Kickstarter

We had over 1,700 people vote in the survey and 260 comments. Almost 80% of these comments were words of encouragement so thank you for both your feedback and support.

The clear winner in the survey is the solid blue board. If we include those who voted for either option, this would cover over 85% of votes.

For those who will not be happy with the solid blue boards, we have a proposition for you. Let Bill and I ship it to you and try it out for yourself. Try playing a game or two on the board and if you still are bothered by the solid blue color and would prefer to return to the cardboard hex frame, you can sell it online or to a friend. We will be selling these boards at $5-$10 more plus shipping and handling fees after the Kickstarter project. Our inbox is filled is filled each day with messages from those who missed the Kickstarter and want to buy a board, some trying to pay a premium to get one as soon as our Kickstarter supporters. Granted, a few of these people may also not want the new solid blue color, but we know there is still a demand for solid color boards as witnessed by the Seafarers board and our wooden boards. Another option of course is to paint it yourself. Bill and I will get you the necessary color matches for the DIYers out there and some backers have already offered to create a video on how to paint your board once they receive theirs.

When I referred to our margins not allowing us to run the spray painted boards last update, by margins I did not mean profit margins, I meant contribution margins. We only receive 80% of your pledge after Kickstarter fees, payment processing, and royalties. Shipping costs run us $8-15 per board in addition to taxes for California boards. International shipping for the wooden boards sometimes costed us more than the board itself. You can see how this does not leave much of a margin, if any at all, on most of the pledges. 100% of that margin goes straight to the costs of designing, creating, and manufacturing the molds. When we priced these boards, we did not price them to profit. We simply priced them to cover the costs of the molds. With the demand for more products such as the Seafarers mold and the resource cardholders, any additional money went towards creating these products. We did our best to get accurate quotes for every step of the project but there are so many unforeseen costs and challenges that are hard to accurately budget for. At this point in the project, we will have to take out a loan to finish the project regardless of the decision made with painting so any additional costs only puts further stress on the financing.

As I shared in the last update, one of the great advantages of Kickstarter, the ability to fund a product that is still an idea, a computer rendering, and a prototype, is also one of the great disadvantages. The fundamental difference between products like our wooden Catan boards and the plastic Catan boards is that we had the finished product in hand before the launch and we knew we could deliver exactly the same product we showed. For the plastic boards, we had to do our best to portray through renderings and our prototype the final product we believed we could deliver. Yes, Bill and I should have caught this earlier before we launched the project but at the end of the day, we are a two man team and have to be willing to put faith in other people or this project would never happen. Unfortunately, these challenges are part of bringing a product to market.

Pity is not what we’re asking for but for what it is worth, this project consumes our life 24/7 right now. We couldn’t be more emotionally and financially invested in this project and for any wondering, I can assure you that Bill and I will not see any money from this Kickstarter. By the time this Kickstarter is through, we will have dedicated close to a year of our lives bringing these boards to market. We are simply asking you to kindly consider the circumstances. Our goal was to fix the problem with Catan hex frames and create a well-designed playing surface. We already have a lot invested in this project, so we are doing our best to see it through and stay positive. There have been some real frustrations and stress as a result of this project, but at the end of the day Bill and I feel fortunate to be able to work on something we love.

At this point, Bill and I have opted for trying to keep the project as simple and streamlined as possible until we get the boards shipped. Therefore, we will not be looking into other “patches” to try to color the board but will leave that up the creativity of our backers. This will allow us to focus completely on fulfillment and getting the boards into your hands sooner than later. We are very happy with the actual design of the plastic pieces. We know they will live up to expectations as far as durability and functionality and are excited to finally ship them out.

We will be sending out more updates within the next few days with more specifics on the timeline deliveries.

Once again, thanks for your patience and support!

Nate and Bill

Thank you for your responses on the last survey. As many who read the comments may have noticed, the majority of backers actually said they would prefer a solid blue board like the one shown for Seafarers on our main project page.

We put together a new survey with two alternatives: a tan board with a blue screen print on the edge and a solid blue board. 

First, we would like to clarify a few things. The pictures of the multicolored board shown in the last update were of a self-applied paint job Bill and I did to get an idea of what the screen-printing board would look like. In reality, we would not be rolling on the paint ourselves but it would be applied to the surface by a screen-printing machine. The final product would look something like the Catan travel edition sets. However, the downside of the screen print is the tan ports and the sides of the board will still be tan since screen-printing can only color a single surface.

A solid blue board would be in a color close to the original renderings and we will be able to start sending them out within the next couple of weeks. The other boards we have such as the beech, walnut, and aluminum boards as well as the prototype are all solid colors and our experience has been that solid color boards as a playing surface are largely unnoticeable during the actual games.

Please take the survey here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/D83WRSG

While the design shown on the main Kickstarter page would still obviously be our preference, we are trying to make the most of our options at this point in time. Over the past few weeks, Bill and I have reached out to and spoken with many plastic injection manufacturers around the US to see if we could find one that could do the custom painting process in house. While this project may seem large scale to us, most of the larger manufacturers with post-production capabilities are not interested in working with a project our size. Also, the painting process required to get the lower portions of the ports blue would almost always have to be subcontracted out for a special postproduction process anyways. We originally priced the boards with the intentions of doing everything in house at the manufacturing facility to take advantage of synergies in labor for manufacturing and packaging and painting. A post production process at a remote location would require shipping to and from a facility for 19,000 lbs of parts (approx.. 14,000 plastic parts) to do a custom paint job plus additional labor to package the boards once they return. Unfortunately, our margins will not allow this.

A few backers also suggested a blue board with the tricorners and edge painted tan. This is another option we considered but would cause a striped blue look between the hexes and on the recesses between the tricorners the screen would dip causing paint to squish under the template. We believe the two best options at this point are tan boards with screen-printed ocean or solid blue boards. We would appreciate your feedback on the survey.

<Survey at the end of the update>

First of all, thank you to our backers for your feedback on our update this morning. As our early customers, your feedback is extremely valuable and we realize that we would be foolish to ignore such a unanimous feeling about a design change. The change in sentiment from our first update this morning to my follow-up update was astounding and made us realize how much our backers value being a part of the decision-making. We know that instant feedback is one of the great advantages of Kickstarter and it was clearly our mistake to not involve backers earlier in this decision. The good news is we still have not made any final decisions so we are willing to pivot based on our backer’s feedback.

Bill and I had spent quite a bit of time prior to today researching all of our options as far as the painting process and had consulted with plastic professionals but today we were forced to go back and reconsider all of our options again and, more importantly, buy some paint and supplies and start experimenting.

At the beginning of this project, we described the part we wanted to create as shown in the video and were told that it would be possible using the usual pad printing process. What we did not realize is that the pad painting process would not get the indents of the board so we would either have to have the port tokens tan or the spaces between the roads blue.

Next, we looked to spray-painting the boards as part of the post-production process at the plastic injection facility. What we did not realize until we actually went to do testing on the boards is the amount of regulations and permits we would need to do spray painting process which could take months and cost thousands of dollars. This led us to look to other injection molding companies that could do spray painting in house. However, we found even bigger production facilities don’t usually have the capabilities to do so.

We considered a more unusual production method today by experimenting with paint rollers with different nap thicknesses. The clear downsides of using paint roller are inconsistencies in painting, the pooling of paint in the lower indents, and the orange-peel type texture that results. However, we had the idea that if we shot the boards in a tan plastic and rolled on blue paint, this texture might be fitting as the ocean. Here’s some pictures from that run. 

As you can see, there are some issues with inconsistent coverage and pools of paint in the indents. For these reasons, we think this will not be a great option for production runs.

We also experimented with what it might look like if we shot in the tan plastic and pad-printed the blue on the edges. While we had shelved this idea a while ago because we thought the tan ports would not look good, we had a bit of a change of heart once we actually painted one and saw how it looked. Surprisingly, the tan ports did not take much away from the design and the close spacing between them made it just look like an extension of the island. Here’s some photos to decide for yourself.

The advantage of this option is that it should not delay our production very long. Just a few notes, the blue color shown is likely similar to the color we will use but is not exact. As some also noted in our previous update, the Pantone color match for the blue on the board seemed too light so we decided to darken it up for production. Also, the production boards would have perfectly clean lines on the blue paint and there would be no texture on the tan portion except for the fine plastic texture since the plastic would already be tan. We had looked into the screen printing process before so we knew where to turn to for this process. This is the machine we would likely get in house for the production process if we choose to do screen printing. If we choose to go this route, Bill and I will personally go down to the screen printing facility in LA and do some samples before we start production in the next few weeks. 

For those who asked, we looked to decals as a solution both a cost perspective and a timeline perspective. By including sheets of stickers along with each board, we would be able to package the boards right at the machine and forego any post-production painting procedures at a different location. However, the things we sacrificed with the stickers (perception of quality and faith in the product) obviously are more costly than any savings in time or money. We will admit that while decals were great from a logistical standpoint, they did detract from the feel of quality. Bill and I never wanted to create something that felt like a cheap plastic toy made overseas.

Catan chose to support our project for two reasons: first, because they put a big emphasis on local production and relationships with their suppliers. Second, because they had faith we would create products that would uphold the Catan brand the quality artisan feel. They were open to the idea of stickers because it could mean possible themed sets down the road. However, more importantly, they value the support of the Catan fans who made very clear this morning that most did not approve of this design. We know we have made some blunders along the way but hope you have not lost faith in the project. We still hope to achieve the product we set out to build when we launched this product and want it to look and feel high quality. As for the feel, we made sure that the Catan board is very durable and rigid and designed it with more thickness than necessary and added ribs on the underside to increase the rigidity. To give you a little idea of the sturdiness of the board, here is a 35lb. kettlebell on the board.

We know you will not be disappointed with the quality of the plastic build. Now, we just want to make sure it looks as good as it feels. We were pleasantly surprised today with the look of the blue edges and would value your feedback as well.

Also, thanks to backers who offered us some helpful information and resources such as Jim Rose and Guy Himber who also recently did a Kickstarter campaign. 

Once again, thanks for your support.

Cheers,

Nate and Bill

SURVEY QUESTION: 

Would you be happy to receive a board with this design? (production runs will be with tan colored plastic and pad printed blue ocean) 

Please respond here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JH78SVS

More photos from today:

Due to the overwhelming consensus from our backers that decals is not the answer, we will not be looking further into this option and are currently working on resolve this and will post another update soon. As echoed in the comments, such negative feedback from early adopters is a clear sign that the design was a large part of the reason for backer support, not just the fact that the tiles are held securely on any surface. It really pains us to disappoint backers so we ask that you please work with us to make sure everyone is pleased with their boards. We realize that some people may have become discouraged with delays and design changes but still believe in the need for the Catan board so many people baked and will do everything we can to make it as good as we envisioned.

Thanks!

First of all, for those who are giving the Catan board as a gift and requested a PDF to give in the meantime, you can find it here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/kpykfzmomdlqig9/Catan%20Boards%203%20to%204%20Gift%20Graphic.pdf 

As for updates, a couple of weeks ago, Bill drove down to the mold polisher in LA to pick up the mold. The mold polisher had subcontracted the logo engraving on the mold to another vendor who supposedly had many years of experience in mold engravings. Unfortunately, this vendor engraved the logo upside down and backwards (needs to be a mirror image for a mold) after very detailed instructions to the contrary. While this error is unacceptable and very surprising given the level of experience with molds, we have been forced to work as fast as possible to fix this. We had the mold brought back up to San Luis Obispo where we have consulted with Next Intent and have drilled out the section and input a new logo plate. In the final product, this will not even be noticeable but it has slightly delayed our first production run. We will include a few pictures of the mold as soon as it is fixed in the next day or so. 

We should have our first test shots with the mold polished and adjusted for the leg fittings by Thursday of this week. Once we do a short test run we will be ready to start on the production for the 3-4 player pieces and will continue to run as many parts as we can until the 5-6 player mold is ready. This means that the early bird 3-4 player boards ($20 pledge) should be shipped out by the end of this month and the regular 3-4 player boards ($25 pledge) should be sent out shortly thereafter. Once the 5-6 player mold is polished and ready for production we will start production on the middle expansion pieces and start sending out the 5-6 player early bird boards by the end of July. We will continue to send out the boards as they become available but since there are so many 5-6 player boards ($40 pledge) these will likely continue to be sent out through August. 

 Also, we have a fairly significant design change on the 3-4 and 5-6 player boards. The normal post-production procedures involve a pad printing or a screen-printing process. However, the problems with these techniques are the Catan boards need to be painted on multiple layers which means we would have to use a spray painting process. This type of painting is not usually done at even the biggest industrial plastic injection manufacturers and would involve a separate custom post production painting process at a third party. The alternative to this would be to inject a tan color plastic and paint on the blue color coastline but this would cause the port indents to stick out. The solution we came up with is industrial vinyl decals, which will fit on the tricorners, between the roads and on the coastline of the boards. We wanted to make sure that these decals would be very strong and will not wear out or peel up over time and heavy use and were very happy with the samples we received. As you can see from the renderings below, these decals allowed us to more closely replicate the island look and feel. With all the tiles down, the board is complete with a coastline on the outer edges and dirt paths between the hexes ready for roads to be built. We will be including these decals in each shipment so the users can either choose to leave the board the way it is or apply the decals. We will be posting another update later this week with pictures of the first blue boards. 

 Have a great week.