Maxmini is closing down

[maledrakhParticipant 11996xp 0]

It seems yet another company has fallen victim to having a kickstarter campaign be too successful for their ability to cope with fulfilment and all that.

Maxmini.eu has announced they are closing down by the end of the year. They have a blogpost on the front page of their store with info.

 

What a pity. I have some of the WWII US-inspired space orks from their green alliance campaign, and they are good quality. I was looking to get more of them, but it seems it is not to be.

[Anonymous 0xp 0]

 

Nothing lasts forever

Posted by Przemas in on November 12, 2019 . .

…ok, I know this is triviality. We’ve been discussing it for the past year and we’ve come to conclusion it is time to close shop with the end of 2019. Till then we’ll operate normally – so we’ll still release a couple of new stuff, the orders will be sent, models printed and so on.
But why you might ask. Shortly after KS some pretty nasty stuff happened to both me and Kacper privately, in a very short time span. Sadly it affected the workshop. While we eventually recovered and got the workshop up and running again the chemistry was gone. We no longer worked as a team and we’ve no longer complemented one another.
Don’t get me wrong – the store and sculpting commissions still bring money. But I don’t feel we’re moving in the right direction and things have been stagnating for the past 2 years. I feel that under new roof, with more energetic team the range could blossom.
Which brings me to good news. My hope is that it won’t be the end of the range. At this point we’re in talks with some local vendors that are interested in picking up the range. And there’s also task for you – if you know someone that might be interested / someone you’d like to take over – let us / them know. The more, the better chance it will find a better home.

At this point I’d like to thank several parties. First of all – you, our customers. Not only for financial support. We’ve got so many amazing emails, fantastic chit-chats during events – it kept us going. Secondly our friends that helped us during tough times – Kuba, Maciek, Artur among others. You guys seriously rock!
Then big shout out goes to our team – we’ve got some fantastic folks over the years. It was awesome to watch your skills blossom and so many times things you provided were way outside regular job tasks.
Then to all the companies we’ve worked with – with notable mention to Rebel, Postindustrial Games, Siren Miniatures, Fragged Empire, Sword Board Games, Wargamer and man others. It was fantastic to work on your models.

Even taking all the rough times into account running MaxMini.eu was fantastic experience. We’ve loved it and learned so much. I hope we’ll be able to meet during some future projects. While personally I plan to take a break from wargaming related things I enjoy this hobby too much to leave it completely. Keep on happy hobbying!

-Przemek

From the reading of that, there is still a chance to get your Space Orks, or someone else will buy the range.

[aztecjaguarParticipant 1568xp 0]

Really sad to hear this news. I backed their Ork Green Alliance Kickstarter and the quality of their resin miniatures is absolutely superb.

Hope they find a suitable buyer for their range and wish them all the best for their future endeavours.

[limburger 21708xp 0]

Kickstarters (and especially ones that over funds) are the ultimate stress test for a company.

We also need to remember that a lot of these tiny companies are operating on narrow margins in a niche market.
Anything can ruin their chances of survival.
The internet and kickstarters in particular tend to make this a lot more visible to consumers.

[jodain 12433xp 0]

Now that is bad news, I think I need to place an order.  I used their jump packs for my 40K to replace the older Space Marine ones, so I better get a few more in as I only had the 5.

[aztecjaguarParticipant 1568xp 0]

I don’t remember if the MaxMini Green Alliance was massively overfunded or not. From the announcement it sounds more like the two owners each had some unexpected, non-kickstarter related problems shortly after their campaign funded.

You make some interesting points though @limburger. I wonder, how much are over-enthusiastic, perhaps over-demanding, backers a part of the Kickstarter-Stress-Test problem for small, niche designers and Self-Production companies like MaxMini?

How realistic – or indeed possible – is it for a Kickstarter to reign-in a run-away success, in the heat-of-the-moment as the pledges suddenly increase, especially in the Last 48 hours?

[limburger 21708xp 0]

@aztecjaguar the high of achieving funding must be incredible …  especially if you only ever dreamt of getting it funded.

One trick would be to limit the amount of awards, but then you also risk scaring people as we’re used to the fact that only the top tier rewards (like ‘get your face in the game’) have such limits.

Then there’s the worry that people might decide to cancel their pledge at the last minute.

 

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