It’s been a busy two weeks since our last update, and there will be a lot more that will have o wait for some future update.

It’s really looking like we need a fund raiser to fund the kickstarter campaign. Every new fluke in the list of of unfortunate events feels like another hard blow. My tech guy was going to turn the MacBookPro into a desktop because it was a springy connection between the guts and the screen that topped working. He had a screen for me and it was going to make a good machine for anytime I was in my office or on my stationary recumbent. That is, until I knocked a can of carbonated water on to the laptop, not a nearly empty one either. It bubbled and bounced just like a commercial for a refreshing beverage.

Every project that gets funded, and some that don’t require heavy doses of tenacity. Because there is a big physical component to this project, I expected to hit walls, more than one, and still keep going. I didn’t expect to hit so many on the way to submission.

It was always going to be a big financial/job risk for Russ if we got top level funding because that would require a leave of absence. Until the delays, I perceived the employment risk to be worth the trade off for me. While it’s time for me to be employed again, I’ve been out of work for several years, and I figured under the category of “Yeah, but what have you done lately?” running a successful Kickstarter would look a lot better than “I’ve been on family leave…I had some gigs…family leave…pandemic…”

I still do, but it’s getting harder to justify this determination I have to make this happen and work. At times like these I’m really glad that I’ve said nothing to most friends and family about the project. Their doubt is so much harder to deal with than my own. The downside is that we don’t have the big following that pushes projects, so we need advertising, but it seems that advertising, even for this, has some pretty stiff margins.

In other words, getting seen, even in forums that are supposed to kickstart little guys requires the deep pockets of big guys. One of the favorite lines of advertisers is “You have to spend money to make money” But, there’s no guarantee that if you spend it, you’re going to make it, and these walls we’ve hit with the project, the seed money, the Etsy store and the personal life have really taken a toll, as well as increased the risk of continuing to put more time, energy, love and resources on the table. There are some new recently published tools to help beginners like me. I’ll study them soon, but at first glance I didn’t see anything I wasn’t already aware of.

So there’s a plan. Look at the tools, finish the submission and have a giant stock reduction sale. I think I can be ready for the sale on Dec1. In the mean time, it is still a very busy time right now, so, Have a Glorious Day, and we’ll see you on the trail.