Moz and I have been going back forth with MassDrop and I have some updates. Everything is coming together nicely, it seems.
-MassDrop is going to be handling all logistics, payment processing, fulfillment, and post-sale support (for missing key caps, etc.) and adding a 15% supplement to the overall buy for their services. Shipping costs will be purchased by MassDrop at discounted rates and added on to the manufacturing costs plus MassDrop fee. If all goes well, this could be a model for future GH-Massdrop collaborations in future! They seem to have all the infrastructure in place for the kind of thing that is constantly being reinvented with every GB here on Geekhack, so this partnership has a lot of promise.
-There will be separate drops for each keyset (Core, Tenkey, Mods, and ErgoDox). This will allows us to get the best price tiers for each set.
-Timeline. Our plan is to launch the group buy within the next 2-3 weeks. I'm going to work on finalizing and double-checking the designs and on some promotional materials, and we'll work with Massdrop on nailing down the final order with Signature Plastics.
-The GH community is going to own the tooling, with the understanding that we'll make it available to pretty much anyone else who, in the interests of the keyboard enthusiast community, wants to use it for subsequent rounds or the basis of totally different designs. This includes the possibility of the Massdrop membership requesting subsequent rounds to be made without necessarily going through GeekHack. The idea is to keep things as free, open, and accessible as possible. This is a fan and community effort, and the idea is to get these into the hands of as many people as want them.
-We are going with ABS DS, for four reasons: 1) better, more screen-accurate, color matching, 2) crisper, more futuristic, legends, 3) tooling that will become GH community property, 4)
better prices! Given the nature of this project, I think you guys are going to be really happy with ABS DS—it's a much better match for the aesthetic spirit and inspiration of this unique keyset. I love the feel of PBT myself, but this set is all about getting the
look right, and ABS DS offers several advantages in this regard. There will be plenty of other opportunities for awesome PBT sets. We also need only look to the success of Retro DSA to see that ABS DS in this profile can be a fruitful combination.
-As seems to be a common practice for GBs on GH in the past, we're building a few extra keysets into the overhead of the overall buy. Three of these will be held by Moz to be reserved for later auction to benefit GH or other keyboard enthusiast community-related projects. And one keyset each will be assigned to Moz and me for our efforts in organizing and designing the keyset. I hope everyone is amenable to this. I for one am going to be buying quite a lot more sets, so I'll make up for it, I promise!
Let me know if you guys have any questions or concerns. I'm really excited that this is really going to happen!