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Many of us are told to refrain from setting expectations too high because when things don’t go your way, it’s nothing short of heartbreaking. So we didn’t.
When Matt and I first gathered all the promotional material needed for our Kickstarter project, we kept that in mind. But we also knew Matt created something ground-breaking as well with the Top Shelf camera bag. As we filled in the requirements for the campaign, we set our Kickstarter funding goal to $10,000. At the time it seemed practical and was the small boost we needed to launch the production stage of the Top Shelf.
After months of pumping out promotional content on Instagram and Facebook, followed by a series of delays from COVID-19, we finally set the date to launch our Kickstarter campaign for February 2nd, 2021. Our campaign laid out every spec and detail to get people excited about the project. We also offered early backers a generous discount. Everything seemed promising, but I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t some anxiety leading up to launch day. Who knew what could happen over the thirty days?
When we finally launched, we couldn’t believe the screen in front of our eyes. We thought there was a glitch. Somehow we had managed to reach our goal of $10,000 10 minutes before our official launch.
In the first 2 days we raised over $200,000 with hundreds of backers. On February 17th we received a notification - $500,000 with 1600 backers on the project. We still had sixteen days left in the campaign. The outpour of love and people messaging us about their excitement to receive the bag was the best part of it all.
The idea of hitting $1 million floated around in our minds. Statistically we knew the odds were against us – we were told there’s only a 0.08% chance of raising $1 million on Kickstarter. That’s why Matt and I didn’t dwell on this thought because who knew what would happen in the days remaining. Maybe we’d hit a plateau. Either way, hitting $500,000 was so much more than we expected. Hitting $1 million on the other hand sounded too good to be true – until it happened.
Four days before the end of our campaign, we did it. Our campaign reached CAD$1 million in funding. Joy, happiness, shock, disbelief – Matt and I were at a loss for words. The feeling of 5 years of hard work getting paid off was overwhelming. During the final days of the campaign, we still managed to raise even more and ultimately closed off the project with over CAD $1.2 million funded.
Kickstarter was just our first phase. With the money we’ve raised we can now start growing our brand and increase production. The possibilities are so much greater now all because of the support and encouragement from everyone who believed in us. So from the bottom of our hearts, thank you and we can’t wait to show you what’s next.