Our story
Tatly started behind the counter on a Friday the 13th.
I was working the front desk for a Friday the 13th flash sale at Houses of the Holy Tattoo in Colorado Springs. By the end of the day, I had a long list of everything a flash binder can’t do.
One binder, one customer at a time.
The whole sale ran through a single flash binder. Customers took turns with it one at a time, while behind the counter we tried to keep up with requests and stencils while everyone else waited.
- Customers waited upwards of an hour for their turn with the binder.
- The binder had no real organization, so finding a design meant flipping every page.
- Flash that hadn’t been prepped had to be cut into stencils on the spot.
- Keeping track of which customer asked for which design came down to memory.
And so much waste.
Popularity is never even across a sheet. Some designs had several cut-out copies sitting in the binder because nobody picked them. Meanwhile, one design on the same sheet was so popular it kept selling out, and the only way to get another copy was to print the entire stencil sheet again, all six or more designs, for the one that was gone.
Then there’s the cutting. Artists love to place their art anywhere on a sheet, so a design in the middle takes far longer to cut out than one along the edge.
So I built what I wished we’d had.
I wanted every customer to browse the binder at the same time, and to do it days before the sale, so the shop could have every claimed design ready to go.
Everyone browses at once
Every customer opens the shop’s page on their own phone. Nobody waits in line for the binder.
Picks come in before the day starts
Share the link days ahead so customers can claim their flash early, and the shop can prep those stencils the night before.
Every pick has a name on it
Each request arrives with the customer’s name and contact details, so the front desk doesn’t have to remember anything.
Print only what sold
Picked designs merge onto as few sheets of transfer paper as possible, each labeled with the customer’s name. No reprinting a whole sheet for one design.
Designs in a grid
Flash sheets print in a clean grid, so every design is as quick to cut out as the one on the corner.
Worked a flash day? This probably sounds familiar.
Try Tatly on your next one, or tell me how your shop runs flash. I’d love to hear it.