Hey Backers,

Hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving!

We understand that not everyone may celebrate but we hope you're doing well anyways!

Just wanted to check in to say we haven't forgotten about you. We wanted to give a quick update that our manufacturing partners are still working on the organizers. This is their busiest season and to be frank, they haven't exactly treated us with the upmost priority since giving them a much smaller mass production order than we promised/estimated before launching. However, this doesn't mean they aren't going to deliver an exceptional organizer for us!

At this time, we are playing the waiting game to see when they can give us a better and more concrete ETA so that we can estimate when we can actually move into the reward delivery phase. We hope to get something from them soon.

We launched a 2nd round of funding on Kickstarter

Many of you may have noticed we are currently running the same project on Kickstarter (but shipping rates have increased across all carriers so everyone here got a savings shipping fees! Plus, you will receive organizers most likely 1 to 2 months in advance).

So why did we go to Kickstarter? For some reason, a lot of our previous backers did not pledge on this project while it was live on BackerKit (this is evident as we raised and surpassed the same amount of backers and pledge amount in just a few days than we did in the full 30 days here). Going into the decision, we weren't sure but we had to find out. Reason 1) we wanted to see if we could get more funding (as a small family business, projects are our livelihood and we do it not only because we love it, but just like everyone else we need it to pay bills and survive), 2) accommodate backers who we think wanted to pledge on the organizer but only if it was on Kickstarter (we see now this was a case to be made), 3) to compare the two platforms for our own personal knowledge and company growth. 4) To grow and maintain the relationship with our manufacturing partners with a commitment to a 2nd order with them.

It is for these reasons among some others that we launched on Kickstarter.

With that said, we are glad we experienced both platforms running the same product, we have learned a lot and each platform has it's pros and cons. We believe BackerKit Crowdfunding is awesome and it certainly has it's place in the crowdfunding industry. Both platforms can certainly learn from eachother too which ultimately makes a better experience for backers.

Personal news

Typically, we try to keep our personal lives outside of work but sometimes it is necessary to help understand that we are just like you and we have struggles just as everyone else. We wanted to let everyone know we have had a family medical emergency over the last weeks. Aaron's mom had a stroke last year and she hasn't been very well since, its hard for her to get around and she recently had a fall and ended up in ER last week. She is better now from the fall but has developed a fever and is in the hospital with level 2 Sepsis. Apparently, an infection developed through the injuries on her face and head. We are still waiting to see her status from the doctor.

Please note, none of this is going to directly delay the manufacturing partner from working on the organizers but it may mean we are not as available to answer comments/questions as quickly as we hope.

We thank you in advance for your thoughts and prayers.

We will be back again as soon when we have good news to share. We thank you for your continued patience!

Hey Backers,

Just a quick update to let you know 87% of backers have completed their surveys. This leaves approx. 38 backers who have not yet completed it. Ideally, we'd like to see 90% or more to have a more accurate count of ADD-ONS and organizers to manufacture, but it is close enough.

Locking-down ADD-ONS and charging cards

Although we still have some stragglers, we will go ahead and LOCK-DOWN ADD-ONS and charge stored credit cards for those completed surveys. That way, we can send the funds/deposit and the current production quantity estimations to our manufacturing partners to start mass production ASAP.

Note: Locking down ADD-ONS is different from Locking down Shipping Addresses. We will notify backers of this as we get closer to actually shipping rewards to allow backers to update shipping addresses in the event that you move or change addresses. Of course, we will continue to keep everyone updated through backer updates.

Please be advised you will see a charge on your credit card today from either "Dapper Design" or "EpicForged". Just know that it is for this project.

Thank you!

Hey Backers,

BackerKit Surveys sent! 📧

Yesterday we sent a smoke test and the core functionality was successful. We are now sending out the remaining invitations to everyone else.

Please be on the lookout for your invitation, if you do not see one by the end of the day today, please send us a message or leave a comment and we will assist you.

Manufacturing ETA ⚙️

We do not have an ETA when manufacturing will be complete (yet!), but it is important that everyone answer their survey sooner than later so we know exactly how many of each colors to produce. 🙏

Missed the campaign? 🙊

If anyone has been following along but did not pledge during the campaign, you can still hop on the pre-orders here:

https://epicforged-pocket-edc-organizer.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders

Please note: We ship pledged backers first and once those are complete, we move on to shipping pre-orders.

Thank you!

Hey Backers,

We are just about ready to send out invitations to the BackerKit Survey. This is where you will be able to confirm your rewards, provide us your shipping address (you will have a chance to update or change this again at the 48 hours before we actually begin shipping rewards), browse optional ADD-ONS, and pay for shipping fees (based on your location/country). But first, we are running a smoke test!

We just emailed out survey invitations to a small randomized group of backers. Once these backers start to complete their survey and we see that there are no issues, we will then be back with an official backer update with instructions and invitations to everyone else.

It is recommended that we run this for 24 hours. If all is well we will be back tomorrow around this time to send the remaining. If you receive this invitation, please answer your survey just as you normally would, choose optional ADD-ONS, and pay for applicable shipping fees. If you notice something is wrong with your survey, or if you have any questions or concerns regarding the ADD-ONS, please leave a comment.

If you missed our campaign, you can still PRE-ORDER on the BackerKit Pre-Order store here: https://epicforged-pocket-edc-organizer.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders

Thank you!

Hey Backers,

Our Pocket EDC Organizer campaign closed with 312 backers and $11,771 in pledges!

BackerKit is going to need two weeks to collect pledges. Once all the funds are collected they will release it to us so we can pay our manufacturing partners. We will then invite everyone to the BackerKit Survey where we will get the official count of organizers, color selections, your shipping addresses, shipping fees, and select optional ADD-ONS to be sent along with your rewards.

In the meantime, please consider following us on Instagram and be the first to know what we're up to! @dapperdesignedc

Lastly, feel free to check out our website for other Dapper Design products. We are currently running a promotion on our website that ends soon. If you purchase any KLIP, ION, or REKT, you have the option to get a FREE DAPR survival knife. No coupon code necessary, the details are on each product page: Check them out here

Thank you!

🐶 Aaron, 🐱 Yoshimi, and🐿️ Elijah

p.s. We are planning to move this project over to Kickstarter sometime in the future and considered its own round of funding; it will not delay us from moving forward with you rewards here on BackerKit.