Not Every Project is a Commercial Success...

It's fun to talk about all the successes of designing puzzles, and operating a puzzle company, but as with any business, there are challenges along the way! One of those challenges has been the Toomuchery series, a project that would have sunk Puzzle Bomb if we were relying on it for full-time income.




How the Project Began

I first encountered Helen Dardik's work when Puzzle Michele Wilson featured her art in their limited Blue Collection releases. I pounced on the puzzle, thoroughly enjoying Helen's whimsical and colorful art. As I worked that puzzle, I decided I wanted to work with Helen for a few reasons:

1) The main reason I do anything: I'd enjoy working on it!

2) The colorful artwork was on brand for Puzzle Bomb. Even though my usual style is creating art as puzzles, I knew I could still do some killer piece design while working with Helen's art.

3) I saw it as an opportunity to grow our audience, figuring my existing audience would still love these puzzles, while also drawing on Helen's fairly large following. I also thought the more traditional route of turning an illustration into a puzzle would draw in some new customers who might be hesitant to try my otherwise unorthodox approach to puzzles.

I really thought between all of this, the project would be a slam dunk!


The Work and Expense

All-in-all, this project represented about 4 months worth of my design time. I really wanted to knock this series out of the park, so each puzzle utilizes very unique cut patterns. One puzzle features a ton of color-line cutting. One features a slew of thematic whimsies. One features a lot of push-fit sections. While the art style is of course similar across the four puzzles, I wanted the puzzling experience to be wildly variable between puzzles!

On top of that, there is significant time and effort required in running a crowdfunding campaign, putting together marketing materials, product photos, etc. I also sunk significant capital into pre-marketing, which was yielding pretty stellar interest. Between that interest and our existing buyers, I was super excited to launch the crowdfunding campaign.


Reality Hits!

The day every creator is excited for finally hit, and I pushed the launch button on the Kickstarter campaign ad sent out the announcement. Then, like any creator, I sat and mashed the refresh button on the Kickstarter campaign to watch the early slew of pledges roll in.

Except, they didn't really come. Compared to our previous launches, our day one pledges were about 30% of past day 1 sales.

But, no worries, Helen hadn't yet uinformed her audience. Surely, her fans would be excited! The day came when she shared, and... crickets.

The campaign would continue to crawl along to a finishing total of $36,000, which might sound like a lot, but once I calculated my total expenses, which include manufacturing, marketing, freight and fulfillment expenses, and bits of the job I subcontract, I was still slightly in the red on the whole project. A huge hit to absorb for a husband and wife company who just invested the past 6 months into this project!




The Last Hope

I still held out some hope that our audience had just fatigued on crowdfunding, and would buy once the puzzles arrived and were available in our web shop. That day came, I sent out the in-stock notification, and precisely 0 orders came in.

Now, fortunately, I've been healed of putting my value in my performance/accomplishments and subsequent need for validation, so I'm still pleased with the work done here, but business-wise, it was a bit of a gut punch. I thought this series had turned out amazingly, but the sales (or, more accurately, lack thereof) don't lie. For reasons I'm not super sure about, I'd simply made a neat something that didn't resonate.


Where that Leaves Us

As I mentioned in the intro, this project would have likely sunk the company if Puzzle Bomb was our full-time income, as it resulted in a very low 2024 for us, being our big featured crowdfunding project for the year. A big setback, for sure.

However, overall, our bread and butter of the Bumfuzzled series and Party in the Back continues to be a solid base, which aren't big money by any means, but keep things rolling. It's just that we missed the needed spike we typically get from a crowdfunding campaign, and all that time and effort on Toomuchery could have been far better spent elsewhere.




Mega-Clearance Sale on Toomuchery!

I generally don't believe in discounting our product, as I think our product is worth what we charge, as I put a lot of thought, effort, and skill into every puzzle we make. In general, I think discounting creates a perception that the product is poor or undesirable.

However, it's plainly obvious these just aren't going to sell at our usual pricing, and I don't mind it as much for a one-off line like this compared to my usual work. So, I've just reduced the price for this series from $59 per puzzle to $25. Anyone that does wooden puzzles knows this is an absolutely stellar deal, especially for puzzles like this that have such custom linework and vibrant, high quality art.

While it leaves us making practically nothing on the project, I'd rather get these puzzles into folks' hands than have them fill a landfill! Whether you get them for yourself, or stock up on gifts at a price you're just never going to see for a premium wooden puzzle, I think whoever gets these will find them highly enjoyable!



Love and blessings,
Chad