Sunday, August 7, 2011

Kickstarter Funding Was A Success!

Woohoo! We did it!

Thanks to everyone who pledged, even just a little bit. All those little pledges really added up!

And super, special thanks to everyone who helped us get the word out. Y'all used email, blog posts, Twitter, Facebook, special interest websites, mailing lists, and more. This is the only reason that the project succeeded. So many people knew about it that we found some people who could afford to back this project, even in this economy.

Altogether, 53 people pledged a total of $5,395 to get our collective off the ground. Keep watching my blog to see photos of the new yarn and equipment that I'll be buying with some of this money.

I'm going to cut the between-beam weaving downtime in half by setting up a separate warping station. I'll be further economizing by making that second beam hold 200 yards instead of 100. This spreads the setup time across twice as much cloth. These increases in efficiency will let me pay for my already increased overhead without raising prices. I want weavers to keep telling me that my prices are too low!

And even more important than the money and efficiency aspects of this project is the social aspect. People showed us with their enthusiasm that they really support the work that we're doing. Even if we hadn't made our financial goal, the love and support are amazing.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

2 comments:

Laura Fry said...

Why do you want to 'underprice' your work? Use the increased efficiency to give your business a higher profit margin and room to develop new product and markets. And a cushion against poor economy etc....
Laura

Unknown said...

Hi, Laura,

I hope your last few rounds of "medicine" are as easy as possible and do the trick. There are a lot of us out here rooting for you.

About pricing, don't get me wrong. I don't underprice my work at all. It's just the perception of people who don't weave production quantities.

When they claim my prices are too low, they're really saying that they couldn't charge my prices for their work.

And it's true. When I weave 100 yards of 60" wide cloth at a time, my per-yard price is going to be way less than someone who has to set their loom up and make all the necessary design decisions and loom adjustments for a few yards at a time.