Father Nature Outdoors was successful on Kickstarter and we’re pumped! We’ll take a quick look back, but more importantly start to look forward.
Last Friday the Kickstarter campaign for Father Nature Outdoors was successfully funded with $20,702, surpassing our $12,000 goal. The whole ride was a roller coaster with a quick climb, lengthy plateau, sudden jolt, and steady finish. We finished with 206 backers and exactly 200 members in the Founding Family. Our most popular award was our blanket as we had hoped, but we’re happy because we still had supporters interested in watching FNO succeed by pledging for waffles and buffs. Another fun fact from the campaign is that the majority of the Founding Family is news faces. We’re excited by this as they can contribute feedback and play a part in our growth and product expansion. Probably only 25% of our backers were names we had known from the past. Overall we had a successful kickoff and now the real work is to get started.
In our preparation for Kickstarter we knew we had to get working as soon as possible following the campaign in order to make our fulfillment reasonable. Some Kickstarter projects offer rewards months or even half a year into the future (some still haven’t been fulfilled years later), but we wanted to try our best to make our pledges obtainable in a reasonable time period. That being said, projects don't actually receive full funds from Kickstarter until 2-3 weeks after the campaign ends. So up to this point we haven’t received all of our funds, but we’re getting started nonetheless!
First Inventory is always toughest
In preparing for Kickstarter we have talked to a few different businesses that hold inventory or had to fulfill orders following a start-up. We were told- "The first inventory is always the toughest. The more you prepare on the front-end the better off you'll be". It makes sense. While we have held small inventory in the past, the Kickstarter campaign was to jump up the operation and make the product available to the public on a larger scale. The first inventory requires working with three manufacturers, three shippers, possible freight forwarders, stocking, and quick fulfillment. After that point you have safety stock and ordering inventory is just a calculated measure of timing.
We believe we have prepared well for this, even with the initial snag of later than expected funding. With that said, tomorrow starts our ordering and manufacturing.
In our preparation for Kickstarter we knew we had to get working as soon as possible following the campaign in order to make our fulfillment reasonable. Some Kickstarter projects offer rewards months or even half a year into the future (some still haven’t been fulfilled years later), but we wanted to try our best to make our pledges obtainable in a reasonable time period. That being said, projects don't actually receive full funds from Kickstarter until 2-3 weeks after the campaign ends. So up to this point we haven’t received all of our funds, but we’re getting started nonetheless!
First Inventory is always toughest
In preparing for Kickstarter we have talked to a few different businesses that hold inventory or had to fulfill orders following a start-up. We were told- "The first inventory is always the toughest. The more you prepare on the front-end the better off you'll be". It makes sense. While we have held small inventory in the past, the Kickstarter campaign was to jump up the operation and make the product available to the public on a larger scale. The first inventory requires working with three manufacturers, three shippers, possible freight forwarders, stocking, and quick fulfillment. After that point you have safety stock and ordering inventory is just a calculated measure of timing.
We believe we have prepared well for this, even with the initial snag of later than expected funding. With that said, tomorrow starts our ordering and manufacturing.
What we expect/What should you expect.
So what do we expect? (It will be fun to look at this post in three months).. We expect things to run smoothly in this order- We expect bandanas/buffs to be the first to arrive. Thermals/waffles to arrive next. Lastly, we expect the camping blankets to arrive. The camping blankets are unique in manufacturing for two reasons-
1) They use Superloft insulation which needs to be sourced specially
2) They are unlike any product manufactured thus far so each blanket will be developed by hand to meet our specs and requirements. This isn’t the normal assembly line.
If things run in the order we expect, then we will try to start fulfilling in that order rather than one huge push. Smaller tiers will be fulfilled quicker, but if you selected combinations we plan to wait for the largest item in the combination in order to consolidate shipping. It makes more sense to do it this way, rather than piece by piece. Get all your FNO gear on one sweet outdoor holiday!
All this being said, we are still a decent ways off from fulfillment as you would expect. We just finished our campaign on Friday so this is just the look ahead- We’re still riding the high of victory, but we want you guys to enjoy it too so we’re getting hard to work!
We plan to continue to use this blog for updates and insights into the operations here at FNO. So thank you for reading and like us on Facebook if you want to stay on top of the updates. Thanks!
Chris DeVore
Father Nature Outdoors
Because Mother Nature can be a pain
So what do we expect? (It will be fun to look at this post in three months).. We expect things to run smoothly in this order- We expect bandanas/buffs to be the first to arrive. Thermals/waffles to arrive next. Lastly, we expect the camping blankets to arrive. The camping blankets are unique in manufacturing for two reasons-
1) They use Superloft insulation which needs to be sourced specially
2) They are unlike any product manufactured thus far so each blanket will be developed by hand to meet our specs and requirements. This isn’t the normal assembly line.
If things run in the order we expect, then we will try to start fulfilling in that order rather than one huge push. Smaller tiers will be fulfilled quicker, but if you selected combinations we plan to wait for the largest item in the combination in order to consolidate shipping. It makes more sense to do it this way, rather than piece by piece. Get all your FNO gear on one sweet outdoor holiday!
All this being said, we are still a decent ways off from fulfillment as you would expect. We just finished our campaign on Friday so this is just the look ahead- We’re still riding the high of victory, but we want you guys to enjoy it too so we’re getting hard to work!
We plan to continue to use this blog for updates and insights into the operations here at FNO. So thank you for reading and like us on Facebook if you want to stay on top of the updates. Thanks!
Chris DeVore
Father Nature Outdoors
Because Mother Nature can be a pain
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