Nadir

I ran another board games publisher once. Reiver Games. It failed. Over weeks. And then months. And then fatally.

I spent those weeks and months a failure. Watching the bank loan repayments and warehousing bleeding my company dry. Unable to create the sales I needed to keep it alive. Each day despondent, trying ideas that didn't cost much, watching those ideas fail. The money seeping out week by week.

It hurt.

That's how last Wednesday felt too.

I love Kickstarter. Without it, FlickFleet wouldn't exist and Eurydice Games wouldn't be anywhere near as successful as it has been.

But I hate Kickstarter. The minute your campaign finishes, you're in debt. Way before you get the money, you owe hundreds (or thousands if you're lucky) of people. They've lent you their hard-earned cash. And you owe them. That weighs on me - I hate being in debt. What if I get hit by a bus? What if Paul's house burns down? 

Those debts weigh on me. I'm sure that's why we've fulfilled early until now. The weight of those debts pressing us to get the rewards out and the debts paid as fast as we can. I hate Kickstarter.  

Fulfilling early is unusual. We've done it twice. It has become part of our identity - the crazy guys who hand-craft games in their garage and fulfill early.

But a supplier let us down on Wednesday. The order was eight days late and when I finally got through to them, it was delayed until next month. We'd miss a deadline. 150 debts that we'd pay late. Not early.

It’s my fault really. I should have baked more slack into the project. I didn’t.

We've lost our identity. Now we're just crazy guys. Late like everyone else.

We told our backers Thursday, once we'd had a chance to explore some other options. They were very supportive. I love Kickstarter. The community it creates around your project. 

The ad went live on Wednesday too. It didn't lead to any sales either.