Type is in a weird place right now.
We, like a lot of other brands, had a tumultuous year because of tariffs, changing manufacturers, and a myriad of other things that come with trying to run a business while in your sixth year of medical training.
The idea for Type started when I was an intern (first-year resident) in 2020 in New York City. It feels like a lifetime ago. We were all terrified. The hospitals were over capacity, no one really understood the disease yet, and everything felt bad… all the time. The bag was born out of that: no grand brand vision, just the reality of “carry what you need and keep it moving.” And of course, if you were exposed, be ready to spend two weeks at home, slowly losing your mind.
But let’s get back to the bag. The problem was simple: I wanted a fanny pack that was big enough to hold my essentials without cramming everything into one sad pocket. I wanted internal organization so my stethoscope wasn’t infecting my snacks. I wanted something that felt intentional for healthcare, not like a Lululemon belt bag that made it look like I was on my way to yoga instead of a 16-hour shift. I wanted to feel like someone had actually thought about how we move through a hospital.
In the beginning, I really thought Type would be a one-off run. I’d make a small batch, gift some to friends, scratch the itch of making a physical product, and move on. In my life before medicine, I had consulted on clothing, jewelry, and even food brands. Soft goods felt like a fun and exciting side quest.
Then orders started coming in. Not just from friends doing pity purchases, but from people I didn’t know. I got emails. People told their coworkers. My friends wore the bag into the hospital and posted it, even when I was honestly embarrassed to wear it myself at first. Their support gave Type some early traction and made me realize, “Oh, other people actually want this. This solves a real problem.”
There were a few early moments that felt like real wins. Selling out of the first drop. Getting asked by my old med school to sponsor match day. Hosting a pop-up in New York and watching people try the bag on, talk about their shifts, and bring their friends. The piece that came easiest, weirdly, was community. People in healthcare are so ready for anything that makes them feel seen, a little more human, and slightly less alone. If Type helped do that, even a little bit, it felt worth it. We got charity partners, a real website, and things felt like they were falling into place.
Everything else was… not easy.
Running a product company, even a very small one, is a lot of very boring, very intense work. There are compliance rules that no one explains to you. Shipping deadlines and carrier requirements. Specific formats for design files and product specs. Constant back-and-forth with factories. And layered on top of that was my actual job: I’ve been in medical training this entire time, studying for boards, learning how to suture complex wounds closed without my attending grumbling, reading up on my patients, trying not to miss anything important, while also answering supplier emails at 2 a.m. and troubleshooting customer issues on my phone between night shifts.
Type has always been self-funded. It’s basically me plus a handful of really great freelancers. That means things are sometimes often late, or slower than I’d like, or not as polished as what you see from bigger brands (cough cough Figs). There’s a lot I want to do that I just can’t because, well, my attending’s notes, these research abstracts, and fellowship apps aren’t going to do themselves. And let’s be real, sometimes it feels like there’s a lot going on in the world and asking you to spend $50+ on a fanny pack feels a little silly.
Anyway, fast forward to this year when the tariffs hit. We had switched manufacturers from China to Vietnam, which was already stressful, and then, thanks to changing trade rules, we got hit with a 40% tariff on imports. The whole thing suddenly felt a lot heavier. It stopped being just a fun, creative project and started feeling like, “Oh, this is a real business with a lot of real financial risk.” At least that’s what I thought when LAX called me and asked for several thousand dollars to release the bags. And to cap things off, we were sold out for a long time and couldn’t restock as planned. I tried to keep going with incremental progress, but it’s hard to market a bag that’s somewhere in a container in the ocean.
So when I say the future of Type is uncertain, I don’t mean that in a dramatic “we’re closing tomorrow” way. I mean: it’s expensive, tariff laws change fast, and I have at least two more products I plan to release soon (a tote bag and a backpack), but I want to make sure that if we launch those, we can actually sustain them.
So right now, I’m intentionally slowing down. I’m reassessing the designs to make sure we can scale in a way that doesn’t burn everything down. I’m focusing on selling the Type A, tightening up the systems behind the scenes, and investing in the parts that feel most promising: better branding and more ways to bring the community together through events, collabs, and pop-ups.
I’m grateful we sold out in the early days, but now that I’m finally graduating after over six years of training, I want to see if Type can also graduate into a real brand, not just a residency side project. The new direction is more fashion, more personal, more… more. I still want the bags to work in a hospital hallway, but I also want you to feel good wearing them through an airport, to clinic, to errands, wherever.
Customer feedback has shaped a lot of what’s next: how you actually use the bag, what you wish it had, where you take it, what you want from a tote or backpack. I’d love to lean into that even more.
What I hope you feel after reading this is not alarmed, but included. I want Type customers to feel like they’re part of the process and, hopefully, a little excited about what’s coming next. If you’ve bought a bag, worn it on rounds, gifted it, brought a friend to a pop-up, or even just sent a kind message when something was delayed: thank you. Truly.
If you have ideas about what you’d want to see (a tote, a backpack, something totally different; features you wish existed; events or collabs or pop-ups you’d actually show up for), I’d love to hear them. Drop them in the comments or reply to this email. I’m listening, I’m still here, and I’m trying to build this with you, not just for you.
More soon. Until then, take care!
