First of all, thank you all so much for bearing with me. Your patience and understanding has meant the world to me as I worked to correct my mistakes and push to the finish line in the fulfillment process for Tiny Warriors. I am deeply sorry for how long the entire process took and I'm taking to heart everything it has taught me so that I can do better in the future and prevent long delays and periods of radio silence from happening again. I want to earn and keep the trust of the people who support me and my work because I owe so much to you all. I don't want to ever take for granted what it means for so many people to see the value in what I enjoy creating.
Here are the fulfillment stats displayed in my pledge manager:
Please check your email for tracking information, or an email from me! ALL pledges that I'm currently able to ship, have been shipped out. There are 2 pledges that have had shipping complications (1 in the "shipped category" and one in the "start shipping" category), those backers have already been directly contacted and I'm waiting for a reply or working to resolve the issue as quickly as I can.
By the end of the week, I'll be cancelling any remaining "Send & Remind" pledges deemed "abandoned" - aka no survey filled and no payment made. This is just for my peace of mind so it will show up as 0 pledges remaining.
As always PLEASE let me know if there are ANY issues surrounding your pledge! You can email me or let me know in the comments directly under this post.I try to be as thorough as I can, but there's always a chance for mistakes to slip through. If you have missing items, or mistakenly received factory errored or B-grade items, let me know so I can replace them for you as soon as possible.
With the BackerKit pledge finally queue more or less out of the way, I've begun to clear out my BigCartel shop queue as well. Once I've completely caught up on all outstanding orders, I'll most likely be taking a small break to rest, reflect on what wasn't working about my system previously, and what actionable steps I can put in place to operate my business more smoothly. Most importantly, work toward prevent huge backlogs of work from forming. In the future I'm going to do everything I can to stay more on top of things, and keep my own workload more manageable within my capabilities. Thank you all for your patience as I work toward improving.
This will be my last update post for Tiny Warriors; from here on, like I said, if you have any questions or concerns please let me know in the comments or message me. Thank you all so much from the bottom of my heart for supporting Tiny Warriors, and special thanks as well to my family and my friends who helped me immensely when I needed it. I appreciate you all so much!!
Update is quite late this time very sorry about that, I had a doozy of a week... TL;DR: car in the shop, couldn't commute anywhere for a few days, did nothing but cram for finals for a minute. It's been hard BUT I have car access again and after the end of this week I am officially on break from school. THE GRIND CONTINUES. Here are the stats:
less than 20 to go!!!!!!
About 10 of the orders marked "shipped" will actually be dropped off at the post office tomorrow (was having printer issues today up until the post office closed...) but I wanted to get tracking info out there to everyone because it's important for this next part:
I have an IMPORTANT update so please read below if your order is still unshipped
I unexpectedly ran out of Bluestar (not Spotted, just Blue... Honestly I don't know what happened there) and Starry Sky pins. I already ordered a restock and they are in production right now, however I do apologize for not keeping better track of inventory sooner as this has caused a delay for certain pledges. I was given an estimate of around 3-5 weeks to receive the pins. In the meantime I'll be getting the remaining orders ready with the items missing for now, so that as soon as I have them, I can quickly add them and send them out. I'll also focus more on any last late shop orders.
As of now, the only remaining unfulfilled orders contain one or both of the two out of stock pins mentioned above.
If your pledge is one of these (you haven't yet received a tracking number or email from me) and you prefer to swap out either of these pins for equivalent alternatives to get your items sooner, please comment below with your alternative choice.
For example, I'll allow any swaps like this:
Swap Blue in a Blue&Spotted pin set for one other cat, any choice (Yes, for the inconvenience I will allow mix and matching just this once)
Swap the Blue&Spotted pin set for another set entirely, any choice
Swap the Starry Sky pin for any two pin sets, your choice (since it is a limited release pin I'm hoping this is a fair trade)
If you do not comment with alternative pin choices, I will assume that your preference is to keep your order the same, and wait for the replacement items to arrive.
Apologies again for the oversight and the additional delay :( with the bluestar pins I really don't know what happened because I have LOTS of spotteds left. Either I received an unequal amount from the manufacturer in the first place and didn't notice, or I somehow misplaced lots of bluestars. I'll keep looking in case it's the latter, but in any case, more are on the way.
Thank you all again so much for your patience. I can see the end of the tunnel. It's so close. Thank you for bearing with me.
I almost forgot!! It's biweekly check-in time again. Unfortunately, I didn't make more progress since my last update post... I've hit that time in my school term where I'm pretty deep in the weeds of finals crunch time. I apologize for the slow progress overall, I still think I can do better to balance school and fulfillment. I'll make sure that I have more progress to report in my next check in post in June. I'm still shooting for completion of the remaining shipments by the start of summer and I think I can do it if I really buckle down. I endlessly appreciate everybody's patience with me in the meantime.
As always if there are any issues surrounding your pledge please let me know in the comments. Thank you all so much again.
Apologies, my update is a day late this time. I won't make a habit of it in the future, I wanted to do a little more today before sending the update.
Before this update there were some pledges I had left unlocked and/or uncharged, because I wanted to make sure first that I was keeping enough momentum before charging these. I mentioned in previous updates this was causing fluctuations in the "unfulfilled" orders number (shown here as "Start Shipping") which made it somewhat confusing to quantify the actual progress I was making. I apologize for any confusion this caused, it was honestly a little confusing for me. I think it will be simpler and more transparent if from here on I just show the numbers as I see them on my end: 8 pledges are basically in limbo; these backers never filled out a survey and therefore I'm considering these abandoned for now. This is fine, but just to be clear if any of these backers decide to fill the survey then I can lock those orders and the unshipped pledges number will increase again.
32 pledges are unfulfilled. While it shows 31 on BackerKit, I had one pledge actually ship and get lost and transit so I will be replacing it along with the others. My goal is still to fulfill the remainder of these before Summer. I believe I will be able to stick to this schedule.
I also haven't forgotten about late shop orders. I'm placing the highest importance on outstanding pledges since those were placed significantly earlier. I want to get everything resolved as quickly as I'm able.
I feel better about the progress that I made this time and everything feels less insurmountable when the number goes down and I get to know that my supporters are finally receiving their overdue items. Balancing packing and shipping batches of orders with a demanding school schedule is difficult and it is something I will be more a lot more careful managing in the future so that I don't ever allow myself to shut down that way again. Thank you all so so much again for your patience with me despite everything.
As always please let me know if you have any issues with your rewards (missing item, errored item, wrong address, anything) ideally in the comments below or through email.
Hi everyone! I’m back for another biweekly update.
Just cutting right to the chase… Unfortunately, I honestly made very little progress since my last update. I had a lot going on in my personal life and had a bit of a rough time mentally for a moment. I don’t think these excuse the lack of progress because despite these things I know I could have done more and I apologize. I share this because I know it is better to be upfront and honest about where I am at and why.
Last update I mentioned that 12 orders had been packed and not yet labeled, those were all shipped out - 7 of them have been delivered and the remaining 5 are still in transit.
I don’t feel satisfied with the number of orders fulfilled between this update and my last so I will aim for more progress in my next one to the best of my ability. Thank you all for bearing with me. I know it’s a little slow but I’m trying to get a better balance between school and fulfillment. I’m happy to hear when the items are make it to you guys safely and I hope it won’t be too long before everyone has theirs.
