The kickstarter adventures of Sólás - solaswatches.com

This is it

Hit the, hopefully, magic 50%. Onward you go!

Thirdfox

With lots of help from people here (and other friends too) we've hit magical 50% - let's see if this gives us the momentum to get to the finish line. As for why I'll fight till the last moment to get it across the line I'd like to share a message I got from one backer:

Speaking to a gentleman who is a backer - I got his permission to share his message to me (sent via KS) - I think it sums up why I wanted to create the Starlight for people (he originally had questions about servicing the watch) -

Ok great. Thank you for the great information. To be honest, I'm more of a [edited for privacy] guy. Fishing outdoors type stuff. But for about 10 years now I've been looking for a nice watch to wear out with my wife or when I'm not doing things that would destroy a watch. The problem I've had is I don't think I've ever found a watch that wow'd me. Typically when Shabazz does a watch review I don't bother to watch it. If I don't love the look then I already know I won't be interested.

When I saw the still shot of the Starlight I immediately knew I wanted it. So from then on everything else was a plus. Then I heard the price. I expected it to cost over $1,000 USD. And the fact that your a micro brand makes it that much more appealing to me. The fact that it's a small company, there's no other watch like it and people will have to ask about it in order to know the brand and name of it I think is very cool. I like odd/off brand or anything that no one else really has.

Most of my knife collection is like that. Small batch productions or micro brands. And I don't mind paying a bit more for servicing with this watch because of all those things. It being the first production watch to use the micro movement and to use that beautiful face is enough to make it special where I'd want to keep it moving to pass down to my daughter. I showed her the video, mind you she's only 4 at the moment, but she thought it was "super pretty beautiful" in her words. So I'm a bit excited about it. I would never wear the watches I have now out to dinner with my wife or anything. So that'd be nice to have. And I love mechanical things so being able to see all the beautiful machining and all the work that went into it is fantastic. Thanks again for answering my messages and questions. Sorry this one's so long.

goezonme

Congrats ThirdFox on hitting the 50% funding mark !.

Have you considered setting up an account on LinkedIn for yourself and solaswatches.com ?
Would help reaching a diverse/global audience as you grow your network and direct them to your Kickstarter campaign.

Starlight would be great fit as a unique gift for corporate gift market.

All the best, we're all rooting for you !

Horoaddict

Thirdfox wrote: »

Ooh - they are one of the people I hadn't heard of/contacted before so I'll be sure to send them a message now. I had only written to Bark and Jack previously.

I see Redbar covered an aventurine watch a couple of articles ago :
https://www.redbargroup.com/blog/2019/mm/ludovic-ballouard

Looks like it ended up getting shared in the Scottish Watches Facebook group (not by me) but those Facebook ads seem to be working!

Thirdfox

Indeed - seems like people have been looking at the website at least - I think there has been two backers who came in from ads so far.

I'm just really looking forward to getting those final production versions in hand and updating those photos to the final proper ones.

Looking back I shouldn't have launched from Nick's review launch - but kept with the original plan to get the final version in hand and updated photos before launching. Hindsight is 20/20 and if the launch on Nick/Shane's review had worked out and I'm at 250% funded now I would have thought it was a genius move

So can only look forwards and ensure I try to make the right moves from this point onwards.

We're up to 99 backers now - nice steady progress

This is it

I doubt anyone running their first KS gets everything right first time, even with all the hints and tips read. Plenty of time, more reviews to come and I'm sure plenty more pledges

Lorddrakul

Genuinely hope this succeeds. It would be such a good back story to establishing a brand, and then an absolutely beautiful product to enter the market with.

banie01

Lorddrakul wrote: »

Genuinely hope this succeeds. It would be such a good back story to establishing a brand, and then an absolutely beautiful product to enter the market with.

Ditto, the effort TF has put into this and the entire "journey" are worthy of a happy ending

Just went back to my KS page there and doubled up the pledge

This is it

I hope we don't get to the end and when the extra pledges are removed we end up short

FFVII

This is it wrote: »

I hope we don't get to the end and when the extra pledges are removed we end up short

Yea, I'd stop that crack

893bet

Now it’s over the 50 percent you have to let the kick starter algorithm do the work promoting it.

Anyone wishing to remove their pledge or extra pledge should prob wait until it is 70-80 percent funded and gently remove to try and keep momentum should it get that far.

banie01

893bet wrote: »

Anyone wishing to remove their pledge or extra pledge should prob wait until it is 70-80 percent funded and gently remove to try and keep momentum should it get that far.

I added a calender reminder to drop it back to the single watch on the 11/8.

Let it ride as long as possible and hope the KS algo does its magic.

banie01

I thought this was a glitch, but after signing out, clearing cookies and data and then signing back in!

I can only conclude that This Is It, is a hacker and lives inside the matrix :pac:

SnowyMay

It’s not the update that we need, but it’s the update that we deserve.

Thirdfox

Here's an update (and a reason why I didn't celebrate passing over 100 backers a few days ago) - reception is patchy under the sea...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/solaswatches/solas-starlight-an-irish-micro-rotor-watch/posts/2895250

It's also why I think I can give some thoughts on what makes for a good dive watch too

Thirdfox

Huh - apparently I've been permanently banned from TZ due to being a spammer

If someone would like to explain my point about the mention of ALS and H Moser & Cie (which is that aventurine is used these 20-30k watches precisely because it looks good and not because it looks like something you get in a Christmas cracker) there was no suggestion that the Starlight is in any way a 1:1 comparison to a Saxonia (the Saxonia doesn't even have a micro-rotor :pac: )

The aventurine dials actually are much more expensive to make; both in manufacture of the raw materials and then the precision needed to cut the material (again people can see cracked dial photo I put up from where too much pressure was used) - it results in a much higher percentage of dials that are unusable compared to stamped metal.

As for the ban - it didn't look like the Starlight was getting much of a warm reception on TZ anyway so I guess it's one way to limit my time on the various forums :P - I did manage to sell my Omega Speedmaster quartz there before the ban though so there's that

893bet

I have also been banned.....

Thirdfox

Hopefully not permanently? I'm very sorry about this - I would think that any ban for others would be unreasonable - I was promoting the campaign for "personal gain" but others who supported the campaign supported it honestly, not shilling or astroturfing. Perhaps the site admin could revisit other people's bans?

Longstanding members should at least get a warning beforehand I would have hoped? Maybe direct the site admins to this thread showing that nothing was ever given by me to others for supporting the campaign other than I had asked that people (who were genuinely interested in the watch) mention it on other sites too.

banie01

@893bet, I hope not permanently?
You seemed to be fairly active over there and an immediate ban seems harsh.
@TF seems harsh in your case too tbf.

Was it for posting in support of this project.
Very harsh if so.

893bet

Don’t sweat it. I will drop the owner a mail to see if they will reconsider. Ultimately their rules etc though.

Thirdfox

Well we've reached 60% with around 22 days to go... The main news is that tomorrow the final production version (both the céad eagrán and the eagrán bradán feasa is being assembled tomorrow - we'll have some initial non-professional photos first I hope and then it's off to the photographer for the "glamour shot").

Lots of things are still going on behind the scenes so we've just reached the first intermission for Ms. Rotund Operatic Vocalist

Thirdfox

A very big update today - it's something private to the backers but for boardsies I'll publish it and seek advice too:

Good news first - final production version photos are available now - these are raw photos without any post-processing (I think the blu-tac gives it away!):





this is in preparation for the ABTW feature. I think the frameless date window will help a lot with preserving consistency between dial and date disc.

And yes - we've gotten the thickness down just a tiny bit more to 9.7mm:



And here is the big announcement/proposal - as shown to my backers:

I put my hands up and say I have managed the marketing of this campaign incorrectly - I put my funding into the watch itself and rushed the launch to coincide with some big reviewers' publication of their reviews rather than waiting until the final production version was finished and ready to be reviewed. That is completely on me and I apologise for letting you, my current backers down in my implementation of the campaign. If reviewers had the version you see above in hand during their reviews perhaps the campaign would be at a very different stage than it is currently.

The ABlogToWatch feature will only be published on 2 August - after which this campaign ends on 11/12 August - we are currently only at 60% which may prove problematic in reaching the minimum target funding goal. To reach 100% funding (which to be clear, by my calculations means I break even on costs - and no profit is made which could be put towards a new Sólás model (which I hinted at already in update #4)) is not particularly wonderful (though I would have the happiness of sharing my vision and putting an affordable (and I like to think quite pretty cool) watch in the hands of roughly 200 people around the world).

So... purely to my backers (and I appreciate all the messages of support and interest I have received to date) I would like to ask - would you consider it okay if I postponed this campaign and "re-launch" a 30 day campaign starting from a later date (when more reviews and followers for day one have been procured)?

As a result of this postponement (and I can understand if some will be upset/disappointed with this suggestion) I would propose to revise my pricing availability - (on launch day only) 50x super early bird watches at €349, 100x early bird at €369 and the rest of the funding goal at the KS standard €399 price (which again is still much lower than what I think a reasonable RRP price would be for this timepiece). The thinking is that hopefully most (if not all) current backers on this campaign will be able to acquire a slot on either the €349 or €369 tier so at a discount to their current price. I'll take the financial cost as a lesson that marketing should have been done correctly at the very start.

Realistically looking at timing to get new samples made and distributed to reviewers etc. I estimate that this may be a mid-September launch - this would mean (looking at my original timetable that it is likely the watches will only get into people's hands in April/May 2021 instead of February 2021).

But the above is only a suggestion from me. If backers would prefer that we continue as is and would not be supportive of a postponement and reboot of the campaign I will definitely take that on board. Rest assured I am trying to think of the best way to ensure that the final campaign gets to (hopefully not limps to or just fails to reach) 100% funding (and surpasses it so that I can have funds to develop exciting new Sólás models - the Equinox is something I have so many plans for).

Please let me know how you would feel about my suggestion above. Thank you once again for backing the Starlight and please understand that this action above is being proposed to be taken only to try and deliver the watch into people's hands. I look forward to your comments and thoughts on the proposal (and your views on the final production model!)

Best,

Diyu

In subsequent updates I've also noted the 45 people currently on the lower pricing tiers and promised that if they end up in a higher tier I'll personally refund them the difference (again if the project is properly funded I'll have enough funds to refund 5-6? people easily - worst case scenario is all 45 people end up in the 399 tier which is a €1,750 hit to finances).

Will be a higher chance of not getting a slot though (if I've done my advertising correctly) since the campaign would probably be launched at 12 o'clock on the dot Irish time to try and ensure fairness to both Australian and American backers.

Would be interested in hearing what people think about the proposal - and revised timing still allows for @AntoDeco's 18th birthday gift too (with plenty of buffer time).

Time

I'm a backer and i'd be fully supportive of you delaying it if you feel that's what's best for the project.

Dev1234

I'm fully aligned with the postponement TF.

Don't be too hard on yourself. It's your first time through this so there will be lessons to be learned which will stand to you.

The final version looks excellent BTW!!

david

The production watch looks amazing, above all expectations and nice photos too!! I definitely think you’ll get more support in subsequent reviews/the proposed plan. Fully on board!

This is it

I'm not sure about postponing it but I support whatever gets the watch made, whatever that may be

Irishphotodesk

Two watches are going on the credit card, don't mind if watches are delayed, it might be paid off before they arrive ...lol.

I don’t know what a good watch looks like, happy to back because you are a boardsie .... you dive and you were active in photography forum many years ago.

MAJJ

Dev1234 wrote: »

I'm fully aligned with the postponement TF.

Don't be too hard on yourself. It's your first time through this so there will be lessons to be learned which will stand to you.

The final version looks excellent BTW!!

Completely agree and said same via PM.

wanderer 22

As others have said, happy to support whatever gets the watch made. I've waited 36 years for my first watch so can wait a few more months ;-)

KrustyBurger

Happy to wait as well. Fair play to you for all your efforts, it's amazing really.