A Message From Violet & Keikii;
2 months ago
โ Sun, Sep 08, 2024 at 09:29:29 PM
From Keikii;
After 10 successful kickstarters under my personal belt, I wasnโt prepared for the worst that could happen- just because I didnโt think it was a possibility. In the campaign we kept unlocking more and more than we could realistically afford with the mindset that we could โmake up the fundsโ with my vending at conventions. We had no idea just how much in downturn the US economy was right around the corner from this campaign.
Every show that I vended at last year ended up in loss of money rather than gaining funds, which in turn lead to me facing the threat of homelessness. On top of this, after my third round of covid I was diagnosed with long covid and as a symptom of that- brain damage & memory loss. Itโs been extra hard vending this year, especially as I lost all of my regular helpers in vending and have been doing everything solo & disabled. In addition to this, in years' past my etsy was consistantly bringing in close to $3k a month, but since June of 2023, it's only been bringing in an average of $250 total a month.
Violet and I have been working hard behind the scenes - in between bouts of both mental and physical illness and stressors - to figure out the best way to resolve everything. There is truly nothing we want more than to fulfill this Kickstarter as quickly and smoothly as possible.
Thank you to everyone who came to see me at matsuricon over the weekend! You were all incredibly nice, and we genuinely appreciate it! Matsuricon marks the first convention Iโve done since this campaignโs funding period ended where I wasnโt in the negatives at the end of the weekend.
This update is made to be clear and honest with everyone, and to elaborate more on things mentioned in our previous update. We really appreciate everyoneโs patience and kindness while we navigate this insane campaign fulfillment segment!
Several of the ideas weโve had to get everything up to snuff have been failing due to the downturned economy, so hopefully weโll get an idea that sticks soon.
We both truly believe in the product we are creating, its potential, and how much everyone who sees the bag falls in love with it!!
The other monster in this campaign has been marketing. Of course, algorithms are everywhere and they hate small artists. The most views any of our TikTokโs got for the campaign was around 500, which is extra disheartening when we have a combined following of 8k just on TikTok. Tweets and Instagram posts went no where. Facebook is extra hard to navigate.
We have looked into getting lines of credit, both as business credit cards and small business loans- even quick cash loans from predatory corporations- and all options have fallen flat.
Just know, we are not giving up on this product that we believe so much in! And we are not giving up on you, just as you have not given up on us.
We cannot even verbalize how much your ongoing support means to us.
In the future, we will definitely be having our goals have much more of a buffer to account for things like this- and to better our future campaigns.
All of that being said, (if youโre still here thank you we love you!!) we have decided to start the production of enamel pins first as most people in this campaign actually backed for those specifically! And they are the cheapest part of this campaign to get manufactured, making them a more easily obtainable goal.
Originally the plan we wanted to follow was to fund black bags first since those have a higher profit margin and it would be easy to make up funds with that- however, doing one run of mothman bags specifically would currently run us around $5000 before shipping from China.
from Violet;
We've never had issues before about "making funds up" between projects- but between the economy & the algorithm it has been a total nightmare. Violet & I both paid for multiple ads on multiple different platforms and got only about a 2% return in revenue spent producing said ads.ย
These past few years have been financially stressful for Keikii and we strained to keep funds in balance but due to things she couldn't control and unfortunate timing when we thought she'd be earning more to be able to start production I ended up going backwards unfortunately this means that I (VioletCascade) have been dealing with a lot of stress over the campaign despite the funds we earned from it, initially we thought working in USD would be more beneficial than my currency being stuck as AUD but financial strain has ultimately made this decision pointless.
I have suggested to Keikii that I'll run a second campaign on my own only featuring the cats and devil bats and not the monster girls, this campaign aims to cover the cost of production and the purchases made throughout this campaign and will not be for profit or financial gain or even resale outside of it keeping everything exclusive to those who back the new campaign and supported the original, I also mentioned additional goodies from the OG campaign but we'll have to see! I am doing my best at the moment to complete artwork for sampling and production while getting random hives known as chronic spontaneous urticaria which is usually a significant sign of stress but she's working hard on finding the best way to deliver everyone the products they pledged for.
from both of us;
ultimately, apologies aren't enough for the situation, but we are working extra hard behind the scenes to get everything back on track. Thank you so much for believing in us.ย
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