Announcing custom sticker ideas 

Since the early days of Sticker Mule, we have always been surprised by the creative designs, uses and applications from our customers. Today, we're announcing an effort to capture and display those ideas: [custom sticker ideas](https://www.stickermule.com/uses).

## Why we're excited
From handmade goods to school fundraisers to weddings to building a great company culture, there are endless ways to use custom stickers, magnets, buttons and more.

[![Custom die cut sticker business cards](https://cl.ly/2V2D0p2G0s2V/chop-shop-barber-business-card-stickers-main.jpg "Not so standard business cards")](https://www.stickermule.com/uses)

Over the years we've posted and reposted many customer ideas and photos on [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/stickermule/) and [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/stickermule/). However, these images and ideas are lost to the noise on social channels.

So we've collected 100+ of the most popular ways to use custom stickers, magnets, buttons and more to inspire you to make your own custom printed products.

[Check out the ideas here](https://www.stickermule.com/uses).

## Share your idea
We also want to provide an opportunity for the best ideas to come forward and inspire others.

We've published stories on our blog that explore how customers in different industries are using their [stickers to market a business](https://www.stickermule.com/uses), [label products](https://www.stickermule.com/uses), [drive traffic to a site](https://www.stickermule.com/uses), or [raise money for a Kickstarter project](https://www.stickermule.com/uses). In the coming months, we'll be featuring more stories from customers.

[![Texas Beard Co Story](https://cl.ly/0F2S0g3s0K1n/BeardOil4x.jpg "Growing beards and a brand with Texas Beard Co.")](https://www.stickermule.com/uses)

So if you've used your Sticker Mule products in a unique way, let us know and we'll share them with the community. 

Take a look at [the 100+ ideas featured here](https://www.stickermule.com/uses) and then [share your own idea](https://stickermule.canny.io/products) with us.

[![](https://cl.ly/3I06350X0z31/ideas-blog-gallery.png)](https://www.stickermule.com/uses)

<ButtonCta text="Share your idea with us" href="https://www.stickermule.com/support/contact?ref=blog" />


See 100+ ways to use custom stickers, magnets, buttons and more.

Introducing automatic discounts 

Sticker Mule aims to be the fastest and easiest way to buy custom stickers. That's why we're announcing a new feature that we quietly released six months ago: [automatic discounts](https://www.stickermule.com/automatic-discounts).

It's common to not know your exact sticker size when ordering. Automatic discounts saves you time and money by automatically determining your correct size during proofing.

Now you can quickly choose an approximate size, upload artwork and always get the right price based on your exact size.

<WistiaVideo videoKey="automatic_discounts" />


### Save money
Since launching automatic discounts, more than 80% of [die cut sticker](https://www.stickermule.com/products/die-cut-stickers) customers have saved on their orders. Often the difference is minor, but sometimes it's substantial.

For example, you might order a 3" x 3" sticker that is really 3" x 2.3". We automatically identify the difference and lower your price. Since we don't charge you until proof approval, the price you pay is based on the final size identified during proofing.

### Save time
Don't waste time determining your exact size. Order the closest size you can guess and we'll figure it out. This is especially helpful when ordering large stickers like [floor](https://www.stickermule.com/products/floor-graphics) and [wall graphics](https://www.stickermule.com/products/wall-graphics) where you might have a desired width but not the height of your design.

You can simply order the largest square your design fits within and we'll determine both dimensions. For example, if you want a 48" wide wall graphic, you can order 48" x 48" and we'll determine the correct height and update your price. This works well to help you order smaller stickers faster too.

### Try automatic discounts
Don't waste time figuring out your exact size ever again. [Automatic discounts](https://www.stickermule.com/automatic-discounts) is a Sticker Mule exclusive that we're incredibly excited about. 

Try it by [ordering an approximate size](https://www.stickermule.com/custom-stickers) and let us know what you think.

Automatic discounts saves you time and money by automatically determining your correct size during proofing. 

Dribbble global meetup sponsor 

With hundreds of meetups happening around the world in 2016, Dribbble's online community of designers is fast becoming one of the best offline communities for designers too. [Dribbble](https://dribbble.com/) is a place to show and tell, promote, discover, and explore design. It's a community that [Sticker Mule](https://www.stickermule.com) has been a part of for years.

Sticker Mule and Dribbble both started in 2010. We've had a great relationship with the team, located in Salem, MA, from the start. Dribbble has become more than just a social network to us—it's become our favorite community to engage with and be a part of. Here's what Dave, our lead designer, said,

> Dribbble is the single most important social network for anyone that cares about design. It’s done more to help us build our team and brand than Facebook, Twitter and Instagram combined.

## 2016 Global meetup sponsor

This year we decided to make our "relationship" with Dribbble official by sponsoring [hundreds of meetups](https://dribbble.com/meetups) in cities like Toronto, New Delhi, Los Angeles, London, Mexico City and more.

As an official partner along with [InVision](https://www.invisionapp.com), we're sending meetup kits to cities around the world. The kits include branded Sticker Mule and Dribbble stickers (including our newest product [transfer stickers](https://www.stickermule.com/products/transfer-stickers)), sample stickers, and [Sticker Mule gift cards](https://www.stickermule.com/products/gift-cards).

## Kicking it off

Last month, [we kicked off the partnership](https://dribbble.com/stories/2016/01/26/global-meetup-sponsor-sticker-mule) with what became a Legendary Playoff shot ["Free Custom Stickers for Everyone"](https://dribbble.com/shots/2483034-Free-Custom-Stickers-For-Everyone). The shot was viewed more than 14,000 times, rebounded over 600 and received a record breaking 1,553 likes. Although the deal has ended, we have much more in store for the design and Dribbble community.

## What's next

In addition to sponsoring global meetups, we plan to continue the monthly playoffs we began mid-2015. With a theme and unique prizes for winners, each playoff presents a unique opportunity for Dribbblers to see their design in real life as a sticker or a [button](https://www.stickermule.com/custom-buttons).

[Visit us on Dribbble](https://dribbble.com/stickermule) to see past playoffs, upcoming deals, and new shots!


We're sponsoring Dribbble meetups all over the world with meetup kits, stickers, and more. 

The Sticker Mule guide to Asana 

![The Sticker Mule Guide to Asana](https://s3.amazonaws.com/assets.stickermule.com/blog/2016-02-12-the-remote-team-guide-to-asana/sticker-mule-guide-to-asana.png "The Sticker Mule Guide to Asana")

[Asana](https://asana.com/) is Sticker Mule's task management platform. We use it to create, track, assign, discuss and complete every task that isn't managed by a specialized system. Asana is flexible and feature rich which makes it intimidating at first. There's no definite way to use Asana correctly. To get full value requires upfront effort and a willingness to agree on conventions to standardize use.

We wrote this guide to explain how we use Asana at Sticker Mule. We designed it as a reference for our team and have published it for other teams that may find it useful.

##How we organize tasks in Asana
Asana encourages you to create teams of people that manage projects comprised of tasks and subtasks. We generally do not use it in this manner because most of our projects are small. It doesn't make sense for us to create hundreds of projects so we redefined Asana's conventions to categorize our work.

> It doesn't make sense for us to create hundreds of projects so we redefined Asana's conventions to categorize our work.

We use teams to create top level categories and projects to create subcategories. A task within a project (i.e. subcategory) can be a discrete task or a project that's organized using subtasks. Occasionally, we use Asana projects to track actual projects too. Our top level categories, which are setup as teams, are:

### Product design
The product design team categorizes improvements to our product (i.e. web site & related apps) by placing them in categories (via projects) for each functional area (i.e. cart, checkout, reorders, reviews, etc.). 

Periodically, we prioritize tasks within each functional area (i.e. project) using section headings to sort tasks by priority. When we start work on a particular area, we can quickly scan a list of related improvements sorted by priority. For example, if a developer is working on the cart, they may look at the cart project to quickly grab a few extra tasks to complete.

### Development
The development team categorizes development work by creating projects to track: defects, rough edges, high priority tasks and our roadmap. The roadmap provides a high level overview of the main improvements we intend to make. 

We also stay focused by using a "rough edges" project to categorize non-critical improvements that won't be noticeable by most users. Most "rough edges" are rather easy fixes and our team will tackle a few in between pursuing more substantial projects. 

Finally, we will sometimes create projects to track actual projects our dev team is pursuing if they are substantial in size.

### Operations
The operations team organizes work that's related to operational improvements. Since most operations projects are substantial, we use Asana projects within this team to track actual projects. The projects are roughly sorted by priority from top to bottom so anyone can monitor them. 

Additionally, we have a catch all project called "Ops ideas" that tracks ideas that may lead to operational improvements. Anyone is free to post an idea to the "Ops ideas" project. If a task within that project is green-lit, and seems substantial, we may convert it to an actual project.

### Marketing
The marketing team includes projects that categorize work by functional area (i.e. email, advertising, content, conversion, launches, etc.). Within each project we use section headings to sort tasks by priority. Additionally, we have a "Marketing ideas" that tracks tasks which don't fit into an existing category. 

Ideally, one person would own each area, but our team is still small so most people oversee a few areas.

### Customer Service
The customer service team includes a "CS ideas" project that tracks tasks that lead to customer service improvements, a "FAQs" project that tracks FAQs we need to create or revise and a "Rush" project that tracks orders which must ship early. 

Anything posted to the "CS ideas" project is intended to have 2 specific results: improve customer service efficiency or reduce the need for customers to request help.

### Human Resources
The human resources team includes a "Positions" project that tracks all open & potential positions. We use subtasks within each position to track additional tasks that need to be performed to fill the position (i.e. post ads, create job description, etc). 

We also have an "Onboarding & Training" project where we create tasks to represent each new hire and subtasks that reflect the onboarding and training tasks for that person.

## Asana tips & tricks

### Task naming conventions
1. Start task names with verbs (i.e. Consider, Send, Fix, Add, Design, Implement, Order)
2. Use sentence case. It's Easier To Read.
3. Be concise.

#### Example task names:
1. Consider using Google Tag Manager
2. Redesign invoice PDF
3. Design custom labels early access landing page
4. Implement custom labels early access landing page
5. Fix issue with address validator presenting identical addresses
6. Send email announcing custom labels
7. Order new chairs for the office.

### How to write a good task description
1. Use headings to give structure to a task description (CMD + B to bold)
2. Include screenshots & screencasts whenever possible using [Cloudapp](https://www.getcloudapp.com/)
3. Be concise and comprehensive. Needless words waste an assignee's time but so does making them ask for clarification.

### Turn off email
To speed up Asana adoption we encourage everyone to turn off email notifications to get used to relying on the Asana inbox.

### Assign tasks during onboarding
We give everyone Asana tasks as part of their onboarding so they start using the platform immediately. Example onboarding tasks we'll assign include "Place a free order using store credit", "Review and sign company handbook", and "Turn off email notifications in Asana".

> We give everyone Asana tasks as part of their onboarding so they start using the platform immediately.

### Use today, upcoming and later
Asana lets you organize your personal task list by putting tasks in either today (Tab+Y), upcoming (Tab+U) or later (Tab+L). Generally, we put current tasks in "today" even if they're not to be done today and use "upcoming" to track pending tasks. "Later" tracks tasks we might do.

### Projects aren't required
It's helpful to categorize work using projects but don't agonize trying to find the correct project for every task. The important thing is to create tasks, assign them to the proper person and notify the relevant people using the followers feature.

### Tasks can belong to multiple projects
We often put tasks in multiple projects. Most team members only care about a limited set of projects (i.e. task categories). To better coordinate, we sometimes categorize task in multiple projects so that relevant people can quickly view them. For example, a task could be in the "CS ideas" and "Checkout" project if it's both a benefit to our CS team and related to our checkout.

### Use Tab+Q
We encourage everyone to create tasks using the "Tab + Q" keyboard shortcut. It speeds up the task creation and helps you quickly put all of your tasks in Asana.

### Encourage task creation via other channels
We encourage each other to create tasks Asana when they're identified via another channel (i.e. in person or Slack). Usually, this is as simple as saying "Can you make a task in Asana and assign it to (me, yourself, another person)". This is especially important with new team members so that using Asana becomes habit forming quickly.

### Copy & paste templates
Asana's [templates feature](https://asana.com/guide/team/advanced/save-time-in-asana) is imperfect so we maintain our templates in a Google Doc. Often we'll post templates to a project description for quick access. For example, our "Onboarding and training" project includes a template of common onboarding tasks. A team members can copy & paste this list of tasks to create subtasks that need to be completed to onboard a new hire.

Hopefully Asana builds a real templating engine to make it easy to manage lists of re-usable tasks that can be added as subtasks to existing tasks or as tasks to projects.

> It's common for new team members to embrace Asana reluctantly only to become emphatic proponents within a few weeks.

## Concluding remarks
Since Asana is more complex than other task management platforms, it's common for new team members to embrace it reluctantly only to become emphatic proponents within a few weeks. Without Asana, and our conventions for using it, we wouldn't be able to gracefully coordinate and grow a remote team. 

While Asana is a big help, it can just as easily become a big mess without care to keep it well organized. As we continue to grow and launch new products (like [custom magnets](https://www.stickermule.com/products/custom-magnets)), our documentation and conventions will continue evolving. 

Our team works extraordinarily well together not just because we share the same tools, but because we share a similar perspective on work. We all tend to be [humble, independent, logical, thoughtful and autodidactic](https://www.stickermule.com/blog/characteristics-we-look-for-in-team-members). 

If you have these characteristics too, [we're hiring](https://www.stickermule.com/careers?ref=blog).


Although there's no definite way to use Asana correctly, Sticker Mule shows how it organizes and grows its remote team with the platform. 

Sticker Mule goes to Italy

Today we officially launched [Sticker Mule Italy](https://www.stickermule.com/it) so it seemed fitting to explain how we got here. 5 years ago when we started Sticker Mule our vision didn’t reach beyond the United States. International business is complicated and we were a small startup. We thought it best to focus on growing at home and set out telling everyone we could about Sticker Mule. 

Our background made us inclined to engage with designers and developers so we tried our best to befriend these communities. It didn't take long to realize that that the Internet is international and many of the best developers and designers live outside the United States. 

To properly engage these communities we needed to ship internationally at a minimum. So, early on, we contacted UPS to get rates, added international ship methods to our web site and naively thought we were done. Shortly thereafter, the complaints came in: "my order is stuck in customs" "my order is late" "I got hit with an unexpected $80 charge to clear customs." It turns out selling internationally isn't as simple as adding international ship methods to your web site. 

We eventually developed our roadmap on [how to become an international ecommerce business](https://www.stickermule.com/blog/building-international-ecommerce-company). This guided our progress as we quietly made numerous improvements to help our international customers including:

1. Shipping worldwide quickly and with tracking. 
2. Ensuring orders clear customs without problems.
3. Eliminating import duties (we pay them for you).
4. Reducing shipping costs worldwide.
5. Introducing free shipping to Western Europe.
6. Supporting the metric system.
7. Supporting the Euro.

Along the way, our team grew to become international as well. More than 50% of our core team lives outside the United States. [David North](https://twitter.com/davidnorth) has been with us since our inception and lives in England. 

[Brian Quinn](https://twitter.com/bdq) works out of Ireland. [Lucas Húngaro](https://twitter.com/lucashungaro) is in Brazil. And, [Andrea Giannangelo](https://twitter.com/Facens) & [Stefano Di Luca](https://twitter.com/pennadl) are in Italy. Already, we've seen tremendous growth internationally, year over year we grow faster abroad than in our home country and that will accelerate as we execute our roadmap. 

If it seems as though we stumbled into becoming international that's because we did. We didn’t plan to have an international team or sell internationally. Our sole intention was to build an amazing customer experience and it turns out expanding beyond the U.S. and hiring the best people in the world were necessary to pursue that goal. 

Admittedly, we even stumbled into starting our international expansion in Italy. One night, I came across the [Unixstickers](https://www.stickermule.com/unixstickers) website and started a live chat session with Stefano Di Luca who happened to be Italian. You don’t have to chat for long with Stefano to realize you would love to work with him so we kept in touch. 

Eventually he introduced us to his partner Andrea Giannangelo who also left an amazing impression on us. We immediately knew we wanted Andrea & Stefano on our team and I’d like to think they knew right away they’d enjoy working with us. A few months later Sticker Mule Italy was born. We haven’t decided what country we’re headed to next, but if you’re interested in being a part of our journey [we’re hiring](https://www.stickermule.com/careers "Sticker Mule careers"). :-)

We recently launched an Italian version of our website. Here's a brief overview of how we stumbled into the Italian market. 

On phone support 

We discontinued phone support recently. Our rationale is explained below:

### Phone support is difficult to scale.
You can't easily put a new person on the phone since you have limited control over the difficulty of calls they take. By contrast, you can let newer support agents respond to easy emails until they are comfortable handling more difficult ones.

### Phone support is difficult to monitor.
It's time consuming to listen to calls, but scanning emails is quick and efficient. It takes me an hour per day to read all of our customer service communication, but it's incredibly useful. Our core team reads the majority of our emails as a source of ideas and to keep a pulse on how we're performing.

### Phone support increases head count.
Phone support is more human capital intensive than email support. It's difficult to maintain the quality of your organization when head count grows quickly. Erring on the side of needing fewer people makes it easier for us to ensure all of our people are top notch.

### Phone support is difficult to automate.
Email support can be automated by developing faqs, macros, videos and efficient routing systems. It's not possible to automate phone support to the same extent.

### Phone support is not concise.
We aim to be clear, concise and comprehensive in how we respond to your questions. Often that means taking a moment to research an answer and review our response with coworkers before replying. It's not possible to handle a difficult phone inquiry in this manner without putting you on hold or calling you back later.

### Phone support is not documented.
Special arrangements made on the phone must be documented by an agent who could record them inaccurately. By contrast, all email inquiries are associated to your account and can be viewed by our entire team so that we are all familiar with your needs.

### Final thoughts...
Since implementing this change, we have been diligently reviewing every customer interaction, documenting problems and developing solutions to prevent common problems from recurring. Most support inquiries exist because we failed in some regard. Either our process had a hiccup or our ordering experience was confusing. Already we have fixed dozens of small problems and more improvements are coming soon.

### One small, related bonus...
We removed the phone number field from checkout for all US customers. Filling out forms isn't fun, but we hope cutting one needless field makes checkout a bit more pleasant.

Contemplating a similar decision? You may want to read [Wistia's](http://wistia.com/blog/scaling-support-why-we-removed-our-phone-number-from-our-website/) blog posts on this topic.


We discontinued phone support recently and explain why in this blog post. 

Shipping custom stickers worldwide 

Effective today, we're shipping [custom stickers](https://www.stickermule.com/custom-stickers) worldwide via USPS.  If you're an international customer, just enter your address during checkout and we'll provide you with an option to use USPS as your shipping provider.

Happy we finally added support for international shipments? Thoughts on how we can better handle international orders? Leave a comment or tweet [@stickermule](http://twitter.com/stickermule).  As always, your feedback is appreciated. ;-) 


We just updated the site and we're happily supporting customers worldwide.  All international orders for custom stickers ship via USPS. 

How to print high quality custom stickers 

There's no reason why every custom sticker can't be awesome. The cost difference between printing the best possible sticker versus something average is minimal. That's why we only use the highest quality material and printing methods.

Here's a quick overview of what Sticker Mule means by "high quality" stickers:

## High resolution printing

We print stickers at 1440 dpi. That means we can easily match every color and print even the most complex designs. Even highly detailed images always come out awesome. You can even send us your low-res artwork as is and we will redraw it from scratch to ensure optimal print quality. 

## Extra thick vinyl

We called a list of material vendors, including some large paper companies, and asked them a simple question: what's the best quality vinyl material we could use for custom stickers? Inevitably, we decided on an extra thick 6 mil vinyl. It provides a great look and feel and lays down nice. Combined with a sturdy paper backing and protective laminate, our stickers are made from the best materials you'll find. 

![Extra thick vinyl for high quality stickers](https://storage.googleapis.com/sm-content/blog/ad7d83a5d111a26cf6c3ef44763b6453ef7ebe85)

## Sturdy paper backing

We use a sturdy paper backing to boost the overall strength of the stickers so that they keep their quality when stored in your backpack or pocket. It also helps make them easier to peel whether your sticker is [die cut](https://www.stickermule.com/products/die-cut-stickers), [kiss cut](https://www.stickermule.com/products/kiss-cut-stickers) or another [style of sticker](https://www.stickermule.com/custom-stickers).

![Sturdy paper backing for high quality vinyl stickers](https://storage.googleapis.com/sm-content/blog/ef24eac7748df0cd34bf49380bdf38076789c820)

## Strong adhesive

We know that a sticker is only as good as its adhesive. Like the vinyl we use, we set out to find the best quality adhesive. All of our stickers have a very strong adhesive that still keeps the surface intact if it needs to be removed. 

We use a permanent adhesive for [die cut stickers](https://www.stickermule.com/products/die-cut-stickers) and [transfer stickers](https://www.stickermule.com/products/transfer-stickers). While [bumper stickers](https://www.stickermule.com/products/bumper-stickers) and [wall graphics](https://www.stickermule.com/products/wall-graphics) use a special removable adhesive. 

## Weatherproof

We make our stickers to withstand exposure to wind, rain and sunlight. In addition to premium vinyl, the stickers are coated with a high quality protective UV laminate that makes them super durable and resistant to fading, scratching, tearing, and water. Our stickers are fade resistant for 3 to 5 years, even in the toughest conditions. They can also be safely run through a dishwasher repeatedly. 

<WistiaVideo videoId="si3kckqeps" />

## Final thoughts...

Our philosophy is simple: only sell products that we are ridiculously proud of making. The steps above are how we know with certainty that we always turn out the highest quality stickers possible.

<ButtonCta text="Try the best stickers for $1" href="https://www.stickermule.com/samples?ref=blog" />

We only use the highest quality material and printing methods. Here's why. 

Making Sticker Mule simpler 

Just pushed some changes to make life simpler.  Among them:

## 20% less header

![Comparison of the old and new Sticker Mule logos](https://cl.ly/2G2c2I0H3v2w/new-sticker-mule-logo.png)

We shaved 20 pixels off the header and we're sporting a new logo.  Logo design isn't exactly our expertise, but we felt the original logo had too much flair so we toned it down a bit.

## Clutter-free artwork uploads

![Screenshot of our new artwork upload screen](https://cl.ly/0V1r130R3U3k/simple-artwork-upload-screen.png)

A ton of pointless junk was removed from this screen.  All that's left is a large "select file" button and a new progress tracker.  A side benefit of the change is the page looks even better. :-)

## Send artwork later

There's a new experimental option to send your artwork after ordering.  We had a bit of a debate about this idea, but eventually decided to release it and see what people think.  If you want to buy and don't have your artwork handy,  you can email it to us at a more convenient time.

![Screencast of our send artwork later feature](https://cl.ly/2R3W2f2M3s23/Screen%2520Recording%25202016-05-31%2520at%252009.55%2520PM.gif)

## Checkout gets a facelift

![Screenshot of our new checkout screen](https://cl.ly/2p431J3g0n1j/new-checkout-screen.png)

Our checkout screens are prettier and simpler. It's not fun filling in forms; hopefully a little extra style and clarity make it more bearable.  You can checkout without creating an account now too.

## What's next

We're having a lot of fun building Sticker Mule.  The good news is, we're far from done.  As long as it's possible to make [sticker printing](https://www.stickermule.com/custom-stickers "Sticker Printing") simpler, faster and more fun we'll keep pushing updates.

Hopefully you like what we've done so far. Leave a comment or tweet [@stickermule](http://twitter.com/stickermule) with your thoughts.

A few design changes make Sticker Mule even simpler and more enjoyable. 

6 lessons we learned from freebie sites 

Yesterday, we announced our [sticker sample kits](https://www.stickermule.com/samples) were ready to ship. Little did we know of the Internet freebie world.    Within 2 hours of posting the 1st [freebie site](http://www.ilovefreethings.com/) caught us and at 2am the requests came pouring in.  I thought maybe they'd stop around the 100 - 200 mark and we'd be safe.  24 hours later and we're at 1,000+ requests.

This was a frustrating experience, but the best thing about being under pressure is it forces you to learn.  Here's what we learned from our encounter with the world of freebies.

## Lesson #1: Be careful with the word “free”

Marketers love the word “free”.  It attracts attention. What they neglect to realize is that it attracts attention from people that don't want to pay for your product. In retrospect, we could have just said "sticker sample kits are available" and omitted the f-word.

## Lesson #2: Automate creating sample kits

Up until today I was hand-packing sample kits at night.  That process was scrapped.  Instead we took 10 of our coolest stickers, fit them on 1 sheet of material and printed 1000 sheets in a row.  As we're cutting the 1000 sheets we're packing the kits; it's a much better  process.  The downside is, we're no longer able to browse Google Reader while the cutter is running.

## Lesson #3: Bulk mail

Shipping 1000 sample kits 1 at a time isn't going to be fun.  Luckily we can bulk mail and get them out fast and at a lower cost.  This wasn't high on our list of priorities, but this experience forced us to learn how to do that fast.  It was something we needed to learn anyway so it's good to have it down.

## Lesson #4: Wufoo is amazing.

[Wufoo](http://wufoo.com/) was a lifesaver throughout this process.  I was continually tweaking the sample request form and eventually added a $1.00 fee.  Without Wufoo this would have been a nightmare.  They made it effortless to integrate PayPal and all of our data is nicely formatted so we can easily download it.  We already started work on a sample management app that integrates with Wufoo too.

## Lesson #5: Charge, even if it's a small amount

After request 1,397 we finally decided to charge [$1.00 for a sample kit](https://www.stickermule.com/samples) and instantly people started actually paying us. The volume of requests went down and quality went up.  By the way, our samples are awesome too. Many of our customers spend $500+ on stickers. $1.00 isn't much in the scheme of things.

## Lesson #6: Look for the upside in everything

At first we were frustrated that 1000+ freebie requests might be drowning out our customers.  We wanted to let our genuine customers to know that they could ask for samples, but the volume of requests was overwhelming. It's just not feasible for us to ship 1000 samples every day; not to mention it's expensive.

There was a temptation to just delete any mention of sample packs from our web site, but we didn't want to cave.  Instead we used the chaos to learn. We're faster, more efficient and showed 1000+ people that we're decent people too.

In a sense, "look for the good in everything" is becoming the modus operandi for Sticker Mule. It's worked well so far and we don't plan to break that formula.

1000+ requests for free sample packs in 24 hrs. 6 lessons we learned from freebie sites.

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