[GB] Royal Apollo GT 10 set (taking orders)

[Badwrench]

Oops, thought I had ordered this days ago.  Just logged in and saw it in my cart.  Now it's ordered 

Soooo close!  Lets get this one tipped. 

[MiTo]

I wish you the best of luck nubbinator, it's very close to the tipping point right now but unfortunately, I can't help.

You did an incredible job with this keyset, regarding color scheme and icons. It would be amazing to see a few people join in the next following hours.

 

[nubbinator]

Thanks.  I can probably swing 3 sets on my own, but it will mean I have to pass on stuff I desperately need for casting and the SP community color ring; however, that still means we'll be one set short for the tipping point.

[soymic]

ok guys

this is someone who is actually part of our community, trying to run this set

these are the people we should be supporting, with such a huge influx of these buys right now, all competing for everyones attention, thinning the number of buyers and making it harder for every gb to be possible, as a community we should be supporting each other, ensuring that we can push through ideas from within our community

there is a day left, 6 orders are needed

please dont make me order 6 mx sets

I'd order a set, if I didn't have to save money for YOUR upcoming GBs

order a set

ill give you $30 off the next buy of mine you enter

That's sweet, I ordered 2 sets including tsangan and numpad!

[okwchin]

6 hours left.

add to cart: 1 of Everything!

Bringing you closer nubs 

[BunnyLake]

6 hours left.

add to cart: 1 of Everything!

Bringing you closer nubs 

awesome man

[BunnyLake]

3 more to go everyone

for those that ordered, we will make sure this tips, but if people could order so me and nubs dont have to, that would be outstanding

[BunnyLake]

tweeted the link out from ther ctrl alt twitter as well for you nubbs

[nubbinator]

After talking to Bunny and getting a little more info from SP, it looks like we're going to let it fail and retry it later another way since it would end up costing $561 + shipping (so closer to $600) to get everything close enough to the MOQ to be made.  I could swing all the money from my last cap sale, but that means I'd have to foot another $300-400 to get everything made.  It would be easier if I dropped the tsangan, but since a good half of the people ordering ordered a tsangan kit, it wouldn't be fair to them.

We'll try again another way later.

If you did purchase one of these sets, please screen cap your purchase and I'll get a thank you of some sort made up to go out to you with the next time we try.

[Badwrench]

After talking to Bunny and getting a little more info from SP, it looks like we're going to let it fail and retry it later another way since it would end up costing $561 + shipping (so closer to $600) to get everything close enough to the MOQ to be made.  I could swing all the money from my last cap sale, but that means I'd have to foot another $300-400 to get everything made.  It would be easier if I dropped the tsangan, but since a good half of the people ordering ordered a tsangan kit, it wouldn't be fair to them.

We'll try again another way later.

If you did purchase one of these sets, please screen cap your purchase and I'll get a thank you of some sort made up to go out to you with the next time we try.

This is a huge bummer.  I don't think people realize how cool this set would look.  Oh well.  Good luck on try #2 

[LechnerDE]

Sad to hear that, but I guess it's the right decision. It simply doesn't make sense to overextend financially...

It seems really hard though to make those GBs work. Everybody and his mother starts a GB on PMK now which naturally splits buying power.

[pasph]

Waiting for the next time

[nubbinator]

After talking to Bunny and getting a little more info from SP, it looks like we're going to let it fail and retry it later another way since it would end up costing $561 + shipping (so closer to $600) to get everything close enough to the MOQ to be made.  I could swing all the money from my last cap sale, but that means I'd have to foot another $300-400 to get everything made.  It would be easier if I dropped the tsangan, but since a good half of the people ordering ordered a tsangan kit, it wouldn't be fair to them.

We'll try again another way later.

If you did purchase one of these sets, please screen cap your purchase and I'll get a thank you of some sort made up to go out to you with the next time we try.

This is a huge bummer.  I don't think people realize how cool this set would look.  Oh well.  Good luck on try #2 

Yeah, that's how I feel, but it is what it is I suppose.  I don't know if doing it in DCS would help it reach the numbers better or if we'll just have to try something else.  Just no SA.

Sad to hear that, but I guess it's the right decision. It simply doesn't make sense to overextend financially...

It seems really hard though to make those GBs work. Everybody and his mother starts a GB on PMK now which naturally splits buying power.

If it was only $200-250, I would do it.  It would hurt, but I'd make it work.  At double that I just had to let my baby go.  I know this set would look killer with quite a few setups, especially a nice aluminum grey, dark grey, or black case.  It is what it is though.

That's exactly what's happening with PMK.  It feels like a lot of the sets really aren't thought out or the ones that do well are just rip offs of older sets.  I even waited for a lull in sets to get this one up so it wasn't competing.  It annoyed me a little that it wasn't a "featured" buy and that SP seemed to largely ignore me and the set throughout the whole process.

[Oobly]

Sad to hear that, but I guess it's the right decision. It simply doesn't make sense to overextend financially...

It seems really hard though to make those GBs work. Everybody and his mother starts a GB on PMK now which naturally splits buying power.

Yup.... The new system needs a serious rethink.

For now, coordinating Group Buys between the more established GB organisers and putting IC threads and GB threads in the main areas of GH would help. For instance, Nuclear Data Green SA profile is now running, Retro SA or Midnight SA will start soon, etc. I'd like this set, but I'd rather save my money for Retro SA.

jdcarpe made a good point in the Nuclear Data Green thread about the barrier to entry of starting a GB is now too low, so we have all these GBs started by noobs which steal orders away from the better GB's with the result that neither tip, or if the properly organised GB tips, the order count is low, so the price is high. Lose-lose situation.

Perhaps PMK needs to have some stronger restrictions for GB starters... The IC section may help, but we'll have to see.

If it doesn't improve, I may well simply stay clear of all SP run GB's. Not worth the stress / tension of worrying about tipping or getting to higher tiers.

[-blind]

Matt3o also had the Granite round 2 going on Massdrop, which kind of exploded like a brush fire.  I believe Massdrop has a much larger through traffic from outside the community that could help swing #s.

I would be willing to help make a 3d render of this for the next attempt? (my experience with the programs is limited - but I would be certainly willing to try)

[okwchin]

Also, this GB thread was in the SP sub forum. I don't know, but would it have been allowed in the normal GB forum rather than the sub forum?

Additional publicity from having it in the main GB forum might have helped too, for those who didn't see the photos in the signatures.

So if you needed another $250 to help you across the line, if I put forward another set, and at least another person did, would that help, or is it not that simple.


Granite I think has a different kind of appeal, PBT, DSA, generic colour (or lack of), huge range of sets (which in a high volume set works in your favour), and something that already has a mass following.

Yellow is not a common theme, the iPhone 5c is selling the least number of yellow units, by far... most cars don't even come in a yellow option, and for those who love yellow (like myself), they tend to be very picky about the type of yellow, or what goes along with it. Granite was not an option for me, but this yellow set was the standout choice, but its unique nature might not help too...

Personally, I am very sad to see this set miss out, as yellow sets are so rare, but probably understandably due to the lower popularity of yellow (But i remember the polls that put this colour way ahead of the other branded typewriters). Even the bumblebee yellow set by key pop is Still in stock a year later. I absolutely love that set, and will be buying another from them as its the perfect yellow to suit me. Yellow, DSA, Its something I wanted to try. If you had gone DCS, I would not have picked it up as the bumblebee set was the competing set for me. The only thing I wasn't so sure about initially was grey vs a darker grey, but on a silver or grey case, it could have worked, and it grew on me (also running the black forum theme doesn't help). Oh and the 60% stripe, I was not so keen on. I ordered it because I wanted to help the set, but it was the item I was deliberating hard on, and probably wouldn't mind if it wasn't there.


So what to do next time? How did the sets distribution pan out?
22 Ordered, 19 Tenkeyless, 11 60% stripe, 15 Numberpads, 9 Tsangan

Given those distributions, the only significantly lower figures are the 60% and the tsangan ()
For the case of simplicity, would it be better to combine the sets into a

1) Base set = (Base + ten keyless + number pad)
2) Tsangan set
3) 60% stripe
4) ISO??

I don't know how SP works, but would that lower the total cost of buying the Base, ten keyless and number pad? If it achieves this, then it could help bring in buyers by reducing the (Total) entry cost for the majority of buyers. This needs to be weighed up against allowing people to not buy a number pad for hardcore 60% and TKL users. This would be similar to the Nuclear set thats running currently.
And the ISO set, has tipped at 15 units, which seems more doable than 25, but still pretty high, but it might help net a few more buyers.

Another method would be to combine even more sets
1) Royal Apollo GT10 = (Base + ten keyless + number pad + tsangan)

2) 60% stripe??
3) ISO

I personally prefer this (because I bought everything...) But like the CtrlAlt Minibuys, its option free and single price, and as long as this is below the $100 mark, it could be very attractive to buyers as a cheaper set that is no more expensive than picking and choosing sets, and the lack of options is not necessarily a bad thing if at the end of the day, the cost to the buyer for a set that includes what they need is not any more expensive.

Buying everything there (minus 60%) is $114. Will buying the listed sets as one big set reduce that total? If it is sub $100 at the first tier of 25 then you might have a deal. The advantage of this I see is that the smaller sets would be subsidised buy the main sets. The risk is that people might not appreciate that, and will not buy because if the fact that they are buying number pads and things they don't want, and feel that they are not getting the same value.

Apart from 3D renders, I think the 2D mock-up needed much high resolution, especially on the graphic keys. The slightly oversized and pixellated logos were a bit scary, in the event they get made like that.

Well, food for thought... I want to see this set make it to reality.

Hope I didn't scare you off this yellow colour, as I really wouldn't have bought any of the other sets.

[nubbinator]

Also, this GB thread was in the SP sub forum. I don't know, but would it have been allowed in the normal GB forum rather than the sub forum?

Additional publicity from having it in the main GB forum might have helped too, for those who didn't see the photos in the signatures.

Unfortunately, no, all the SP buys through PMK have been segregated here with the exception of Nuclear Green Data.  And we see how it benefitted from not being segregated.  Supposedly they're looking at maybe reopening it, but it is causing issues with GBs and numbers.

I'm sure not being a featured set didn't help it either.

So if you needed another $250 to help you across the line, if I put forward another set, and at least another person did, would that help, or is it not that simple.

It wasn't that simple.  I needed to help every child deal hit 20 to get them made and needed to get the main deal to tip.  Maybe this set was too "edgy" and I need to do the Princess set or something instead.

It's over now, so it's kind of a moot point.

[okwchin]

I understand the position about the GB forum rule now. At least the signature banners IMO would have been very effective. I sure used those a fair bit to check out, or get to the GB thread. And its everywhere.

(and I edited my earlier post)

[taylordcraig]

I'll be keeping an eye out for r2.

[abjr]

jdcarpe made a good point in the Nuclear Data Green thread about the barrier to entry of starting a GB is now too low, so we have all these GBs started by noobs which steal orders away from the better GB's with the result that neither tip, or if the properly organised GB tips, the order count is low, so the price is high. Lose-lose situation.

I should probably keep my mouth shut, but what makes a "better GB's"? I don't think it's fair to insinuate that a noob's set it automatically inferior or that it is stealing orders. In the end I'm going to spend my money on the sets that appeal to me no matter who created it (and I spent $200+ on Granite [established member] and up next will be Green Tea [noob?]). Additionally, there are plenty of well established members here who seem to have a new GB every month (or even multiple running at the same time) so it's not just noobs flooding the market.

Just my 2 cents.

[MiTo]

the barrier to entry of starting a GB is now too low, so we have all these GBs started by noobs which steal orders away from the better GB's with the result that neither tip, or if the properly organised GB tips, the order count is low, so the price is high. Lose-lose situation.

I totally agree with abjr and I'm wondering:

Why a GB started by a noob is worse, in any aspect, then a "established organiser GB"? This was an extremely arrogant statement from my point of view.

And I'll talk about Pulse.

Never before have I started a group buy in my life, or even an Interest Check. The support from the community (GeekHack, /r/MK and deskthority) was nothing but extraordinary because my idea was good, but extremely unpolished. I didn't even know by the time I started the IC that it was possible to order keycaps in pretty much any SA profile setup. Probably because the first mockup featuring Pulse was directed to the DCS profile.

I will bring some numbers here, because I believe that I'm the kind of noob you're talking about.

My IC thread regarding Pulse SA (which is my first thread on GeekHack) is featuring, as we speak, almost 9k visualizations and 550 replies. It was created 20 days ago.

"Vintage typewriter inspired cap sets" IC thread, aka Apollo GT Yellow/Gray DSA is 9 months old and it has 7k visualizations and 163 replies.

I don't know how many votes Apollo had when it was an Interest Check on PMK, but Pulse is very close to 190.

This means that if 15% of this people actually buy the Base Set when it's live, it will tip. And they probably will, because the prices are there and won't increase or decrease too much.

And the reason is very simple: it looks good, has nice colors, is well designed and is a community-made keyset.

I took opinions from 4 different groups (Reddit, GH, DT and PMK) - all of these 4 featuring thousands of people - in order to design and present with mockups something pleasing to the eye, good looking, ergonomic, usefull and very unique. I message people on /r/MK about Pulse, I answer every single comment on every single thread as soon as I can and I take in consideration every input people give to me.

nubb did an amazing job with Apollo. He chose colors, fonts, colorschemes (even though yellow is not popular, just like shocky pink and lime green) very nicely but I gotta say that it's presentation is very, very poor.

The mockups aren't appealing to anyone.

Also, there's the fact that the GB thread was on PMK sub and PMK ads regarding Apollo were non-existant prior the 3 hours touchdown.

Also, the GB format he adopted wasn't very well financially planned. From past succesfull GBs, it's very clear that every pack correlates in some kind of way with one another in order to make a tipping common point something close to the reality.

Pulse features a single Base Set. A Poker II is good to go, a CM QF is good to go - with only the Base Set.

Just because of that, 70% (if not more) of the people looking for a new keyset to their brand new mech, are covered by buying a single pack. Look at /r/MK and you see how many new Pokers and QFs pop up everyday. And they want new stuff. Pulse was not designed to the "Market". It's a keyset to collectors, enthusiasts, first timers, geeks, gamers, typists and programmers. I'm not looking at Pulse as a "keyset designed to sell to noobs and first timers of /r/MK". I'm just using /r/MK as a rough example. I am not saying that they are the 70% share who will buy Pulse because I don't even know if anyone actually will buy Pulse. I don't know if it's going to tip, but I think that probably, it will.

And that's what the noob right here is bringing to everybody: new good stuff. A noob is not essentially stealing orders just because his idea is more appealing to people than a established member's one. This is the pov of somebody who doesn't make a dime with keyboards. I'm not business man. I'm a college Engineering undergrad and designing keysets and reading about mechs is very funny to me.

I enjoy it a lot like anybody else here.

I am not a native english speaker and didn't try to reduce nubbinator's efforts in any sort of way. I am a huge fan of Apollo as it is the first custom keyset I ever heard of and I strongly recommend him to try it one more time as it is very well designed, even with poor mockups. This response is directed to oobly since I felt that his statements were directed to people like myself.


EDIT: Grammar and some corrections.

[nubbinator]

Locking topic because of off topic talk.  Also not a fan of the ****ting on the GB and format when you said you weren't.  A lot of thought went into how things were run to have the lowest cost for people while also having the stuff they needed.  People had all the time in the world to make these comments before it began.  You also can't compare numbers of views and replies when 90% of that in your thread is due to drama.

And on the topic of mock-ups.  I asked for months for renders since I don't have access to software to make nicer quality mock ups. Many people are in the same boat as me with that.