Sierra Designs and Kelty tent designer kickstarter project

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kilmarkid

kilmarkid

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Guys,

An buddy of mine has a kickstarter project that might interest folks on this thread. Mike Scherer, a Berkeley physics grad, has designed some of the coolest tents over many years for Kelty , Black Diamond, Marmot, Mountain Hardware, Sierra Designs and The North Face. I worked with him while at Kelty.

You have an opportunity to pick up a top of the line tent at a bargain price if you become a backer.

The Backer reward price for these tents is quite a deal. These tents aren't coming to a retailer near you anytime soon, and certainly not at the Backer's price. By getting them directly from the designer, me, the price of the MoonLight 2 is $375 instead of about $530 from a major brand. No kidding. The MoonLight 3 would be between $800 and $1050 instead of $495. The MoonLight 4 would go for $900 - $1150 instead of $550. They're a huge bargain for Backers.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tentlab/ultimate-performance-3-season-tents-direct-from-th

Sweet deal and a sweet line of tents.

Enjoy,

John
 
I am going to back it but I don't think he's going to reach his goal of $150K and I don't understand why it is set so high if the purpose is to fill orders on-demand vs reach commercial production. Marketing to Werd, CoolStuff or Uncrate may have been a better route. It's not too late though. As a friend you can send either of those sites a link to his Kickstart and a nice pic. They may well post it and his campaign will reach its goal (within hours, not days). I love he's become an outlier in his craft so I'd buy one, but sometimes a simple website and a good social media plan is better than a Kickstarter where he is guaranteed the revenue and we are guaranteed the product. Or Indiegogo is another alternative to Kickstarter.
 
Thanks John!
And thanks for checking out the project ROHILL!
I thought I'd answer your questions about the project goal and so on. I think a lot of people wonder basically the same thing.

The MoonLight tent project genuinely conforms to the idea behind Kickstarter: it tries to bring enough people together to fund the making of the product for the people who back it. It's not funding a startup and it doesn't include a nice fat margin for me or a retailer. it's an offering of a genuinely advanced product which the market simply isn't ready for at the price it would normally have to be sold.

Which is a long winded way of saying I can't make the factory minimum of tents without enough Backers. The usual number of tents needed for a factory to bother making them is at least 200 per style (200 each IS the low end). In the MoonLight's case that would be 200 per size or 600 tents which would be somewhere around $261,000. Because I've worked with this factory - Jasper, the best in the world by the way - the owner has done me the unheard-of favor of allowing all three sizes of tent to be made, in any quantity mix (no one minimum number) for a project total of $150,000. I don't have $150,000 and no investor would touch these tents for as small a payback as I'm doing it for. So it's a clear case of: no goal = no tents.

BTW thanks for those website suggestions. I've sent them info. Well, except CoolStuff, all I found was a Scandinavian site and i don't even know where to begin with them.

Best,
Mike
 
I think I understand Mike. So without the minimum order totaling $150K the factory won't produce. Try Coolmaterial.com and coolhunting.com instead of Coolstuff. Also, I don't quite get Huckberry.com (as far as how they come by the merchandise) but it is definitely worth looking into if your are selling outdoor gear. Do you have a website link?
 
Yes, that's right! Thanks for the further links! I'm on it.
It looks to me like Huckberry is a pre-sell and discount site. A manufacturer like Mountain Hardwear can offload older or slow moving product in a very time constrained and under the radar way. They would already own that inventory. Other companies, like Boreas, might be using a little different model where they've already ordered the goods and they offer essentially a pre-sale discount so part of the inventory is paid for when it lands (which might even correspond to when they've agreed to pay for it).
Interesting, thanks!
Best, Mike
My company website is here: www.thetentlab.com
 
Thanks CC! that's very kind to say. You're right, I should put that quote on the KS page too, thanks! I really appreciate you checking out the project.
Best, Mike
 
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