June 5 — Maker Faire post mortem

I’ve been feeling very aimless since Maker Faire. In total I’ve made 5 sales, out of the 44 kits I prepared (and I have hardware for 56 more kits). The hardware cost me over $3000. My initial risk budget for this was $5000, and I had hoped to at least break even by selling the kits at Maker Faire.

Things done well

• Learned how to manufacture something on a small scale (drilling holes in buckets efficiently)
• Learned a lot about sourcing parts when I only needed a hundred but wanted a volume discount
• I felt good about giving away free seed germination kits. They were inexpensive and a fun activity.
• Brought a hot pepper plant in bucket to demo. People really liked opening it up and looking inside!

Things I should do differently next time

• If I go to another trade show I should market it beforehand. Part of the reason why I didn’t for Maker Faire is because I didn’t want to ask people to pay money to get into an event to buy my kits. But if I had increased exposure about the kit beforehand people could decide whether or not they like it in advance, and buy on the spot when they see it.
• I had assumed that the form I made my kit in would work since people in the Space Buckets community use it. The test users I had were myself (with 3 buckets but only one mature plant) and my friend Duncan, who has a cherry tomato plant going (no fruit yet). I should have talked to other people with indoor bucket gardening experience and figure out what they like and don’t like about the product.
• Bring business cards (Robin helped me get some end of day Saturday)
• Bring a big sign/poster (Lauren helped me draw a really beautiful one on Saturday)
• Print my contact info or website on the seed germination kits (D’OH! We did run out of hot pepper seeds on Saturday so I printed my website on the hot pepper seeds for Sunday, but most of the kits I gave away didn’t have any contact information)
• Tablecloth for professionalism

Challenges

Time: I realized when Robin was here that it was such a luxury to have a second person. He ran errands for me (buying parts, etc.) during the day between his interviews and just not having to plan for waking up early and getting things done before going to work made it so much easier to sleep well and be less stressed. But even when he was here we barely had time to put together 44 bucket kits, let alone do any marketing leading up to Maker Faire.

Electricity: On the technical side, the electricity for a CFL bucket set up actually costs about $10 per month where I live. So unless you are getting more than a vegetable out of it (for example growing a cash crop such as marijuana or using the bucket for educational purposes), its not really worth it.

Shipping: The kit includes two buckets, and if I were to ship it, the package would measure at least 12 x 12 x 24 inches, and weigh a few pounds. The kits cost $50, so I made the decision not to ship any, because shipping would probably double the price, and at that point people could just build their own bucket for cheaper. I did have a call with Rush Order before Maker Faire, and found out that if I were shipping thousands of units, the shipping would cost about $15 each (USA only), so it would be feasible if I did a Kickstarter.

Next steps

I need to talk to some people who actually do bucket gardening and figure out what exactly I want the next version of my product to be like. After my experience at Maker Faire, its clear to me that I need a better grasp on what my kit should accomplish for the customer.