I think we should offer LCARS keyboard, so members not of this community can order these keyboards without having to worry about changing keycaps.
Poker 2, CM QFR, Ducky Shine III, we cna do these three for each form factor.
I think that would be a great idea, and it would make the costs work out better, because it would surely bring in more people. We'll have the best luck getting buy-ins if people don't need to have a GeekHack account in order to sign up for the GB, so we should think at the very least about how to make that happen.
If you'd be willing to coordinate the finances and logistics of the pre-made keyboards arrangement, that would certainly make it easier to bring in a lot of outside Star Trek fans via the fan blogs, etc. But it sounds risky/expensive to me to be handling and managing all that hardware.
FWIW, I would think an 80% or 100% would be the easiest to sell to keyboard n00bs (ideally picking whatever can be obtained most inexpensively). Poker introduces a learning curve.
How long should we let the poll stay open? From initial looks it looks like DS ABS.
Totally up to you, but I would agree that it looks like ABS DS by a small margin, so I for one would be comfortable calling that the winner at this point if you are.
That result is actually what I expected, and not just because the color matching is better. Each material has its merits, but historically ABS DS has been a popular choice for GH group buys—perhaps because it seems like the safer bet, less chance of being surprised by legends that don't look like you expected.
If we go this way, we are looking at raising around $5000 for the legends. Ideas on how to go about this?
Hehe. Well, you have a lot more experience at GBs than I do (which is to say: more than none!), so I should defer to you. I just was in charge of making it look pretty.
That being said, if you want help with something like putting together an Indiegogo/Kickstarter campaign, I could look into that. The only trouble is that I fear we'd need to register a business in the US in order to do something like that (to handle the bank accounts, liabilities, and so forth.) Maybe someone with an existing corporate entity (TechKeys, etc.?) would be willing to let us organize it through them? Also, how will fulfillment work?
Maybe we could just do something like figure out the minimum number of buy-ins we need to be able to sell a full set (Core + Tenkey, or Ergofox) at a high but reasonable price each (which, to me, would be, say, $100 or so). And then put up a group buy and keep it running until we get the needed number. After we hit that number, we could give latecomers a couple extra weeks to get in before sending the order to SP.
Hmm. Maybe we could approach MassDrop about organizing this for us? I don't know anything about them, but they seem to do a lot of keyboard-related stuff, and they seem to have all the necessary infrastructure already in place. I'm sure they have some kind of profit margin worked into their business model, but I don't think GH members would mind outsourcing logistics and fulfillment to a third party for a small fee.
I guess now is when things actually get hard/complicated. I look forward to seeing and learning what the next steps are. Happy to help in whatever modest ways I can!