Spend

Our bank account lives a boom and bust lifestyle.

After a crowdfunding campaign it's stratospheric.

For us.

Then we spend on materials and components.

Photo by Igal Ness on Unsplash

Then again on shipping.

Then Paul's salary, conventions and advertising chip away at it.

Till it's paltry.

Then we crowdfund again to stay afloat.

We're in the spending phase now.

The last of the wooden bits arrive this week.

I've just spent £8,000 on the acrylic. Most of it.

And £2,500 on playmats.

Next up are the big boxes and the printing.

Then it'll be shipping again.

The balance is heading south...

Arrivals

I’ve picked a box manufacturer.

Almost 5,000 dice have arrived at Paul’s house:

Lots of dice!

Three enormous boxes of wooden bits have arrived at mine (should have been Paul’s!) with two more on the way:

Did someone order some discs and cubes?

The next print run is taking shape.

Our FlickFleet print runs are usually 400 copies.

We’ve done three 400 copy FlickFleet runs and two 400 copy Expansion 1 runs.

The Boxes of Flicks were an aberration, smaller, more expensive runs.

Xeno Wars will be an 800 copy run. We’ve already sold over 400!

Paul’s house is going to be very full for a couple of months.

Relationship

In March I got new quotes for everything we'd need for the Xeno Wars print run. Including boxes.

Once the Gamefound campaign was complete I started getting those quotes refreshed to reflect price increases due to war in Ukraine and other global factors.

The box manufacturer had gone bust.

They'd made 2,150 boxes for us over three years. We had a relationship.

Not any more.

I frantically started hunting for a new manufacturer.

Several companies I contacted couldn't do it.

Some of those put us in contact with others.

Others just refused to answer emails and phone calls. 

I get that they might not want (or be able to) do what we need, but that's not a good way to do business.

It's been slow going.

Last week I reached out to a few more companies.

Much better this time. They all got back to me, all quoted for the work.

One stood out though.

He wanted to speak on the phone.

Discuss the project. He'd looked at our website.

Had some ideas to do things differently. Better. Maybe even cheaper than what I'd asked for. With further savings in future.

We spoke several times. Clearing things up. Asking and answering questions.

Photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash

His quote came in cheapest of the five I'd got.

The company is 170 years old.

And, it turns out, I've used them before.

Guess which one I'm going with.

Clock

I’m back now.

Cracking on.

I want to shut the Pledge Manager but we still have 74 outstanding pledges.

I need to shut it so I know what to order from our suppliers.

Prices are likely to rise because of the energy crisis.

I’d like to get my orders in beforehand if I can.

It’s a race against time…

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash