Bike Shift Levers Available for Purchase

For the past few months I’ve focused much of my time on casting, preparing, assembling, and shipping Bike Shift Levers; all of them to our wonderful, patient Kickstarter donors who helped make the project possible. They had to wait a full year before finally seeing their shift lever arrive in the mail. Even though I understood the delays that had kept the mold from being machined, I couldn’t expect these great folks to be that patient. You have no idea what a relief it was to drop the last donor-shifter package in the mail.

 

Not only am I celebrating the end of that task, I can finally say that these lovely levers, designed for easy production and repair by people who rely on their bicycles, are available for sale! And they are already selling!  

So my casting and production continues, but the stress of obligation has been replaced by excitement to build One Street’s bicycle program support through sales. Two nights ago I watched as these two frames slid into the molten pool, on their way to becoming Bike Shift Levers.  

I’m also looking forward to finally reaching out to potential license partners who can produce these shift levers for their region of the world. Our book for the program, Backyard Aluminum Casting, is also available for sale in our web store at www.OneStreet.org as well as through book vendors around the world. Using that book, anyone, license partner or not, can build their own aluminum casting foundry.

Tonight I posted to our home page our collection of Gift Ideas from One Street . These include the Bike Shift Lever, our books, and even a scholarship fund to help us connect with potential license partners and cover half of their one-time license fee. If you’re looking for a fun gift for a bike enthusiast, a Bike Shift Lever made from scrap aluminum cans and bike frames could be just the thing. Or if your friends and family members are tired of opening gifts, covering a scholarship in their name could be their perfect gift.

I’m so relieved to finally have the chance to offer all of these great resources. Let me know if you don’t see the combination that suits your needs on that Gift Ideas form and I’m sure we can figure something out.

Sue

Detroit as Bicycle Business Model

I’ve been intrigued by the potential of Detroit for many years now. Its slip away from car manufacturing and abandonment by motorized corporate investors has torn the city open into a place where just about anything could happen. Bleak, empty factories can glimmer like castles to the right visionaries. And sure enough, many of those visionaries have entered the scene on two wheels.

A recent article in Fortune magazine shines the spotlight on a few of these new bicycle manufacturing and distribution businesses. Another recent article, this one in Bicycle Retailer & Industry News (unfortunately, not available to nonsubscribers), also noted the renaissance of bicycle manufacturing in the former “Motor City.” That article even features a retail storefront called The Hub that supports Back Alley Bikes, a nonprofit community bike program.

Between these two articles, I was most fascinated by the second-to-last paragraph in Bicycle Retailer that follows a reality check of low bicycling numbers and a dearth of bike shops:

“Still, there is a prevalent optimism that radiates from Detroiters. Some say that Detroit’s renaissance today is coming from within the residents—which sets it apart from past efforts to ‘save’ Detroit.”

This strikes me as the very sort of example I was looking for in my last post, Does Charity Suck Energy Away from Solutions? Charity is not “saving” Detroit. Detroiters are doing it for themselves. And because of this, I believe they will succeed. And I’m darn pleased that many of them are doing it through bicycle manufacturing. Enabling impoverished and struggling people to develop and implement solutions themselves is at the heart of Social Bike Business. Detroit is becoming a proving ground that shows that principle succeeding.

Sue

Does Charity Suck Energy Away from Solutions?

This morning I received an excellent e-newsletter from our local poverty-relief nonprofit, the Coalition for Compassion and Justice (CCJ) here in Prescott. Their efforts to provide warm clothing and to weatherproof houses for impoverished people are so important, especially as winter descends. Incredibly, nearly one third of our county’s children suffer from hunger every day. This has not changed at all over the last 20 years. Their parents, who are struggling to feed their children, certainly do not have the resources to buy warm clothes or repair broken windows, walls, and roofs.

 

These statistics and the photos of needy families inspire us to help. The jobs are easy—deliver some extra clothing you don’t need or spend an afternoon fixing windows. CCJ and organizations like them have armies of volunteers and donors helping out.

Even as one of their donors of food and clothing, I am bothered by charity programs. I often wonder if even a fraction of the energy spent through one-way charity programs that give to “the needy” was spent working with impoverished people to solve poverty, we would be a lot farther along than we are today.

Leaders I work with through our Social Bike Business Program often bemoan the lack of helpers and donors they have. In order to start strong, these business-minded organizations need help. But their long-term visions of careers through profitable sales don’t yank heartstrings like immediate needs.

How are some of you overcoming this with your social bike business programs? Have you found ways to entice people to help that do not rely on urgent response to people in need? Does your program have good examples of messages that have drawn helpers and donors? If so, please share them in the comments box. Let’s start shifting some of this reactive energy into long-term solutions that help impoverished people lift themselves out of poverty!

Sue

Assembling Bike Shift Levers

Prescott’s unusually wet summer of monsoon thunderstorms finally ended a few weeks ago, which allowed me whole days of casting our Bike Shift Levers. These Bike Shift Levers are designed for people who rely on their bicycles every day with just six common parts, two of which are cast from scrap aluminum. I’m starting production here in Prescott, but soon our partners around the world will get their own permanent molds so they can produce them for their regions.

This summer, I couldn’t cast if there was even a threat of rain because molten aluminum explodes when water contacts it. So I’ve done a lot of casting in these past few weeks to finally cast the shifters for our wonderful Kickstarter supporters. These supporters contributed a full year ago, making this project possible. I’m sure appreciative of their patience waiting for their collector shift levers from Mold #1!

Mold #2 will be back here next week after more refinements at the machine shop. Once I’ve caught up with our supporter shifters, I’ll start casting some for sale with that mold.

Not only am I finally sending these shifters out to our supporters, this ramped-up production offered some fun photo ops. Here’s a pile of shift lever parts in various stages of assembly, some still stuck to the extra aluminum from the mold sprues, others ready for assembly, others assembled ->

Sometimes these casting days stretched into the night, which wasn’t my preference, but at least I was treated to an incredible light show every time the melt was ready to pour – check out that neon pink!:

 

Here’s a photo of today’s assembly line as I prepared to assemble a batch:

I’ve still got several batches to go before all of our Kickstarter backers are taken care of. This has been a great reminder of how many fabulous folks stepped up to make this project possible. A huge thanks to all of you!

Kickstarter Tips for Success

With two successful Kickstarter campaigns under our belts here at One Street (Bike Shift Lever and Cures for Ailing Organizations) and also having backed five projects myself, I think I’ve accumulated enough bruises and smiles to offer some useful tips. 

First, when considering a Kickstarter campaign, make sure you can set aside an entire month for constant promotion and begging. Kickstarter shows that campaigns lasting more than 30 days have LESS of a chance of succeeding, likely because they lack urgency. You’ll need every one of these 30 days to connect with and respond to your most likely donors.

A Kickstarter campaign can fund many aspects of a social bike business program. For instance, funding a new workbench and accompanying tools would be a great fit. You could even try to fund a building renovation or the purchase of a building, assuming you can reach out to a substantial number of likely donors.

Don’t be deceived by the multitudes of Kickstarter competitors. My first venture into crowdfunding was IndieGoGo. I only convinced 12 of my closest friends and family members to contribute – major bust compared to my experience on Kickstarter! With this limited experience, I can’t claim to be an expert on the others, but I can caution you to investigate them thoroughly. Compare them with Kickstarter’s numbers. The huge number of Kickstarter donors means that most of the people you approach will at least trust the name and many will already have an account that lets them pledge to your project with a few mouse clicks.

All of the Kickstarter competitors I have looked at allow every campaign to take whatever money they raise, but charge an extravagant fee if the goal was not reached. In contrast, Kickstarter only releases funding if the goal is reached (all-or-nothing) and charges a straight 5% fee of the funds raised.

These competitors are rather savvy. Most first-time crowdfunders will be intimidated by Kickstarter’s all-or-nothing concept. But taking less than your goal comes at a major cost to you and a lovely profit to them. On top of that, you’ll be stuck with funding that you cannot proceed with. Your donors will expect you to complete your project because their credit cards were charged, but you won’t have enough funding to do so. Investigate all of this thoroughly before choosing any service other than Kickstarter.

For this blog post, I will stick to tips that are specific to Kickstarter. Once you’ve found a quiet month you can devote to your Kickstarter campaign, use these tips to set yourself up for success:

PRIOR TO LAUNCH

• If this is your first Kickstarter campaign, allow for at least three weeks to receive approval for your project and for your account where the funds will be transferred. Your next project will only take a few days for approval since everything will be set up.

• Choose a month without holidays or other likely distractions such as summer vacations.

• When setting up your campaign:
• Choose the lowest funding goal possible that will still allow you to complete your project, including covering the Kickstarter fees, promotion costs, and the costs to make and ship the rewards you choose for your donors.
• Study similar, successful projects on Kickstarter for ideas.
• Spend the time and money to create an engaging video.
• Be careful to choose rewards you can afford, but will still entice backers; and don’t forget to add overseas shipping fees to ALL reward levels.
• Compliment your video with engaging text and images on your page, including a concise budget showing why you need the minimum goal.
• Put time into writing out the Risks and Challenges part of the page. This gives your project the human touch and makes it believable.
• Ask Kickstarter support to add any “tags” that match your campaign; for instance they have a “Bikes” tag that brought seven backers to our shift lever campaign.

• Don’t count on strangers or Kickstarter visitors to pledge. If your campaign creates a great buzz, like our shift lever did, you will enjoy this bonus. But if it never gets past your own promotion efforts, as our book never did, you will have to scratch and scramble for every single pledge. This is most likely! Be prepared.

• You will be more than busy during the campaign, so write up and prepare everything you can in advance.

• Prepare lists of potential donors, media, and networkers. Separate these lists for delivery method – mailing, email, press release, blog posts, social media, etc.

• If your community is likely to support your project, schedule in-person events where you can show off your project in a relaxed, party atmosphere, with computers ready for their pledge.

• Create a schedule for engaging these lists and events. Some, such as your email and social media lists, can receive your pledge requests several times. Others, such as your media list, should only receive your press release once, so schedule it early in the campaign.

• Prepare and write out your initial emails, blog posts, and press release. Give them a personal voice because Kickstarter is all about people helping other people. Sell yourself and your personal story along with your project.

• Invest in a mailing such as postcards or simple brochures since such hardcopies tend to sit around and act as reminders for people to pledge. You can also use them as handouts.

• Prepare for many varied ways to reach people, including ways to reach the same people through multiple channels. Busy people have to see something many, many times before they will be persuaded to act. You’ll only have 30 days to do this!

• Do not send any of your promotions out before the campaign is live on Kickstarter. If people go to the link and find it’s not live, they will not bother returning.

DURING CAMPAIGN

• Engage your promotion plan and stick to it throughout the month.

• Post your list of FAQs at the bottom of your page within the first week. This offers a fun way to enhance your personal story by showing your interaction with backers and gives you another excuse to post an update i.e., FAQs posted, please offer more.

• Post at least one update each week of your campaign offering progress, starting each by thanking your backers and always asking them for help spreading the word. Also offer the latest news on media coverage and other developments. Frequent updates also up your campaign’s chances to be featured by Kickstarter.

• Beware of spammers in your first week. With Kickstarter’s success, they have multiplied. Ignore their calls to promote your project or produce your product.

• Respond to every legitimate interaction! Thank every one of your backers (Kickstarter has an easy way to message backers through their Backer Report page). Even people who oppose your project will appreciate your response and may become your best networkers. Use their objections to create more FAQ entries. Also, some newcomers to Kickstarter will need guidance on how it works before they will pledge.

• Some people will have no interest in your project, others will be ecstatic. Don’t get hung up on the folks who aren’t interested. Focus on pampering those who love it.

• Your backers will be some of your best promoters because they want the campaign to succeed. I know when I back a project, I get nervous for its success and want to help. Don’t forget to ask your backers to spread the word!

• Some people will only be networkers and will not pledge. Adore them! I can think of a few for each of our projects who contributed significantly to our success by promoting them much farther than we could have.

• Work hard to reach one third of your goal in the first ten days. There is always a midway lull. By stoking the campaign early, your potential donors who come in at the end will see there’s a good chance of success and this will encourage them to pledge. Without those early pledges, many will expect it to fail and won’t bother.

• Even if you reach your goal before your deadline, do not announce success until it is over. Donors can reduce and even withdraw their pledges up to 24 hours before the campaign ends. This happened a few times with our shift lever campaign, adding significantly to my heartburn.

AFTER THE CAMPAIGN ENDS

• If your campaign succeeded, send an enthusiastic thank you update to your backers including next steps, and announce your success wherever you had posted the campaign.

• If it missed, send the news to your backers and let them know your revised plans for funding your project. You can even retry Kickstarter once you’ve recovered.

• The funding will transfer to your designated bank account within two weeks of success, but get started on your campaign promises immediately, including sending out rewards.

• Leverage your success to promote your project further and gain media coverage on its next exciting steps ahead.

Kickstarter is NOT for the faint of heart or for those without a full month to devote to their campaign. Prepare yourself for 30 long days of expectation, dashed hope, jubilation, desperation, planning for failure, guilt for begging, and, if everything clicked, exhausted celebration. I’d also recommend setting aside another week for recovery.

If all of this sounds like a nice way to spend a month, go for it! I wish you good luck and emotional stamina. With success it will all be worth it in the end.

Do you have further tips to offer from your Kickstarter or other crowdfunding experiences? Please offer them in the comments box.

Sue

Respectful Outreach to Disadvantaged Communities

This morning I found an excellent list of outreach tips in my inbox. I often hear from leaders of bicycle organizations who are frustrated with their lack of success in connecting with residents of distressed neighborhoods. I always start such discussions by applauding these leaders for trying, because too many bicycle projects bypass such neighborhoods. Then it is a simple matter to offer tips to help them build trust and respect with the residents they want to learn from.

Most of the tips I have offered over the years (including a detailed section in Defying Poverty with Bicycles) center on empathizing with these residents who have very little time to spare and who’s time has often been wasted by government-run meetings. In order to engage these important people in your bicycle campaign, you must first show them they are important, that the project needs their input in order to succeed.

This goes for transportation projects like a bike path or lane as well as launching a bike community center to provide bikes and career training for these neighborhood residents. No matter how obvious you think the benefits are, don’t expect your neighbors to see past their suspicion, especially if they believe that your program is just another of the multitudes that have promised great things only to waste their precious time.

This morning’s discovery comes from Jessica Roberts, a Principal at Alta Planning + Design. Alta is a consulting firm that specializes in helping cities implement bicycle and pedestrian projects. Jessica’s tip sheet includes fabulous details. Enjoy!:

• Host events at churches, libraries, or community centers - should be locations that people are going to for regular activities anyway. Don't host at police department, courthouse, or other authoritarian locations. If you're trying to reach Hispanic/Latino community members, consider circulating at soccer games and inviting people to have an informal conversation about the project.

• Radio is an important medium that a lot of people overlook. In most cities there is a Spanish language or other culturally-specific radio station that is a central source of information for the community. There may be a morning commute or lunch hour talk session where you an plug your event or project, or better yet get people involved in a discussion.

• Provide childcare and food. In some communities, it is disrespectful not to feed people a full meal if you are asking for their time.

• Don't require people to sign in & provide personal contact information - can feel intrusive and like "the government is tracking you." Provide opportunities for people to provide input informally, as opposed to requiring them to submit written comments. Make sure staff are prepared to engage people and take notes after each conversation.

• Similarly, provide opportunities to talk to people that don’t have an established status. Talking to community leaders or consultants can be intimidating…have some staff hang off to the side looking approachable for people to talk to.

• Visual recorders can be helpful for visual learners and ESL audience.

• In some communities it is disrespectful to address elders by their first name, or to "get down to business" too quickly. Greet people warmly when they come in, ask them how they are doing, and listen to their answer before rushing into directions for the event. Ask for guidance and feedback from trusted community members on your tone, style, and format.

• Use storytelling and personal anecdotes in addition to technical work.

Bike Shift Lever Testers

Earlier this month I had the pleasure of sending out the first Bike Shift Levers cast with Mold #1 to our project donors who had offered to test them out. Getting them cast in my outdoor foundry was a bit stressful because of all the thunderstorms we’ve had around here, but I managed. I was thrilled to finally assemble these cast versions of the shifter and dropping them in the mail. Of course, I kept one of the batch for myself. It has its share of character, but it's doing a far better job moving my front derailleur than the worn out Deore shifter it replaced.

I gave these wonderful testers just one week to install their shift lever, try it out, and report their findings because I needed to send all the changes in for our soon-to-expire patent pending as well as the design of Mold #2. Since Mold #1 has several flaws in its design, I can’t cast any production shifters until I have Mold #2.

Overall, every test result was positive and each of the testers continues to ride with theirs installed. Some found important needed changes to the base that had been mistakenly increased in size somewhere in the design process. Others suggested potential ways of reducing the aluminum used, but for later versions after this design has been put to the test in the rugged situations it is designed for.

A few of the testers sent along photos. Here is Seth in the midst of installing his shifter:

Don installed his on his lovely steel Bianchi:

 

And Russ took this close up showing some of the character in the shifter he received:

Russ reported that his Bike Shift Lever continues to perform better than the shifter it replaced.

They’re out in the world, shifting away! More to come, especially with the expected arrival of Mold #2 next week!

Sue