From discarded materials to a travelling companion with a story of its own.
Yhellowbag is an upcycling project that started with one handmade yellow bag and grew into small batches, collaborations, and a developing brand. What began as a personal experiment became a way to explore material reuse, hands-on making, production, storytelling, and entrepreneurship.
Process
Yhellowbag grew from a personal experiment into a small entrepreneurial project with real users, small batches, collaborations, and a growing community. It taught me how to move from idea to prototype, from prototype to product, and from product to story.
The project became more than a bag. It became a way to learn by doing, mobilize people, turn waste into value, and create objects that travel with their owners into new experiences. Building the operational backend also taught me how important systems are when a project starts to grow.
The project started with materials that were already there: discarded tarpaulin, leftover fabric, car seatbelts, reused straps, and a small sewing machine at home. Instead of designing from a blank sheet, the available materials shaped the product. Their colors, stiffness, texture, limitations, and imperfections became part of the identity.
The first bag was made by hand. I learned through cutting, sewing, failing, adjusting, and testing. Every prototype helped me understand how the material behaved, how the construction could be improved, and how a rough idea could slowly become a usable product.
As more people asked for their own Yhellowbag, the project moved from one prototype to small batches. This pushed me to look for partners, explain the idea clearly, source materials, organize production, and work with people who could complement my own skills.
As the project grew, I needed more than a product. I built a website and a Notion-based backend to manage orders, products, customers, collaborations, production, content, and follow-up. This helped turn Yhellowbag from a personal experiment into a more structured working project.
Product
As more people asked for their own Yhellowbag, the project moved from one prototype to small batches. This introduced new questions about repeatability, production quality, material availability, communication, and collaboration.
One of the most valuable lessons is that a product does not grow alone. The project pushed me to contact suppliers, search for reusable materials, explain the idea, convince people to join, and build collaborations with people who could complement my own skills.
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