Kickstarter Update

Why we're pulling the plug....

Hey gang, hope the new year is treating you well.

After some effort & thought we’re pulling the plug on our kickstarter campaign to fund a pilot for Reap on The Road.

Why?

Firstly, we just want to thank everyone who pledged. It’s not cheap, money ain’t free and we’re super grateful for your support. However, a few things have become clear.

Firstly our initial target was £5,000. After doing a deep dive on kickstarter and setting up the program, they recommended going for £6,500 as after kickstarter take their cut & we pay taxes to the US (where kickstarter is based) we’d get our 5k. That’s a huge percentage but we rolled with it.

Secondly, kickstarters take ALOT of work. And we understand why, we made plenty of content (nowhere near as much as we’d like, more on that later) and basically need a pledge manager working on them full time. Which would have been me and simply, I’d rather focus my energy in to making cool stuff, whether it’s merch for reap or continuing building Reap on the road in its new form.

Thirdly, 5K isn’t THAT much to warrant all the work that was going into it. I could (and will) spend the time and effort I was putting into the kickstarter into generating more money for the business (Reap) perfecting the reap on the road format and structure with some unedited episodes we have in the can and generating the income needed to self fund the pilot. We pay less taxes, it’s much less work (in terms of not having to manage a kickstarter too) and ultimately build a better product.

We can do it ourselves

And this isn’t me boasting, but I’m confident in the team we have. This isn’t us canning the idea, networks are still interested, this is us refining what we have and where the money is coming from.

The Schedule

The future of Reap on the road looks like this:

Build up our NEW Youtube channel so it has its own space on the internet.

Build up the Instagram account to compliment it and generate a new audience.

While we’re doing this, we’re releasing a previously unseen episode filmed on location at NEJJ, full gym episode at Dark Arts Jiu Jitsu which has nearly finished production and a snowboarding film all about the slopes in Scotland (who needs the alps eh!)

We’re also in pre-production for the London Episode. Aiming to film in March, edit by April and shop around for sale by the end of the year.

The Personal Bit

Since the 1st of January, I’ve had a LOT land my way in terms of family stuff. Some of which I should have seen coming, some as always came from left field. This meant that I couldn’t quite put a stamp on the kickstarter as much as I’d like. Hell, I’ve barely been on the mats, let alone juggle the brand and shooting schedule, so maybe it wasn’t meant to be done this way, and that’s okay.

Thanks for reading, thanks for all the pledges, it really means the world.

If you want to continue to follow our adventures, then check out our Youtube & Instagram specifically built for Reap On The Road.

See you on the mats,

Rick x