My Story of how the Client Caddy Came to be.

It was during the process of getting my entire back tattooed that I came up with the idea of The Client Caddy. And by entire back I mean the whole damn thing. We did the back of each leg, the buttcheeks and of course the back itself. I put in well over 100 hours of endurance with my friend Leo doing the incredible tattoo work. 

As you can imagine the commitment of the tattoo, there is also the commitment of time.  I had my first kid during my back-piece project and also opened Bearcat Tattoo Gallery. To add to the busyness I moved my growing family to a bigger house. Time was maximized everyday and I needed to work from my phone during this valuable tattoo time just to hold everything together. 

Every month I would roll in for my tattoo sessions and grab a folding metal chair my artist kept in the corner of his booth. I'd set my backpack on it and proceed to pull out all the things needed to hang for 6 hours.

Water, phone, sour skittles, Advil, headphones and more.

This metal chair was filled and and I would drag it just close enough so everything was within reach. Things always seemed to be falling off and I wasn’t so stoked to have my phone hit the floor. So after many hours of getting tattooed and multitasking the solution really came to me. I needed a freestanding personal caddy to hold all my shit.

I did some loose sketches of my idea and was ready to find a way to create it. I ran it by a couple friends. One in the plastic molding biz helped me do some CAD designs and we decided a heavier metal would be best. Another friend helped weld up a prototype for me which actually became my first physical Caddy. I set this first Client Caddy in my tattoo station and It seriously worked perfect.

 After testing it with my personal clients I immediately set out to get a few more made to share with my crew. I also really wanted to bring Leo one as a “thank you” for all his hard work and of course so it would be there for me during our next tattoo appointment. 

My finished back 

With the moral of this story being one of friends helping friends, I was able to start producing some small runs of 6-12 at a time. I don’t weld that well myself but I’m very lucky to have met people that do.  

I kept sharing the Caddys with more tattoo artists and then people started asking me if they could buy one. They are all hand made so are definitely expensive for me to create but it never was really about the money for me. It’s really about creating something for our industry that enhances the tattoo experience. 

So having only made about 3 dozen total over a few years one day I just ran out of them. I told myself that I really should set aside some time and bring this thing to market.

Whether It becomes an awesome side hustle or just breaks even I needed to share it. Judging by the incredible response in our tattoo community it definitely has become a great necessity for all shops. I am beyond excited to finally have created enough to share with everyone easily on theclientcaddy.com

They still cost me a lot to make but the solid hand crafted quality that I’m striving for makes this an exclusive shop purchase that will last a lifetime of tattooing. 

One of my Caddy goals  was to get at least one in all 50 states and I’m proud to say “We did it!”  I’ve even shipped a few up to Canada. 
I love this product and I know it sounds crazy at first but it’s truly is our tattoo shops most necessary client comfort.  

-Sierra