relationships. We want partners that love what we’re doing, want to connect with us to share their ideas, want to get our products into their hands for themselves and their friends & family, and ultimately jump into our brand so that when we tell this part of our story, it will be very clear why we did this on Wefunder.
Much love,
Mike Macadaan