Friday update: By the Numbers
over 4 years ago – Fri, Aug 28, 2020 at 10:37:32 PM

We are in the final week of August and things are progressing well. Here's a numbers recap:

• 17 people have not yet finished the survey. If you have not received (or don't think you received) a survey, see below.
• 3 orders are awaiting one or two items to be completed.
• 54 orders are in the "staging" stage; I'll probably start in on those next week.
• 102 orders have been shipped.

By pledge levels:

• All orders in the Early-Bird level (except 2 with unanswered surveys) have been shipped.
• At the Single tracker level (both domestic and exotic), 7 orders are awaiting one or two items, and 41 have been shipped.
• At the Party Pack levels, 33 orders have been shipped, and 10 are waiting for items.
• No other pledge levels have been started.

Yesterday, I ran out of lacquer and will need to get more (I've gone through 8 gallons so far), so I doubt if things will get done over the weekend.

I am currently cutting the walnut cards at the I Want Them All level. Because I'm cutting by woodtype, and not by order, I may not be able to start shipping this level next week. It all depends on what types of wood are in the orders. I still have  the rest of walnut, bloodwood, some purpleheart and padauk to go at this level.

My plan for next week is to finish up the cutting in the I Want Them All level, as well as the International Backer level and at least get a good jump on the Retailer level. I'm losing my worker this week (back to college), but have trained a replacement who will only be available for 10 hours a week or so. I'm expecting production levels to fall during this time, but still hope to get a good number finished every day. My goal is to have the project completely done by the end of September.

There were a few shipping errors which are not included in the numbers above. I have them on my list, though, and hope to have a good turnaround on those.

Missing Surveys!

If you have not received a survey, it may be in your spam folder. But rather than go through a bunch of old spam messages, you can instead go to the survey recovery page here: https://dnd-5e-character-cards.backerkit.com/  Please do this soon so that you can get your reward soon.

Friday report on Saturday
over 4 years ago – Sat, Aug 22, 2020 at 09:35:35 PM

I was so busy yesterday that I completely forgot about doing a Friday update.

So, by the numbers:

• 21 backers have not yet completed their survey. This includes several people who pledged at the $1 level and may not want a reward.
• 68 backers have completed their survey, but I have not looked at them yet to see how close they are to completion. These are mostly in the higher dollar amount tiers.
• 10 backers at the early-bird and single card levels are waiting for one or two items to be finished before shipment. These are the priority orders that I check every morning to see if I can get them out.
• 76 backers have had their orders shipped. These are from the Early Bird, Single Card and some Party Packs.

I received in the shipment of wood I was expecting on Friday (part of the reason why I was so busy). I am now running all the maple and cherry cards that are outstanding. I hope to have all cards cut within two weeks.

I've hired a new helper to do some finishing work since I am losing my current helper after next week due to her returning to school.

I'm running into the occasional card that I don't want to ship out for various reasons. It could be a flaw in the wood, a flaw in the engraving, or maybe I just don't like the color. At the end of shipping, I'm going to make a post letting everyone know what cards are available as misfits. These will be heavily discounted and will be on a first come, first served basis. I'll probably drop them into a storefront so you can look and choose without having to fight over a poorly designed Kickstarter page. More on that in a couple weeks. 

As always, I'd like to encourage everyone to sign up for my newsletter where you can get exclusive information on shows, promotions, upcoming KS projects and more. Sign up by going here: https://mailchi.mp/e0bbeccdca92/facebooksignup

Reminder to check your junk file
over 4 years ago – Thu, Aug 20, 2020 at 08:21:33 AM

I've been getting several emails about not getting surveys. Please be sure to check your junk file. The survey will likely have an @Backerkit return address. Also check to make sure that you are checking the address associated with your Kickstarter account. That is the account that Backerkit uses to verify the person taking the survey is the person who backed the project.

I'll have a weekly numbers report done on Fridays moving forward.  We are making good progress with most all Earlybird backers being shipped by Friday and some at the Single Tracker tier in for good measure. Next week I hope to start in on the party pack tier.

John

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By the numbers...
over 4 years ago – Wed, Aug 12, 2020 at 04:06:41 PM

New News

I have some early numbers to share....I haven't done a deep dive into everything, but I thought some people might find these things interesting.

Of the 154 backers of the project (some dropped), 126 have answered the survey with 28 outstanding. Many of these are pledges at the $1 level, so I don't expect those to complete the survey (although they are certainly encouraged to do so).

I have shipped 9 Early Bird packages so far (I'm not sure if you can see a status on backerkit on whether your package has shipped or not, but that might be a good place to look if you are curious). I have 11 other early bird backers that are staged to go, but are missing one or two items. I hope to get them out by the end of the week or early next week.  Please note that there have been many reports of slow shipments with USPS lately. This could mean a normal 2-3 day shipping time can be extended to a week or two. I hope this does not continue, but I cannot afford to ship these UPS.

Of the surveys that have come back, nearly 800 cards have been ordered. The break-down by type of wood are:

• Bloodwood: 50
• Cedar: 137
• Cherry: 217
• Maple 100
• Padauk: 23
• Purpleheart: 78
• Walnut: 190

So, Cherry is the winner (no surprise there) with Walnut showing a respectable second. Top in exotic is purpleheart (again, no surprise there).

I didn't do a breakdown by class, but Cleric seems to be one the the most popular cards, with Druid and Wizard making strong showings as well. Subclasses are well represented, but not as popular. One surprise is the low number of Bloodhunters; there are a few here and there, but I thought that the popularity of Critical Role may have pushed those numbers up a little. 

As far as I can tell, there are no classes that have not been chosen, which seems like a good indication that there is widespread use of all the classes.

Hit point counters were very popular, perhaps the most popular overall. It makes me glad that I included them; I really didn't think they would be something that would translate well. 

On average, it takes the laser about 8 minutes to cut a card. I have a goal of getting 50 cards cut in a day. Last time I did the math, that meant that it would take me about another 2 1/2 weeks to get the rest of the cards cut out. My helper, however, is only getting about 25 cards finished a day. We looked at the process yesterday and eliminated a step for most of the cards. I'm also going to spend an hour or two a day helping with the finishing work, so I'm hoping we can get that number up over 40/day.

Shipping

Shipping has gone OK in the small batches I've done so far, but that will eat up more time as more cards get finished. I was going to use Backerkit's postage system until I noticed a discrepancy between what Backerkit charges for shipping compared to the USPS site. When I asked them about this, they said that they charge an extra 10% on top of USPS prices. I guess they feel that their software makes it worthwhile to use them and pay the surcharge. That might be the case for projects where everyone gets the same (or close to the same thing). Run a report, dump all the addresses into a block and print out a ton of labels. But for this project, where everyone pretty much gets different things in their shipment, and I'm just doing a bunch of groups of 1 anyways, so I decided to use Paypal for shipping and save the 10%.

With the reports now available, I have been able to determine exactly how much wood will be needed to finish the project. It is not entirely unexpected that I underestimated the amount of wood needed, especially in maple and cedar. I've put a new order in to the lumber yard for wood that should get me through the project, plus a little extra....I hope. I don't see this as delaying the project at all since I have ample wood to keep me busy until that shipment arrives.

Moving forward:

I am going to focus on the Early bird level the rest of this week; I'd like to get these out this week, but a few may need to wait until next week because of extra items ordered that I've had to finish off.  When I'm done with that, I'm going to probably start shipments of the Domestic and Exotic Tracker levels, leaving party packs and I Want them All until later. This is simply because I should be able to fulfill more of single items sooner while the inventory of the larger orders builds up.  There will most likely be some overlap between shipment of the pledge levels...I won't wait until 100% of one level is out the door before I start the next level. 

Follow Hrothgar's Hoard

Lastly, I'd like to encourage everyone to follow Hrothgar's Hoard on Facebook and Instagram as well as joining my mailing list if you haven't done so already.  Facebook and Instagram is where I'll put minor, day-to-day news and pictures. My mailing list is where you'll be able to get a bigger picture of what is going on, any sales that might be coming up, convention schedules and experiences (once we get to have those again) and things that keep me awake at night. I won't overuse the mail list, but there will be exclusive things offered to people on that list that will never make it to FB or Instagram. So join in today!

Facebook: www.facebook.com/hrothgarshoard

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hrothgars_hoard/

Mailing list: https://mailchi.mp/e0bbeccdca92/facebooksignup

Thank you, everyone. This has been a great project and I'm glad to be able to share it with you.

John

It's been 2 weeks! What's going on?!?
over 4 years ago – Sat, Aug 01, 2020 at 03:39:18 PM

The project closed out 2 weeks ago which means things are about to start moving. KS has approved the funds to be transferred to my account and that should show up in the next couple business days. I've actually already purchased the lumber; or at least what I'm estimating the needs of the project to be, so it is in racks just waiting for me to get to work. I've also made (but not quite finished) most of the cards for the Early Bird backers.

On Backerkit, I've completed the survey and it is now under review. I was hoping that it would be approved today so I could send out the "smoke test" today. The smoke test is basically a test run where a small percentage of surveys are sent out randomly and you guys get to tell me if everything is clear. I don't foresee any problems with this (I've done more than a few projects in BK), so as soon as I get approval, I'll be sending out the surveys to everyone.

In the survey, you will get to choose each card class and wood type for your reward. You will also be given the opportunity to give me special instructions. This section *should* only pertain to a few people who have emailed me questions and I requested that they remind me in the survey about that question. If you did not email me a question in advance, please do not fill out this section with special requests. This will slow the process down and likely end up costing you extra. On the other hand, if you want to spend a little extra money to make your card unique, please email me at [email protected] with your request.

After the survey question, you will enter the add-on section. Here you will be able to add on a lot of my normal store items. While not everything is available as an add-on, the most popular items are there, you can add on and get everything together at one time.

UPDATE: I just got word from Backerkit that I am cleared for the smoke test. I will send that out as soon as I'm done with this. If you receive a smoke test, please fill it out as soon as you can.

I will lock down surveys in batches and will make a post before I do so. Anytime prior to the lockdown, you can go back in and change your add-on orders. Some companies leave the lockdown period open for a long time, but I want to get everything shipped out in September, if I can, so please fill out your survey and add on whatever else you might want. The sooner the surveys are in, the sooner I can start production.

Do you have a friend that missed out on this project? Send them this link: https://dnd-5e-character-cards.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders  They'll be able to get into the project this way. If they have questions, please feel free to give them my email at [email protected]

I think that is all for now. As always, if you have any questions, feel free to send me a message. And thank you all, very, very much for your support.

John