Totem Tuesday: January 14, 2025

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Hey fam—

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Quick question...

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Is this the real life?

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Or...

is it just fantasy?

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Caught in a landslide (of messages in your inbox),

No escape from reality...

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Well, dear friend:

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Open your eyes, look up into mine and read...

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🎉 TOTEM TUESDAY 🎉

(a literal and metaphorical festival for the inbox)

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In this 58th edition of Totem Tuesday, we'd be remiss to not mention the significance of the angel number 58...

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...which is commonly used to symbolize​the cusp of a significant change.

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Very relevant, considering we are in the midst of January 2025—also known as "the month of good news" 🥳

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(keep reading to find out why 👀)

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Before we begin... Welcome to our newest investors! Brandon and Michael—we are so excited to have you on the team.

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P.S. — the Totem Pre-Seed Round closes at the end of January and there is limited space remaining. If you are interested in investing, please inquire here.

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OK—let's get this party started, shall we?

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1) ⬇️ Rollout Update ⬇️

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The month of good news continues!

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The next shipment of Totems (1,000 units) will arrive at our fulfillment center tomorrow, so many of you will receive your tracking numbers this week! Keep an eye on that email if you're up next in the queue.

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Another 18,000+ Totems are currently in production and at least 12,000 of them are expected to leave the factory over the next two weeks.

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The forecast remains the same as last week — we expect to ship ALL remaining orders in the next month, and will be stocking inventory for the very first time in February 😎

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As a reminder, you can always check the Rollout Tracker for the latest update on Rollout Progress—it gets updated with new information 1-2 times per week.​ On the page, you'll find a live tracker showing who’s next in the queue and estimated shipping timelines.

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Read the 3-2-1 below for more details on the production and rollout process, if these kind of things fascinate you. 🧐

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2) 🛜 New Software Update Available 🛜

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We roll out regular software updates to fix software bugs and enhance your Totem Compass experience, and the latest one is now available — Version 3.6.1.

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This patch includes some improvements to make Bonding easier than ever, particularly in colder climates.

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To update your Totem, visit the Software Updates portal and follow the instructions. The process typically takes less than 2 minutes, and you update a whole batch of them at once if you want! 🙌

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3) ✨ Brand Ambassadors ✨

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In case you missed the announcement, the Totem Brand Ambassador Program is finally here! The excitement is tangible: we've already gotten 20+ applications since opening the program just last week.

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If you are a content creator or influencer, you can fill out the Brand Ambassador Application to be considered for the program. 🫶

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2025 is going to be big.

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OK! Enough housekeeping.

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This right here...

This is our weekly progress report to all our favorite people.

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Welcome to the Totem Tuesday 3-2-1.

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3 things we accomplished,

2 things we learned,

1 thing coming up

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Let’s go, Tribe!

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(P.S. — if this is your first Totem Tuesday, welcome to the Tribe! We are so grateful to be here with you.)

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3 things we accomplished

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1) Rollout Progress

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As of last week, Rollout has kicked into high-gear!

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Why?

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Because we have finally approved our production partners to handle Quality Control 100% on their own, which means shipments will no longer need to make a stop at Totem HQ before going out to customers.  🎉

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This resulted in an immediate and drastic increase in fulfillment speed.

In fact, the latest shipment to arrive at our fulfillment center is the very first to be fully QC'd at our manufacturer. This saves a huge amount of time—previously every Totem shipped to customers had to be validated by-hand here at our HQ.  😮‍💨

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That extra step slowed the pace of Rollout, but ultimately we don't compromise on product quality.

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Every currently pending order is expected to ship within the next month, and most (60-80%) are expected to ship in the next two weeks.

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Around one month from now, we'll be shipping on-hand inventory in real-time when new orders are placed. 😍

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Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, to everyone who has stuck by us, be it for weeks or months... You will finally reap the (heavily discounted) rewards you deserve. 🫶

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2) SXSW 2025

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Set your Compass to South by Southwest. 😎

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Around 10 months ago, Totem made its official debut at the world's largest tech+music conference, SXSW! We were honored to be accepted into the prestigious Startup Village, dubbed a "collection of the best and brightest startups in the world across all industries."

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And now it's official... we are running it back! Totem + SXSW (Chapter 2) is on the way.

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This year, we're doing it even BIGGER! 📈

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Bigger booth, bigger team, bigger ideas, and a sweet location right in the middle of the official SXSW Expo.

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We'll be sharing more SXSW details in the weeks to come—so stay tuned!

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P.S. —

SXSW attendees will be the first people to sneak a peek of our second ground-breaking product, which will be available later in 2025.

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(shhh... top secret!)

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Stay tuned for more. 💗

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3) Home Page Facelift!

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New homepage, who dis?

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Thanks to some beautiful new renderings completed by our Engineering team, the Totem homepage has a fresh new look!  😍

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All renderings have now been updated to match the final beautiful design of the Totem Compass. It's been awhile in coming, but good things come to those who wait.

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If you haven't checked it out, you're missing out!

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Peep the new Totem Homepage ⬅️

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2 things we learned

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1) Sustainable Packaging

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When designing our new packaging for the Totem Compass (pictured below), it was imperative that the manufacturer and the packaging itself aligned with our core value of Love.

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Love doesn't just end with the people around us: it includes the Love we have for our beautiful Planet Earth.

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Sustainable, eco-friendly solutions are incredibly important to us at Totem. We care about the world that future generations will inherit.

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During our search for hunt for the perfect packaging vendor, we've learned so much about sustainable manufacturing, carbon footprints, and environmentally-friendly materials.

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We've learned about options like:

• carbon-neutral printers
• compostable plastics
• sustainable inks
• and much more
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And we can officially confirm that, in the near future, every single aspect of the Totem Compass packaging will be fully recyclable—and some will even be compostable!

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It's certainly not the cheapest way forward, but we do not compromise on our core values at Totem.

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2) New Insights for Totem Compass Battery Life

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Now that we are shipping product with stellar performance in all of our core features, our engineering team is in full battery life optimization mode.

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They have recently acquired some shiny new equipment that allows for much finer-resolution power consumption measurements, capable of taking measurements up to 8 billion times per second. 🤯

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(that's roughly equivalent to the frequency that we find ourselves daydreaming about Bonnaroo's 2025 lineup recently)

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As a result, all our Tribemates will be receiving some juicy software updates with heavily optimized power in the coming weeks, which translates to longer battery life across the board.

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After all—every hour spent Vibing is an hour well-spent. 😜

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1 thing to look forward to

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Accepting Bulk Orders in February 🎉

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Once we finish shipping all currently pending orders in the next month, we will officially begin accepting Bulk Orders for the first time!

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This has been a long time coming... The first requests we received for Bulk Orders came in over 11 months ago 😂

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To place a Bulk Order, you will need to contact our team (click the Totem Support button on the website) and follow the prompts for "Partners" to request access to the Totem B2B Portal.

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One important note: if you want to buy Totems for resale (300+ minimum order), you will need to apply to join the growing ranks of Certified Totem Resellers. You can inquire to become a Certified Reseller via the Chat Button on our website. 🫶

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“Write it on your heart

that every day is the best day in the year.

He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day

who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.

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Finish every day and be done with it.

You have done what you could.

Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.

Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;

begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit

to be cumbered with your old nonsense.

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This new day is too dear,

with its hopes and invitations,

to waste a moment on the yesterdays.”

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- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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See you next week!

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✌️ + 🩷

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The Totem Team

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(P.S. — if this is your first Totem Tuesday, we hiiighly recommend that you go back and check out all the past Totem Tuesdays on our website. Every single decision we’ve made with the product is detailed extensively in past editions. Have fun 😘)

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