Guesstimating The Work Before You Begin

[Britta]

I did a lot of research on this before I started my Kickstarter project. I read the New York Times article about the Kickstarteds and found myself getting nervous. A couple of people who were in that article gain success at what seemed too high a cost. Even after my research, looking back, I still had no clue how much work lay ahead of me and my team or how many people I was going to have to hire to help get it done. I had not budgeted for enough people to help me. I did talk to other Kickstarteds first but I wish I had talked to more who had actually gotten all the way through the process and had some predecessors to follow who had taken on this level of complexity. During my pre-Kickstarter research, a few people told me, "Oh yeah, fulfillment, no problem. Just use Shipwire." I'm glad I was much more curious about it. It has taken us more than three months just to get a quote from Shipwire and I've ended up personally visiting 6 other fulfillment houses in the meantime. Granted, Windowfarms are an exception to the Kickstarted rule. We vowed to have our product made in the states, meaning it is also being assembled here and so we have had to add that into the complexity of fulfillment, which most people have done overseas. Furthermore, we have 45 components that need to be kitted in one box, (as opposed to a single stand or a pre-assembled device), and there are a few different options on our product (e.g. international version). Shipwire told us that we are the most complex product they have ever dealt with. Shipwire expects you-- in order to get a quote-- to know how your parts will ship to them in bulk and how many pieces will be in a box. We were like, "Uh, we'll get back to you on that." I've had to hire my engineer to work on a bulk packing strategy for us on all of the subcomponents and tell me how 20,000 nested planters are going to be packed and shipped to the assembly plant. In my experience, if you have a lot of components and a fast-approaching deadline, Shipwire is not going to be your friend.