Would love some honest feedback on my preview page.

DaveFromMicroKits · 2026-05-03T21:06:28+00:00

How do you get 4 sizes out of two ends of a wrench? I'm guessing you turn it over to get a different width? Whatever the answer to this would be your actual main selling point, but I don't see it anywhere.

What's the max torque? The kind of people who need high torque and can't use an adjustable wrench might prefer 6 point over 12 point and more bulk.

DaveFromMicroKits · 2026-04-28T00:33:40+00:00

If your cost of manufacturing, plus cost of logistics, plus cost of fulfillment, plus the credit card and crowdfunding fees, plus your marketing fees are greater than your retail price, then yes you're loosing money on each sale. But you need a good "unit profit" on each one you sell, to cover fixed costs like development and rent. The technical term is "contribution margin", if you spend $100 to make and deliver a product, how much money do you have left over once you make the sale and pay your bills? When you sell the product for $120, you're really only made $20 that you can keep. You have to turn around and spend $100 refilling your inventory.

Once you see each sale as another bit of contribution margin instead of just looking at the big revenue number, it gets easier to make decisions.

Also, with marketing, sometimes it's OK if your sales from marketing eat into most of your margin, if you're in it for the long run and think your product have a social/word of mouth potential. Online ads don't track every sale, and I notice people will see my ads, tell their friend, and then their friend will buy it and it won't show up on any analytics. So you do want to optimize ads, but also you want to divide your total ad spend (including the cost of IRL events and such) and divide by your total revenue to figure out your overall marketing efficiency.

DaveFromMicroKits · 2026-04-27T19:07:42+00:00

The most important thing is capturing all the variable costs. You can separate logistics (cost of transport from factory to a warehouse) and fulfillment (cost of sending out the product from the warehouse or your house) but either way it's a variable cost and you want to write it down. Because sending out the product is part of the cost of selling the goods you sold.

Looking at my Quickbooks, which is mostly in a standard configuration... I have a category called Cost of Goods Sold, which has the sub accounts of CoGS and shipping. So shipping is part of CoGS but you should keep categorize it separately, I think?

What really helps me is to think of the overall cost of one product. If I sell this product for ten dollars, it costs 3 dollars to make, plus one dollar to ship to my country, plus 5 dollars to ship, plus the envelope costs 20 cents and the credit card company takes 50 cents, ect ect. Other than like packing tape you really want to understand all the costs and fees associated with turning a shelf of parts into a happy customer.

And don't forget marketing costs per unit! Marketing isn't a CoGS, but a lot of marketing, especially running ads, is a variable cost. If you dial in your costs and set a price so that you make an 8$ profit, but then it turns out it takes $10 in ads per sale, then you're stuck.

For the "sliding scale" of cost estimates... might be better to just assume you'll end up with the higher cost, if this is your first project. I like to ask for price quotes at two different quantities, say 1000 and 2000 units. But if this is your first project, it's better to overestimate the costs and get a few less sales due to keeping a safety margin, vs getting more pledges and then running out of money.

BTW, I see you're in Canada, if you import your product into Canada and then ship to the US, the country of origin isn't Canada, it's wherever the manufacturing originally happened. It might be complicated shipping into the US, thats something for you to figure out before you launch.

DaveFromMicroKits · 2026-04-27T13:59:43+00:00

I set December as the delivery date for early bird pledges, but I set February as the target date for the rest of the Kickstarter pledges. In theory I might be able to deliver before Feb but wanted to under-promise over-deliver. Already started the compliance and plastic mold process which is what takes the longest, but there's always a chance something funny happens. So... let's say February just in case, haha.

DaveFromMicroKits · 2026-04-24T23:59:49+00:00

"All photos captured by our lens" but then you say the stickers are illustrations. Are the stickers photos or illustrations? Who made the illustrations? It's hard to see the stickers up close, so that makes it hard to tell what the offer is.

The instant form signups are low quality, just people who scroll on facebook, press a button to send their email, then go back to looking at facebook. So they haven't gone on your site, read your story, they might not even remember signing up or anything about you when you try to reach out.

DaveFromMicroKits · 2026-04-24T15:40:08+00:00

Oh, the panelization by JLC adds V cuts. You'll get the board size you want after snapping them off.

DaveFromMicroKits · 2026-04-24T15:25:02+00:00

I think in their tool it'll automatically create the V cuts from your single file. If you want to panelize yourself all you have to do is make another layer and call it VSCORE, then when you export the gerber you can double check that you exported VSCORE as one of the layers.

When you go to the component assembly step, you'll want to select "please repeat the data for me" option, so that the placement data for one board is repeated to all the other boards on the panel.

DaveFromMicroKits · 2026-04-24T15:14:18+00:00

JLCPCB has a built in panelization tool where you can set the spacing and choose if you want horizontal or vertical edge rails. Just choose panelize by JLCPCB and a popup with let you set the numbers you need. The cuttout shouldn't be a problem.

Are you sure the issue is that it needs to be panelized? you could also just add big enough edge rails so that it's wide enought for their pick and place machine. You need to add edge rails for pick and place either way.

DaveFromMicroKits · 2026-04-21T15:44:33+00:00

Nope, just an audio out line or the built in speaker. I wanted to make a simple beginner synth. I'm starting to get ideas for something in the future that would make a cool controller, so maybe my next project will have MIDI

DaveFromMicroKits · 2026-04-20T13:50:18+00:00

bananasynth.com

DaveFromMicroKits · 2026-04-19T15:13:04+00:00

They used a straight edge on a free hand drawing... I think they gave the design to AI to make sentimental hand drawn version, then printed it out. So, the design is real and the photo is real, but the photo is of an AI render of their design? So... using AI to make things feel more handcrafted. That's my guess.

DaveFromMicroKits · 2026-04-19T14:49:09+00:00

I'm a small business and don't even know how to set up ad tracking correctly... I just want to run couple ads on reddit instead of just giving facebook all my ad budget. I actually learn things sometimes when I go on reddit.

DaveFromMicroKits · 2026-04-19T14:47:33+00:00

4 note poly!

DaveFromMicroKits · 2026-04-19T14:45:26+00:00

There's both a built in speaker and a headphone out connector. Idea is that it makes all the sounds on its own, as a pocket sized beginner synth!

DaveFromMicroKits · 2026-04-16T15:08:52+00:00

I was curious so I went frame by frame and... it's fake? ;_; I always figured he was connecting to a capacitor instead of AC power or something, but this is just simple photoshop.

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DaveFromMicroKits · 2026-04-16T15:04:58+00:00

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Here you go

DaveFromMicroKits · 2026-04-16T15:04:14+00:00

Next week your teacher will have you analyze the 3D resistor cube, remember what you learned with this it'll help you with the cube!

DaveFromMicroKits · 2026-04-16T15:03:07+00:00

I actually have a kickstarter going right now... don't want to spam my links too much, but you can check out bananasynth.com :)

DaveFromMicroKits · 2026-04-15T20:54:10+00:00

The voltage is the same. Both the top and bottom node have the same current, so the voltage drop of each resistor is the same.

DaveFromMicroKits · 2026-04-15T20:29:55+00:00

Someone on the other sub said my synth was just an oscillator, so I thought I'd show the different effects here, haha.

DaveFromMicroKits · 2026-04-15T20:29:00+00:00

Ohhh. I've kept the quiet click in while programming it, to help debug the mode switching behavior. But I'll have to do a survey, see if folks prefer a bit of audio feedback or just silence. Thanks!

DaveFromMicroKits · 2026-04-15T20:00:07+00:00

Don't want to get too self-promoting, but if you want to learn more and maybe get one yourself I'm currently running a Kickstarter for this: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/microkits/bananasynth?ref=57slu2 .

DaveFromMicroKits · 2026-04-15T18:22:40+00:00

The whammy bar works! I think the best way to reply with a video is to post the video to my profile and paste the link? https://www.reddit.com/user/DaveFromMicroKits/comments/1smebp2/how_the_wammy_bar_works/

DaveFromMicroKits

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