Crowdfunding a Spyderco knife?

[Johnnie1801]

We have had a lot of discussion lately about re-sprinting the Caly 3 Super Blue or a sprint run of Cruwear PM2's so I was wondering if it would be possible to crowdfund a Spyderco model?

Say for example we opted for a 600 piece Cruwear PM2 run. We would all contribute to the fund and then when we had all the money collected, Spyderco would make the knives. When the knives are ready we could get one of our local members to pick them up and send them out to everyone (maybe get a free knife for doing the legwork?).

The advantages of this would be that we all get what we want and dealing with Spyderco directly the price will be good (i.e. no going through dealers etc). We have a lot of great members here and with a little organisation I'm sure we could pull something like this off.

[rycen]

Much easier said than done.

[SG89]

Daydreaming

[Pinetreebbs]

A sponsorship level that geta the sponsor a knife would eliminate the crying about missed buys and resellers making a profit, but whomever sponsors the group would be doing a ton of work and need to be compensated.

[dubya3]

Good idea but I doubt there are 600 members here that A) want a cruwear Para (or whatever is chosen) and B) have the money to give up and wait who knows how long (1-2 years?) to get said knife. It's a cool idea and I thought about it myself a couple weeks ago for the SpyderNation members on BF but it would be near impossible to do I think. MAYBE if SFO was willing to do 200 or less it may work but yeah.

[jimmyjohnjohn]

Kickstarters are only funded once the goal is met, so this could work. Not a bad idea at all.

[demoncase]

Waaaay too many moving parts:

You've got to get Sal and team to fit in the run you want into their current production scheduling- and I'm willing to place a solid bet that there's little slack capacity anywhere in the Spyderco Supply Chain to accommodate anything apart from the previously committed to work.

Then you've got the hassle of spooling up on the tooling and new materials- assuming you've got them to hand- probably not. So now they've got to be sourced. Yeah, you might HAVE Cruwear 'lying about', but that's already committed to manufacture of other models and inventory- do you short someone else for this sprint run or try to find more?

So there's a timescale thing there- that's going to take months minimum to arrange with Spyderco (assuming it can be done)- Do you crowdfund on the hope that it can be done, or arrange the funding up front and try to convince the team to do what you want?
There's going to be folks that won't sign on unless they can get it now.
Flipside is the folks that can't sign on until the last minute as they need to save the beer tokens.

Then some 'lucky soul' has got the logistics of packing, shipping and insured all (probably) all over the world 600 times which is going to be about as much fun as an ingrowing toenail.....

And all this is going to be against the background of the ever-shifting other business priorities of Spyderco- there's going to be capacity problems, people off sick, materials issues, in-process-scrap, a shifting orderbook, suppliers demanding more of a model and so forth

(I don't have any "inside track" on what happens in Golden- but I do have experiences of this in my daily working life: we get 'genius' programme managers who get some equal 'genius' customer declare we need to remake a limited run of a previously mothballed product....And then, after we finish laughing, it's a case of asking said 'genius' where we are going to get the tooling from, the materials that aren't on the shelf (nor even in the supply chain), the capacity to make it, the test rig to test it, the operators who know how to build it right-first-time....You see where I'm heading: It's a deceptively simple idea- and simple rarely means the same as easy)

[RadioactiveSpyder]

This comes up from time to time and the general consensus (from Sal included) is that it's a no-go in general. Now someone with deep pockets certainly could sponsor an exclusive run of these said knives no problem (have $50K laying around? ), but the distribution becomes a nightmare if you're not affiliated with an actual vendor/company, and Spyderco has rules about who can even operate as a distributor for them (I believe these were recently revised too to ensure you had an actual storefront, that's maybe why we lost Howes).

That said, as you well know Jon since you started and manage that thread, Massdrop is constantly running Spyderco deals these days. You just need to ask them to run a model that's already in existence. :)

[jimmyjohnjohn]

You guys are making this too complicated. Get Sal and Eric to agree to a run of X number of Y knives at Z price, fund the Kickstarter, wait 12 to 18 months and then one or two very unlucky individuals will have to ship these out.

Tooling and so forth is not something anyone here needs to worry about. That is Spyderco's concern after they agree to a price and specs.

[RadioactiveSpyder]

In my world at least, moving around anything more than $100 seems to take way too many people than it actually requires (and each taking a cut for some reason). What if the Kickstarter campaign doesn't reach its goal?

Not saying it's not possible (actually nothing in the universe is impossible, its all about probabilities...). Send Sal an email and let us know what he says.

[bearfacedkiller]

I believe Kickstarter itself does not allow weapons and they consider knives weapons.

Also, a manufacturer is dependent on their distributors to move their product most of the time and this kind of thing would just be undercutting them. We get the forum knife just for us from our requests at what appears to be near wholesale and that seems like all the stepping on distributors toes that is gonna happen.

Lastly, we are talking about a lot of money. Say they agree to do ONLY 600 knives at $150 a piece. That is ONLY $90,000! Whoa!

[Joris Mo]

Seems rather complicated, imagine trying to get 600, or with doubles and the like maybe 450 people to agree on a model, color and steel type.. Whenever new runs in different steels are suggested/ coming up it seems like a pirana feeding frenzy on everybody having a say about the perfect steel/ handle material/ handle color which is interesting to participate in and interesting to watch but must also at times be quite tiring if you happen to run a Spyderco company..
Imagine if we would try to figure out an "ultimate sprint" amongst ourselves and then try to distribute it if it ever happened..

[dubya3]

I think the only way something even remotely similar to this could happen is if Spyderco posted a poll here with 3-5 knife options then 2 or 3 materials options of what the 2016 forum knife will be but even that's a stretch of the imagination

[hudsonhawk]

When I can't sleep at night, I also stay awake and fantasize about funding my own exclusive. Radioactive is correct that probably the best vehicle currently for crowdfunded Spydies. I wonder if Massdrop could crowdfund an exclusive that doesn't actually exist yet?

Other groups have obtained exclusives in the past: EDC forums/USN forums. Why couldn't a similar group do such, whether that's through this forum or through BF?

[twinboysdad]

[quote="dubya3"]Good idea but I doubt there are 600 members here that A) want a cruwear Para (or whatever is chosen) /quote]

Pfft, please...that thing would sell like female companionship outside of an Army base!

[Evil D]

Makes me wish I were a rich man. If they'd be willing, I would commission every knife people ask for and take the risk myself. I'd have so much fun doing that stuff.

[sbaker345]

I think if you could find a Crowdfunding website like kickstarter than allows "weapons" lol, it could be quite possible. First someone would have to talk to Sal, say if we pay for this many knives, with these specs, for X dollars will do you it? If so set it up for a certain time frame, if it meets it Sal can start production, if not then no harm done. It sounds like a lot of money, but knowing the nuts here, You'd probably have several people buy 2-5.

[dubya3]

Good idea but I doubt there are 600 members here that A) want a cruwear Para (or whatever is chosen) /quote]

Pfft, please...that thing would sell like female companionship outside of an Army base!

Yeah I'm sure it'd sell very well but to find 600 "investors" on this forum that all agree on the exact same knife and are willing to wait a long time, possibly 2 years, to see the money they paid yield a knife, it's very highly unlikely.

[zhyla]

You guys are making this too complicated. You get the crowd funding and take it to a company that has ordered sprints in the past and place an order. With enough volume and the right price point it's only a matter of waiting.

Though in two years you'll be bored with the steel you're dreaming of today.

[Joris Mo]

Good idea but I doubt there are 600 members here that A) want a cruwear Para (or whatever is chosen) /quote]

Pfft, please...that thing would sell like female companionship outside of an Army base!

Please?! :D