A little GIF made in PICO-8 using code by Neko250!

On the eve of launching our Kickstarter campaign (please pledge at the included link, and please share the campaign on social media with family and friends using the hashtag #cotccabinet!). In addition to launching the Kickstarter I also made a crate out of MDF (pictured below next to the V.9 MDF cabinet) to give potential backers a more representative idea of what the final cabinet experience is going to look like in the final version. With all of that done, my team and I then switched gears away from the cabinet's build, and basically went into overdrive creating all the collateral we'd need for the Kickstarter campaign. We essentially spent two and a half weeks straight working on that. In that time I worked on multiple rewrites of the campaign's copy, built a marketing plan+posting calendar, and media contact list, while the team pulled together to work on the Kickstarter video (which we cut 6 times in total), and all of the other collateral associated with the campaign's launch. After close to a week pulling all nighters prepping for our launch, we were able to launch our Kickstarter at 9am PDT on Thursday May 18th thanks to monumental efforts by Josh, Stefan, and Maggie (and extra special help from Jered Gold, thanks again all!)! Launch day was a stressful day followed by 2 straight days sending press releases+pitches and promoting the campaign on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and LinkedIn... Below you'll find a photo of me the minute I launched the Kickstarter campaign, which should give you context for my frame of mind at that moment, totally not worried at all...

By the weekend's end on Kickstarter I'm happy to say the College of the Creatives Cabinet campaign was turned into a "Project We Love", and we'd managed to get 20 backers! Not bad, but not great either if I'm being perfectly honest from a purely monetary and total percentage of our funding goal perspective... Anywho, after a pow-wow with the team followed by feedback from various interested internet users (and trolls), we decided we needed to get a final looking cabinet done to show what exactly we were:

1. Giving to backers in exchange for pledges at each level
2. Giving to the targeted Cultural Influencers (you see the V.9 MDF prototype pictured below is not the final version, it's just a PROTOTYPE, it has another final form!)

With all of this in mind, I now know I need to get renders/images of the postcards, enamel pin, pocket guide, cipher coin, and final physical prototypes representing the $250 MDF cabinet and $5k hard wood and plastic cabinet with a crate done so we can show to potential backers what they're supporting! I've resolved to complete a version of the $250 MDF cabinet and the final version we plan on making a limited edition of and sending to our select group of cultural influencers by the end of May! That means lots of fast iteration and prototyping over the next 2 weeks! Keep your eyes trained here, more on that to come soon!

Oh, and one more thing! Don't miss the live stream and AMA I'll be doing to answer all of your burning questions related to the College of the Creatives Cabinet project on Friday, May 26th at 3pm! I look forward to showing you a working cabinet, answering all of your questions, and showing you the lab!