Hey all! Just as we were getting some steam with the project, the council evicted us and nearly 100 other businesses from our offices. With a month’s notice. It totally had a domino effect on the rest of the year, and I was absolutely desperate to get a WW2 project out, which I did, and it was wicked.

This has far been forgotten, I just have only so much human bandwidth, so I had to focus on some other things for a bit. I’m happy to get her going again.

I posted up a questionnaire to get some feedback. It was scary. Thank you for being honest! Shall we look through the results?

I was going to post a load of charts from the questionnaire but there were a lot of questions, so I am gonna summarise what the results were. You’ll just have to trust me! Have a few to break up the text though. My thoughts in italics.

DISCOVERY: The main 3 were the website, social media and Sunday Morning Coffee – so direct is still key.

NOMINATIONS: 39% had nominated a person, which is higher than I thought! The biggest reasons for not doing so were fear of getting any information wrong, unsure if she’d already been nominated or worried people wouldn’t vote for them. Hey I even get things wrong sometimes, perhaps I could look at some private nominations?

COLLECTOR CARDS: Nobody seems majorly bothered! A few have displayed them (nice) but they’re mostly hanging around in a drawer somewhere. Nobody admitted to binning them though, thankyou! *I* think they’re an important part of the project, but perhaps I will look at getting them smaller, cheaper, or more of them?

QUALITY: Overall people are very satisfied with the quality of the minis, design, communication and cards. Which is nice!

WHEN: Only 17% want the minis immediately, the rest don’t mind waiting until a few at a time. This is reassuring as opens up some other options.

Most people are comfortable putting money down once the concept sketch is up, though even at the name point there’s quite a lot (over half). This is also reassuring, as we can generate interest fairly early with each mini.

PLATFORMS: The most preferred by far was Facebook Groups, which is where it’s currently mostly on.

However, when asked where people WOULD go, the results were a bit more spread out. Kickstarter is an interestingly high number, and I think the project would do way better on a platform like that, but I am planning on running more regular Kickstarters with the main part of the business, so I’d rather not saturate.

BLOG VISIBILITY: 75% of you were aware of the blog, and most have visited. Which is more than I expected!

PATTERNS/STAND OUTS IN TEXT FEEDBACK

I can’t list every part of the freestyle text feedback and suggestions, but here are some which were recurring or stood out:

MORE INPUT: Folk want more input into the design process. I want this too! It was hard to get as much involvement as I would like, which is part of the reason for the relaunch. The original idea was lots of people pitching in with design and research, but I don’t know why that hasn’t worked as well, but my main suspicion is visibility.

MAKE THEM THEMED: This was an idea from one person and I love it, especially when we really get rolling and making them regularly. Maybe even voting on themes? Basically I want more engagement rather than me just making the figures and presenting them to you, which you want, but hasn’t been happening much.

CARDS: The cards only being available with direct orders has put off folk overseas who prefer to get them from their local shops, this is definitely a thing – I’ll address below.

LOTS OF NICE WORDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT: Thanks!

ANNIE’S THOUGHTS

I have been a bit stuck with how to relaunch this, but the questionnaire has been really helpful. I have a few more things to think about, which I will update soon once I’ve decided.

COLLECTOR CARDS – They’ve caused a lot of confusion with retailers, some won’t stock those minis at all, which impacts their further sales. Retailers not being able to get the cards means it’s harder for overseas customers too. SOLUTION: I’m going to cost up getting 500 of each card made, so they’re still limited but last quite a bit longer and means retailers will have them.

VISIBILITY: Lots of the suggestions were things I already do, or people not sure of information that is here in the blog. So it means you’re not getting them information that I want you to. SOLUTION: Tidy everything up. I can do it!

TOO MANY PLATFORMS: The biggest issue is that it’s complicated to follow. Even I find it confusing and I made it! So the main solution is to centralise it way more, which I need to fully decide on, but I am working on it.

FACEBOOK SUCKS: I’ve never been keen on Facebook being the main location for it, and that it excludes people who don’t use it. At the time it was the best way for people to see things, but it’s harder than ever to get engagement there. But I won’t remove it either as I know it’s the only place many of the fans of the project go online. I’m thinking of setting up a Discord Server in addition, and taking nominations there as well.

VOTING: I think I’ll move the voting to a central location, like google forms, then it doesn’t matter what social media you have. I know I mentioned various platforms so far, but I’m still musing, I think it’ll slot into brain place soon.

KINDNESS: Thank you for mostly being super kind and understanding with all this. It’s a labour of love within a labour of love. I run Bad Squiddo Games for far too many hours a day, and this is a side project on top of that (though still very much part of). Sometimes things happen in the main business that distract me, as I run it all myself still (it’s the only way to keep a lil niche thing like this going!). I spend a lot of time on the Community Miniatures Project making sure I can get the best figure possible, and it usually involves getting hold of more books, and visits to places if possible (oh no, she says, swooning).

The majority of folks totally understand this, but I do get more abrupt or rude messages with this project than usual, which does put me off sometimes. Opening the design process is very vulnerable but it pays off and I am so proud of the minis we’ve made so far, and want to make many more.

My usual state is some sort of frazzled, entirely by my own choosing – this is my life’s passion – teaching about mega cool ladies through the minis – so I shan’t martyr, just remember with feedback that it’s just lil ol me, and I can fly a plane, as seen above.

End thoughts

I will continue to muse the relaunch but it’s now on the main slate (as well as fulfilling the WW2 KS but they compliment each other!) and will be fairly soon. I know I won’t be able to please everyone, which is causing me lots of unrest, but please be nice!

Catch you around social media!
Anniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie