How Smooch Runs a Creative Accessories Brand from Anywhere in the World

Creating handmade accessories while constantly traveling might sound romantic, but it requires serious organizational skills. Smooch—a Moscow-born brand making keychains, bags, knitwear, and custom corporate merchandise—proves that you don’t need a fixed office to run a thriving creative business. You just need the right system.

The Challenge: Managing Creation While in Motion

Two friends started Smooch with a simple idea: make accessories that people actually want to carry. What began as a small project quickly evolved into something bigger—wholesale orders, custom corporate projects, an expanding product line. The catch? The founders rarely stay in one place for long.

Managing a creative business remotely presents unique challenges. You’re coordinating with suppliers in one city while traveling through another. A client needs updates on their corporate order while you’re in a completely different time zone. Your business partner is crafting samples in one location while you’re handling social media from somewhere else entirely.

The traditional approach—endless message threads, scattered Google Docs, forgotten deadlines—doesn’t work when your office is wherever you happen to be that week. They needed something that could travel with them while keeping all the moving parts synchronized.

Why Timestripe Became Their Command Center

Smooch doesn’t use Timestripe as just another task manager. It’s become their entire business infrastructure, holding everything they need to operate smoothly across distances and time zones.

Boards as Information Hubs

The real breakthrough came when they realized Boards could function as centralized repositories. Instead of hunting through message histories for that one supplier contact or desperately searching for the latest client presentation, everything lives in dedicated boards.

One board holds all supplier information—links to material procurement spreadsheets, vendor contacts, wholesale pricing sheets. Another contains client presentations, brand guidelines, and project briefs. When you’re managing multiple custom orders simultaneously, having instant access to the right information means the difference between smooth operations and chaos.

Calendar for Orchestrating Multiple Projects

Running both retail and wholesale operations means juggling completely different timelines. A single customer order might ship in a week, while a corporate merchandise project could span months. The calendar feature lets them see all these timelines at once.

They can spot potential conflicts before they become problems. If three wholesale orders are due the same week while they’re traveling, they know immediately to adjust production schedules. The visual overview prevents the kind of cascading delays that can damage client relationships.

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Assigns for Distributed Teamwork

When you’re working asynchronously across different locations, clarity about who’s doing what becomes essential. Smooch uses assigns to ensure nothing falls between the cracks.

One founder might handle supplier communications while traveling through Europe, while the other manages client presentations from a completely different continent. Clear task ownership means they don’t waste energy coordinating every single decision—they trust the system to keep them aligned.

Text Documents for Content Creation

Social media content requires a different kind of organization. Rather than drafting posts in notes apps or message threads where they get lost, Smooch creates text documents directly within Timestripe goals.

This approach keeps their content strategy connected to broader business objectives. A post promoting a new bag design links directly to the production timeline and supplier information. Everything exists in context rather than isolation.

The Remote Work Reality

What makes this system work isn’t just the features—it’s how they fit together. When you’re managing a creative business without a fixed location, you need more than good tools. You need a workspace that adapts to constant change.

The founders don’t have regular office hours. They work when inspiration strikes, when suppliers respond, when clients need updates. Timestripe accommodates this fluid approach while maintaining structure. The business doesn’t stop just because they’re in different places or time zones.

What This Means for Creative Entrepreneurs

Smooch’s story challenges the assumption that serious businesses require traditional infrastructure. You don’t need a physical office, scheduled team meetings, or everyone working the same hours in the same place.

What you do need is intentional organization. You need to know where information lives. You need to see how different projects intersect. You need clear ownership of tasks. You need your business operations to exist somewhere concrete, accessible from anywhere.

For creative businesses especially—where the work itself demands focus and inspiration—reducing administrative friction frees up energy for what actually matters: creating things people love.

In Practice

Running a brand like Smooch means constantly switching between very different modes. One moment you’re negotiating with a supplier about fabric quantities. The next you’re brainstorming social media content. Then a client needs updates on their custom order. Meanwhile, you’re planning next month’s retail releases while sitting in a café in a city you’ll leave tomorrow.

This kind of work doesn’t fit neatly into conventional productivity advice about routines and schedules. It requires something more flexible—a system that holds everything together without constraining how and when you work.

That’s exactly what makes Timestripe effective for businesses like Smooch. It provides structure without rigidity. It keeps information accessible without demanding constant maintenance. It enables asynchronous collaboration without sacrificing clarity.

The result? Two friends building a brand they care about, working from wherever they want, without sacrificing professionalism or client relationships. The business stays organized. The creativity flows. The accessories get made.

And they never lose track of what matters—even when they’re constantly moving.