How do you sell a stained-glass panel? (Ruby Stained Glass Notes #07)

Hey, Ruby friends.

Welcome back to the Ruby Stained Glass Notes. This is episode seven. I hope you had a great summer despite the heat. I took some time to walk on the Stevenson Trail with the family, to swim in rivers and lakes, and watch the solar eclipse from a mountainside, which was a lot of fun.

Last time, I soldered the first test panel together and showed you what it looks like.

If you’re new here, you can sign up to this pop-up newsletter about this crazy project of mine: a limited-edition stained-glass panel celebrating Ruby.

Without furter ado, allons-y!

Back to school at work

This week, I got back to work. I had a lot to catch up on and I launched some pretty exciting projects with the teams I work with on retainer. On the stained-glass panel front, a lot of unglamorous work needs to happen in the upcoming weeks to make the project move forward. My goal is to sell and ship before late November so you lovely people can receive the panel before Christmas.

How am I going to sell this thing?

One thing I’m still trying to figure out is how to actually sell this thing.

I’ve received a lot of interest from people all around the world, so I need a solution that lets me set a price easily, calculate international shipping costs and taxes automatically.

Basically, I want to drop in a couple of pictures, set a price, and have it handle everything else. Shopify? Something else?

If any of you have suggestions, please hit reply and help a brother out.

What about the price?

The second thing I need to work on is pricing.

Pricing this panel isn’t straightforward, to be honest, and I haven’t priced work like this in a long time. At the same time, I don’t want to follow the same pricing structure a typical stained-glass maker would use. It doesn’t make sense here. Right now, my thinking is to account for materials, my time working on the panel, and shipping costs (which includes both packing the piece to protect it and the actual shipping itself).

I also need to account for profit. As a business of sorts, I believe in the rule that you don’t go belly up when you take a profit. Given that this is a collectible, limited-edition piece, I think it can support that kind of margin.

This profit will also help finance future projects and developments. These are still very much in the reflection stage, but the idea is to make a bit of extra money so I can spend time early next year on something new and interesting.

One of the ideas I’m currently mulling over is starting a small Ruby-dedicated fanzine. I would do a deep dive into a niche Ruby topic and explain things in a comprehensive, easy, and enjoyable way. Something similar to what Julia Evans does, but focused specifically on Ruby. I also think that with LLMs providing instant answers, some people might appreciate having a more analog way to absorb knowledge. We’ll see how this idea resonates with people.

I’ll be looking for sponsorship

The third order of business is that I’ll be looking for sponsorship from companies. My initial plan is to put together a small press pack, one pager, with some (quite good) stats.

I’d then like to have one or two companies sponsor the project, with their logo or a small ad featured in the newsletter itself (and possibly on the authenticity certificate I’m planning to include alongside the stained-glass piece).

Why not go fully independent, you might ask? Well, building this stained-glass panel is also an exercise in building a product, in a low-risk environment. Finding alternative revenue streams fits right into that experiment. I also think the Ruby ecosystem has companies that would make great partners for this project.

If your company, or a company you know, might be interested in sponsoring the project, just hit reply and let me know, I’d be happy to talk numbers with you.

That’s all for this week!

As always, your ideas and suggestions are most welcome. Hit reply and let me know:

• Do you know of any software or platform that would make selling the panel a breeze?
• What do you think of the pricing approach, accounting for materials, time, shipping, and a fair profit margin for a limited-edition collectible?
• If your company, or one you know, might want to sponsor the project, reply and let me know, I’d love to talk.

Cheers,

Rémi - @remi@ruby.social