The Proverbial Fork In The Road

First of all, we want to thank all of our amazing customers and people who are interested in our products. We have been thrilled with the incredible response this year. But all businesses come to a point where they have to make big decisions. Decisions that will shape the company not only today but for the long term. At Uniquely Geek we came to a giant fork in the road, and it was decision time! In an effort to be fully transparent we wanted to share with everyone what our choices were, what considerations were taken into account, what the outcome is, and how this will impact our customers and our sales process going forward.

As many of you know, we are a small company. So it was easy to get all 4 of us involved in this decision-making process and after a hard conversation a choice was made, thankfully we all agreed that the final decision was the correct one.

The Choices:

Due to the overwhelming demand for our product, we needed to make a decision on what our production capacity will be going forward. Over the past 4 months, we have gone from a 4 week production lead time to one that is currently over a year. We never wanted to be a company that made our customers wait over a year to get their table, but here we are. In fact, we pride ourselves that we can produce a custom gaming table in 6-8 weeks. The issue is the wait time until the table goes into production.

Our options were to expand and ramp up production to try to keep up with the demand or limit our capacity in order to stay small and hands-on.

Considerations:

We had to look at the ramifications of both choices. Some of the considerations we took into account were:

• How do we prevent quality from suffering as we increase capacity? 
• If we ramp up production do we lose the small company feel?
• If we expand how do we provide exemplary service?
• How much money are we leaving on the table by not increasing production to meet demand?
• How much capacity increase would be needed to keep up with demand?
• What trade-offs would we have to make?  ie. Quality vs. Quantity, Stress vs. Rewards
• How many customers would we disappoint ☹️ by not increasing capacity?
• What if an economic downturn were to occur?

Just to name a few.

The Decision:

Ultimately we ended up looking at our Mission Statement for guidance. This is the statement that we have built our business around as a team and is our vision of what we want this company to be. There is nothing in our Mission Statement about being the largest gaming table manufacturer, but it does mention providing “Custom Heirloom Furniture” and “Using a Customer-Centric Business Model”. If we were going to be true to what we set out to accomplish when we started Uniquely Geek, it really became a clear decision.

We have decided to limit table production to 100 tables a year. We all felt going into this that we were not doing this to get rich. If you are planning on getting rich in furniture making you might as well plan on winning the lottery. This choice allows us to maintain our vision and provide the highest quality product and services to our customers. While that is still a lot of tables to make each year, we understand that it means not every customer that wants a Uniquely Geek custom gaming table will get one.

Impact:

Going forward we are implementing a new sales process. When placing a $100 refundable Design Deposit you will be reserving your Production Month slot. Then approximately 6 months before the assigned Production Month a designer will reach out to start the table Design Process. In order to keep everyone informed our website will be updated with the current Production Month. After being contacted by your personal designer you will have approximately 5 months to complete your design and pay the Production Start Payment. Once the Production Start Payment has been received you will be given the actual Production Date.

We realize this process does not shorten wait times, but it eliminates designing and paying for a table that is a year from production. This change will not affect any deposits already placed.

We hope that everyone understands that this decision was not easy, but it will allow us to continue to provide the personalized service we have become known for. Please feel free to ask any questions you might have in the comments section and we will be sure to answer them as best we can.

Thank you for all of the support you have given us.

– The Uniquely Geek Team

TLDR: We have chosen to limit our production to 100 custom tables a year in order to keep providing our product and services at the level of quality we have become known for. Paying the $100 refundable design deposit secures your production slot and locks in your table pricing. 6 months before your production slot a designer will contact you to begin designing your custom table.