Lessons from Batch 2 - and what's next!

Lessons we learnt and Batch 3?

We just finished shipping all the Batch 2 orders!
So what’s next? ( 🚨 Long blog alert 🚨)

Photo from @quinncapelle

They’re all shipped!

We sent out the last Batch 2 order last week, and it was such a great feeling.
The packing and shipping period is the busiest and longest part of the process for us, and I somehow manage to forget that.
We learnt so much from Batch 1, and even more from Batch 2, so I’ll talk a bit about that below.

Thank you again so much to everyone who’s sent an email or left a review! It’s so great to see everyone enjoying their game, and I’m really glad it was worth the wait.

There’s even a few unboxing and review youtube videos out there! So great to watch these!

What’s next?

Monique and I are going to have a short break from production and do some more technical work.

We’re currently working on a complete website rebuild. We’ve outgrown our current provider and are changing the entire back end system for orders, payments, etc

This means in the future, people will be able to see and order in their own currency! (huge!)
And we should have way more tools to help us behind the scenes.
I want to get this sorted before we make any more orders.

Speaking of more orders…

I’m really picky with what I ship out to people, so we have some “B-Stock” available.
”B-Stock” are boxes that have minor damage on the outside of the boxes that we sell for a discount. Small dings and scratches, all purely cosmetic. I hate the idea of throwing out any product that is still perfectly functional.
All of them are still products I would be happy with if I received them, and all the internal components inside are top quality and fully functional.
Once the new website is up and running, (and we’ve packed the boxes up) I’ll put these up for sale, and they will ship right away.

Batch 3!?

Woop woop we’re excited for Batch 3.
No changes planned for these boxes, I’ve been super happy with all my suppliers this time around.
I’m planning on using the B-Stock orders as a sort of tester for the new website. To check if I’ve set up everything correctly and there’s no major issues.
After that we will open pre-orders for batch 3. No date yet!

I definitely will be announcing Batch 3 in advance, so don’t worry about missing it.

What did we learn from Batch 2?

For me, this batch was really about trying to set up systems and methods to make the best product we can.
The first batch was amazing, and it allowed all of this to become a reality. But it also totally took me by surprise and the entire thing felt like a crazy blur.

This time around, we took everything we learnt and tried to build a more solid base to work with (hence the almost 10 months between batch 1 and 2)

Many small things add up and make production so much better. A basic one one is having enough work benches.
We more than doubled our work benches and made them way more sturdy, a total life saver. Having dedicated work stations for different tasks is great. And we still don’t have enough!

Overall, I’m super happy with the product. My main goals moving forward are to speed up the production times, and make it less of a wait for new orders! Ideally eventually we just have it in stock instead of pre-orders.

This is a super complicated dance of managing component orders, time to make, time to ship, where to store product, etc.
I definitely want to work towards this but it may take a few more rounds of pre-orders to 100% lock in every small detail and get a better estimate of the amount we need.

After all that, thanks for all the feedback on the Spanish rulebook!
I got a lot more than I expected, it was super helpful and I’m currently going through the design process. This will be ready in time for Batch 3.

Wowza, I wrote a lot more here than I expected.
Got any questions about what you read? Or ideas on how we could improve?
This is how to reach me: nathan@crypticcrafter.com