The Official Settlers of Catan Gaming Board

BackerKit Is Live
about 8 years ago – Sat, Mar 05, 2016 at 07:49:10 PM

Hi everyone, we sent out the BackerKit surveys last night in a soft launch in order to work out the bugs.  

BackerKit Survey Login

https://the-official-settlers-of-catan-gaming-board.backerkit.com/

Preorder Page to share with friends who didn't back the Kickstarter

https://the-official-settlers-of-catan-gaming-board.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders

One of the bugs that I didn't catch is that BackerKit doesn't allow for multiple pricing for the same add-on. For instance, if you pledged $10 or more extra for more card banks, BackerKit only recognizes the full price and charges extra.  We will be issuing a complimentary credit for this difference in price to everyone who this issue applies to, so you won't need to message us to have this completed.

Important: For those who have already selected the full-price card banks, don't worry a complimentary credit will be issued before the BackerKit closes. No credit cards have been charged yet, so you will never see an unnecessary charge for that. 

Also, as you can see, the international shipping cost for the card banks is greater than the actual pledge itself of $10, so we'll be issuing a full credit for any card bank sets pledged for by international backers. This includes any international backers at the $100 level and above, as well as any international backers below $100 who pledged extra for a card bank set.  Once this all gets worked out, you'll see a credit in your BackerKit for that amount. 

I've had to close out my inboxes for the day, and there are still 193 backer support messages in our primary business mail, and over 200 Kickstarter messages to resolve backer issues, but I will be working over the weekend to resolve as much as I can before getting back in touch with BackerKit on Monday for the complicated issues. 

As soon as we get all of the bugs ironed out (hopefully by Monday evening), we're going to launch a pre-order campaign and giveaway contest to help spread the word as far as possible.

We're hoping to be able to increase the size of our Catan Bag vendor order as much as possible so that we can have plenty of inventory leftover to put on Amazon after we fulfill these Kickstarters.  

We've already raised $14,000 so far, with no buzz or marketing push yet, which is huge.  We're keeping a relatively low profile until we get everyone's pledge completely squared away, but as soon as we're all set, we're looking forward to having fun with this preorder campaign.  If we hit the $100,000 mark that will leave us with enough profit leftover to fulfill every single product from both Kickstarters in parallel immediately, which will be ideal.  I'm optimistic we'll hit that, but we'll work on that after Monday. 

Also, I've had some very good communication with Guido from the Catan team, and we have an additional meeting scheduled in two weeks with the rest of the new Catan Studio team.  We're all anxious to put the Mayfair issues behind us and get back to having fun and building cool products.   

Still working
about 8 years ago – Wed, Feb 24, 2016 at 10:48:01 PM

I've had conference calls with our BackerKit support rep and am averaging 5-7 support tickets/day but we're eventually going to get there. The way the BackerKit system is setup, once we create database items, if we need to make a change, we have to manually email their support and ask them to change it for us. I know, I don't understand either, but from what I hear they're working on changing that for the next release. The BackerKit will be sent out when it's complete, I have no way of predicting when it will be released with all the support we're requiring now. Please remember we have our core business of Amazon etc that we are managing at the same time so we can't dedicate full 8 hr workdays to completing the BackerKit. When it's done, it will be sent out. Until then, please hang tight. 

Also, for those of you who are posting my personal social media posts in the Kickstarter public comments, please stop.  I've blocked most of you, but some of you still seem to think that I don't have a right to also enjoy living a normal life while I work to fulfill these Kickstarters.  

I don't post social media posts about me working because, news flash, nobody cares that I'm working. Some of you seem to think I need to have a livestream GoPro setup on a hover drone around me 24/7 just so you can see that I'm working on fulfilling these projects every waking hour. I don't need to prove to you I'm working.  Trust me, no one on this planet is more anxious and motivated to get these Kickstarters fulfilled than me.  This is my full-time job and has been since the beginning (except for that Mayfair debacle period where I had to get a part-time job at Starbucks and be an Uber driver, but that's in the past now. Yay Asmodee! :-) Can't wait to work with those guys). It's unrealistic and disrespectful to expect me to not live a normal healthy life, which is why those who've taken to posting my personal life in this public forum are now blocked. This world is a place filled with nice people, don't let the internet turn you into a not nice person. 

To be clear, 99% of everybody here is absolutely amazing, and I get private messages and Twitter @ replies from super supportive backers which mean the world to me (THANK YOU, I <3 YOU :-).  But supportive, encouraging people who understand what it takes to create something new from nothing don't feel the need for public infamy and mock outrage, so they typically don't post publicly which skews the public comments to be mostly negative.  Hence, I no longer read the comments. 

I'll update as soon as the BackerKit is live. Thank you. 

BackerKit Issue Resolved, Moving Forward
about 8 years ago – Tue, Feb 09, 2016 at 11:35:38 PM

Hi everyone,

BackerKit has answered all of my questions. Their support is quite good even if the software is extraordinarily frustrating to use sometimes. Will make edits tomorrow after I get back from the wood shop, then submit for review. Here's a preview of the BackerKit survey.

BackerKit Issue Resolved, Moving Forward
about 8 years ago – Tue, Feb 09, 2016 at 11:32:13 PM

Hi everyone,

BackerKit has answered all of my questions.  Their support is quite good even if the software is extraordinarily frustrating to use sometimes. Will make edits tomorrow after I get back from the wood shop, then submit for review. Here's a preview of the BackerKit survey.

BackerKit
about 8 years ago – Mon, Feb 08, 2016 at 05:48:07 PM

Hi everyone,

We're having an issue with the BackerKit software where people who pledged additional money for international shipping are viewed by BackerKit as having that much money to receive additional items, rather than as being international backers. We can't send it out until we fix this issue, but I'll keep everyone updated daily until we do. Thanks.