Project Difficulties, Mistakes, Moving Forward, and Another Option
over 4 years ago
– Mon, Sep 30, 2019 at 11:22:28 PM
Hey Everyone,
We are sorry for the delay and the lack of communication. This project has been difficult for us and obviously for you as a backer. We understand the negative feelings being expressed, but no one is being scammed. We also understand that many of you may not trust/believe our updates and comments at this point, and your feelings and thoughts are noted and understood.
There have been many aspects of this campaign that have added unfortunate and unnecessary delays for reward delivery. Some have been our fault, and some have been out of our control. Regardless, we are sorry for any negative feelings you have towards us or this Kickstarter campaign. The goal of this update is to be more clear about the issues we've had, the mistakes we've made, our intentions, and commitment to fulfilling this project.
Why didn't we go with one of our backup manufacturers?:
- The other manufacturer quoted a higher price. Since this project was 1/3 the size of our 1.0 campaign, we have much fewer resources and less room to work with than before.
- We decided to use the same manufacturer as our 1.0 campaign, since they came through previously and had the best pricing, assuming the process would be smooth.
- Unfortunately, due to the smaller than anticipated order size, the manufacturer required full payment upfront. They said this was necessary to provide product samples, to prototype, and to produce.
- We paid the current manufacturer in full, including shipping fees. We are tied to this manufacturer.
Smaller Than Expected Order Size:
- The manufacturer works with multi-million dollar orders from large brands worldwide. Originally with 1.0 production runs, we saw this as an advantage. Although our orders were relatively small for them, they still gave us good pricing, good quality, and attentive service.
- The 2.0 KS was smaller than expected. Also, the order is split up amongst the large number of products we introduced. This resulted in us ordering a small number of each product. We didn't realize this was going to be such a problem at first, but we now know:
- The small batches we are making for each product resulted in higher costs for manufacturing.
- Our relatively small order is a low priority for the manufacturer compared to the multi-million dollar orders they get.
Prototyping:
As stated before, the size of our first Kickstarter and the subsequent orders of 1.0 products allowed for a healthy relationship with the manufacturer. They were very responsive to our needs and constructed additional prototypes at no additional cost. However, after the final 2.0 KS order was made, the manufacturer saw this project would be much smaller. This resulted in less attention and longer waits for prototypes. There was also a significant change in how effective, careful, and thoughtful they were in each round of prototypes, leading to unnecessary additional rounds of prototypes.
As outlined below, and in previous updates, we also made the mistake of making material changes late in the process, which added additional prototyping rounds. The degree of difficulty and complexity was multiplied due to the large variety of products we offered. The last round of prototypes was several months ago, as you know from previous updates, and we are pushing them to get us a final round so we can move into production immediately. We are hopeful that this will happen soon based on recent conversations with them.
Tariff Increases:
The whole US/China tariff situation impacted the prioritization as well. Companies with larger orders were rushed through the production line before the tariffs were enacted. Hopefully, now that the tariffs are enacted, this project will be put back at a “normal” priority within the factory.
Other Manufacturing Stuff:
Some of you may wonder if the manufacturer is violating their agreement with us. Unfortunately, from their perspective, no. If we try and force the issue, it could result in higher costs and a damaged relationship with the manufacturer. We are trying to work with them rather than work against them.
Too Many Products:
We've learned that past success (producing 2 products at once) doesn't equate to future success with more complicated orders (producing 6+ products at once). We acknowledge that we should have introduced fewer products. We were overconfident from our first successful campaign.
- Each product adds additional time and cost complexities. (Design, prototyping rounds, etc)
- Each product increases the minimum production amount with the manufacturer (not only each different product but also each variation of each product – EX. differing colors)
While we knew more products would add complexity, we underestimated the additional time and resources needed to make it happen, leading to additional and unexpected time delays.
Material Changes Made Late in the Process:
We shouldn't have tried to make material changes when we did. We are unsure how much time this actually added to the project, but are sure it was a contributing factor and we won’t make this mistake again.
Overconfident Expectations for Success:
We saw several other successful Kickstarters go on to even greater success with their 2nd Kickstarter campaign, even for a similar or slightly modified version of their original product. We thought that offering several new and innovative products, as well as improvements to the base products, would lead to big success with our 2nd Kickstarter. While it was a success, it was not as big a success as we expected (about 1/3 the size of our first campaign). This led to several challenges, some of which didn't materialize right away:
- A smaller order with the manufacturer cost much more than we originally budgeted for. Manufacturing pricing gets cheaper per unit as orders get larger and, inversely, pricing increases per unit as orders get smaller. This was compounded by the higher number of product/color combos we have. The actual order numbers are very small for each product/color due to all the permutations. Not only was the cost much higher, but over time we found that we were getting less attention from the manufacturer. This manifested into a lower priority order for them.
- Team Impact: With less than expected funds from this Kickstarter campaign we've had to scale back the team, which makes managing the business and the KS campaign more challenging. For example, as some have noted, we are not really doing much with our social media currently. We scaled efforts back there and across our business model to help save money and allocate remaining funds into completing this Kickstarter.
What Would We Do Differently If We Could Start Over?
If we were to do this again, we would change several things, eliminating most (and possibly all) of the issues we experienced:
1. Only Introduce 1 or 2 products via a Kickstarter campaign at a time.
2. Not make material changes late in the process.
3. Fully complete prototyping prior to the KS campaign launch, ensuring immediate production.
4. Don't be overconfident with our expectations for success.
We truly are sorry for the frustrations and concerns this has caused many of you and for our mistakes. Our priority is delivering your rewards.
Another Option?
We do have some limited 1.0 inventory still available that could be shipped out to US, EU, or AUS/NZ backers now. If any of you would like to trade your KS pledge amount for 1.0 gear, then we will offer that on a first come first served basis (while supplies last). We will even throw in some additional gear to make up for the issues. Direct message us if you are interested in this option and we can let you know what is possible.
For everyone else: this is going to happen and we will deliver.
Best,
InIt Gear
