Hey guys! Just to clear up any confusion, I am posting what I posted to United Cardists for you guys to read.
Hey guys,
First of all, I hope you are doing well, and I'm glad that Russell invited me to the forums to give my side of the story. I am open to answering any and all questions you guys may have. I'm going to put it all out on the table and be as honest as humanly possible here. I believe in transparency, and I do share things about my business that many people may not. I do it because I believe honesty prevails, especially in situations like these where it seems some peoples' trust in me is on the line.
I have acquired a lot of debt from Bedeceived. As many of you may know, I started Bedeceived when I was only 16. I started it because I had a magic effect that wouldn't get accepted anywhere else. I figured, why not build my own site? So I did. I sold exactly one copy of that first magic effect, and that sale felt amazing. Pretty soon, I began building a reputation through the community I was attempting to build on my site (a forum not unlike this one). I believed that an amazing customer experience and honesty were what would win me business from the bigger guys out there.
In November of 2011, my stepfather took out a loan from his credit union because he believed in me, and I had shown success up to that point. This loan would pay for the Style Deck, up front. I needed money to pay a designer (Jason Wither), and of course money to print the deck itself. This credit union debt wouldn't simply go away of course, and to cope with those initial costs, I prereleased the deck. It was a huge success (not as big of a success as the Mystery Deck, but we acquired the money we had initially spent). The problem was, we had NO IDEA what went into shipping a deck of playing cards. We made a lot of mistakes. When I say a lot, I mean we barely had any money to show for it by the end. Just around $2,000. That money was spent on a trip across the country to film an effect (which was a complete bust) as well as regular costs to upkeep the website and such.
So here I was. I wanted to put out a second deck of playing cards, but had no money to do so. The first deck was successful enough to get us most of the original money back, and my parents still believed in me. I wouldn't be anywhere without them, honestly. We received a small $10k credit line from our bank for the business, and this would pay for the Mystery Deck. In the beginning, mistakes were made again. We had more wholesale orders than last time (to those of you asking, yes — we do wholesale. We've wholesaled continuously to about 10 companies, most of them in Asia). Mistakes were made, shipments were damaged, and we were out of our money again. This time, with a $6k outstanding credit to pay.
I decided that enough was enough. We would count our losses (mostly my parents, as horrible as I felt), and we decided we wouldn't produce a third deck.
This is when I began really getting serious about design. I felt horrible about letting my parents down financially (even though they're so proud of me and let me know it all the time), the more I thought about it — I decided I needed to get them their money back. They didn't ask for it. I wanted to get it. I said I would cut the costs by designing it myself. It would be a difficult task, and it was.
When finished designing, I did something a bit risky, which is where most of you are seeing an issue. I put up the deck on the Bedeceived website without having the money up front. There was no money up front, so it was impossible to do so. I felt confident (no pun intended) that the deck would sell out quickly, we would have the money, and all would be right with the world. We would finish up that deck, pay off my parents' debt, and I could move on to being a full-time designer.
Well, as Murphy's law would have it, it didn't. The deck funded on our site just about 50% (mostly from wholesale). The USPCC didn't even ask for the downpayment up front, and began printing the deck. I figured the other 50% would come eventually. The other decks had sold out before that amount of time, so why wouldn't this one? Orders slowed to a complete halt, and I was left with $4000 still to collect to get the deck. I approached the House of Playing Cards about purchasing all of the decks to sell on their own site, to no avail. I tried new marketing techniques — nothing. It was then that I decided I would use Kickstarter to fund the rest of the money I needed.
I understood from the get-go that it looked a little strange. I didn't, and still don't, think I did anything wrong by using Kickstarter. My biggest mistake was in taking the risk of preorders through my site without the money to back them up if they didn't fund completely. I had a responsibility to my customers, however, to see the deck through. So I launched on Kickstarter in hopes that the familiar platform and multiple rewards would spur people into buying. I set the goal as low as I humanly could, and launched. It funded (as you see) within 24 hours, and that makes me hopeful that the deck will ship out (hopefully with no problems) as planned, I will recoup the money I owe my parents, and have a clean slate to begin the rest of my professional life.
Someone mentioned this being a labor of love. It definitely is. I have not personally seen a dime out of this. Even when this is over, I will not see a dime. The money will fly right out the door to the USPCC, the USPS, and then finally, the bank credit line. I will not receive money, I will not see profit. So this project wasn't my "exit strategy" to cut and run from my customers. It was a way of me fulfilling my responsibility to my customers, my parents, and myself.
That's why I'm hoping a few of you will change your minds. Even if you don't back the project, I'd just like to know that I have the community on my side here. I've never used my age as an excuse for any of my mistakes. I knew it would be difficult going into it. I didn't realize how difficult it would really be, and because of that I've made a lot of mistakes. I'll be the first one to admit that.
Why didn't I post this long story before? Firstly, I didn't think launching on Kickstarter would be a huge deal to the majority of people. I thought a couple people might find it odd, but I could simply explain what I've already explained and that would be fine. But mostly, I was embarrassed. No one wants to admit they've put their parents in debt. It's not like they're not able to afford food or anything like that. The debt isn't that bad. But it's debt nonetheless. No one likes to admit that they've made a bunch of mistakes, or that after 2 successful products they have nothing to show for it. No one wants to admit any of that.
So hopefully I've made myself clearer with that monumental post. If you read it all, please go get some fresh air . I promise I'm not a bad guy. I'm not out to hurt anyone, cheat anyone, or lie. I've been as honest as I've thought I've needed to be throughout all of my business. I pride myself in that, and want to show that to everyone else, too.
If anyone has any questions for me, I'd be happy to answer them either on here, or via email at ceo@bedeceived.com. Thank you for taking the time to read this post, and have a great night.
Collin
