• (T)he "Cirkul water bottle" hashtag brings up thousands of (TikTok) videos that cumulatively have more than 31.1 million views.• "Going viral" is not a new concept, but there's no guidebook for companies on what to do when it happens. For Waggoner, his focus was the customer, he said, which meant creating a third shift in roughly 24 hours to help with order fulfillment.• The company hired 100 people in the last three months, plus an additional dozen customer service representatives. (They plan) to hire roughly 100 more by the end of the year. The company is also expanding their space, adding in a 70,000 sq. ft. warehouse that will triple their current size.• (I)n November 2020, the company announced it closed a $6.6 million Series A round.
From a November story in TampaBayInno (LINK):
(Waggoner and Gay) graduated and started their "classic gritty entrepreneur story," according to Waggoner, with him working as a valet and Gay selling women's shoes in Nordstrom while working to launch Cirkul. The company launched in 2018, first in Boston before moving to Tampa full-time.
Green Alert Take: A valet and selling women's shoes in Nordstrom. You can't make this stuff up!
The story had this capsule look at the Cirkul bottle:
The company sell is simple: a shatterproof, BPA-free bottle that takes in flavor cartridges, which can be controlled to dispense more or less flavor with a twist. The cartridges range across 43 flavors and six lines, including caffeinated, teas, coffees and electrolyte packages. All blends are zero calories, no sugar and no artificial flavors.
Check out the Cirkul website HERE.
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Athlon has released its 2021 Preseason Top 25 and Oct. 16 Dartmouth opponent New Hampshire comes in at No. 22. From the story (LINK):
What to Know: UNH, seeking its first FCS playoff appearance since posting 14 in a row from 2004-17, boasts plenty of experience in the offensive and defensive backfields and at the line of scrimmage. Getting a big step from quarterback Max Brosmer is important after the Wildcats ranked last in the CAA in scoring in 2019, but running backs Carlos Washington Jr. and Dylan Laube provide a strong 1-2 punch. The defense features safety Evan Horn and defensive lineman Niko Kvietkus.
Green Alert Take: It feels as if Athlon might have given a little too much emphasis on what happened during the spring season, although if that's the case Sept. 25 Dartmouth opponent Sacred Heart might have at least shown up in the "On the Cusp" category. The Pioneers, who won the Northeast Conference in the spring, gave No. 5 Delaware all it could handle in the NCAA playoffs, trailing just 12-10 midway through the fourth quarter before falling in Newark, 19-10.
Green Alert Take II: No Ivy League team appears in the On the Cusp section but it would be a shock if at least one doesn't finish in the Top-25 next fall.
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The Any Given Saturday message board has a growing thread about the decline and fall of Patriot League football HERE.
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The Dartmouth sports information site has a story headlined, Dartmouth Well Represented at U.S. Track & Field Olympic Trials; Five former Big Green runners seek a berth on the U.S. Olympic Team (LINK).
Set to compete at Historic (but newly renovated) Hayward Field in the trials, which run from tomorrow through June 27 are:
Abbey (D'Agostino) Cooper '14 and Dana Giordano '16 in the 5000 meters. (First round tomorrow at 8:54 p.m. Eastern with the finals Monday at 8:40 p.m.)
Helen Schlachtenhaufen '17 in the 1500 meters. (First round at 7:03 p.m. tomorrow, semifinals are Saturday at 9:40 p.m. and the finals Monday 8:05 p.m.).
Cha'Mia Rothwell '20 in the 100 meter hurdles. (First round Saturday at 8:04 p.m. Eastern followed one night later by the semifinals at 9:03 p.m. and final at 10:43 p.m.)
Ben True '08 qualified in both the 5000 and 10,000. (The 10,000 finals will be tomorrow at 10:25 Eastern. The 5000 trial will be one week from tonight at 11:04 with the final at 10:30 on June 27.)
The full track and field TV schedule is HERE.
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EXTRA POINT
Yesterday's PAT about the audio book I had to re-download from the Vermont state library to finish (which I did while mowing later in the day) reminded me about the overdue policy at our little Etna library when we still lived on Moose Mountain.
For most of the years we lived in Etna there were no fines. You were on the honor system to return books on time.
Etna, as a lot of you know, is part of Hanover and a few years ago our little library was instructed by Hanover's Howe Library to start charging fines.
It was a pain for the tiny Etna library staff and in my case, at least, a bad decision. As I told our librarian, when returning books in a timely fashion was on the honor system I would never even think to have an overdue book. But once they instituted fines I could assuage my guilt for keeping a book too long by simply turning over a little pocket change.
If the idea of the fines was to get books back into circulation faster, in my case it was a bad idea, the law of unintended consequences in action.
