Here is an email that Dexter sent out to all the purchasers.
Dear footbag
I have sent the last box of the shoes we have all contributed to at the start of January - ufff, it took literally ages right - but its done. If there is still someone who does not have their shoes please contact me, I just got a package back from Canada that was not delivered. Here is few sentences and thoughts on the whole project.
time
Yes, a lot of delays. Almost everything took 2x or more times than was expected. No excuses here. I could have pushed everything harder for sure if I committed to a business approach, which I did not. I did not want to, instead I had this as a hobby dream project of mine, that I did in my free time (which was scarce as I also produced 2 kids in between
).finances
Thanks again to all of you who preordered and contributed to this project. It helped to cover the production costs by approximately 70%. The costs of almost everything were higher in the end than I calculated at the start. Paypal and shipping fees gave me hard times just to name a few. I learned a lot about the whole process and would for sure change a few things if done again, but that's the way it is always with such projects. Happy to talk to you about this in detail if someone is interested.
sales
As some of you could already see, worldfootbag.com and freedomfootbags.com are selling the quantums in USA and americas region - thank you guys for stepping up. In Europe I will have an online shop start in January/February 2023 through footbag.cz webshop. The price is set to 135 Eur/Usd at the moment. Yes it could have been lower if made outside of EU, but from the start I wanted this to be a local product made in Czech Republic with European materials.
further development
This is not the end. I want to push for further development once I get all the extra costs covered.
In the meantime I am open to any suggestions from you on what you feel about the shoe or what to change in the future. I already got a little feedback so thanks to everyone on their input. The only thing that can not be changed at the moment is the sole shape (sole mold) and shoe shape (shoe last).
We can experiment with sole PU material, leather and yarn parts and other cloth material that is used, insole, and heel part as well.
And I will start on these small experiments in 2023 for sure. I know that the durability of the sole is low as a trade off for its light weight. There is a possibility to do a more durable sole part, so I will make a few pairs and send them to some of you for testing.
Huge thanks again and again goes to all of you who believed in this project and were patient with the execution.
Yours,
Jan Dexter Struž
Have you got a pair? How do you like them?