We did it! You did it!

Well well well, we've bought ourselves a play cafe. : ) It was quite a dramatic finish! We had a whopping 65 new backers today to add to the 157 earlier bird backers we starter with 24 hours ago. 222 people are in and we are going to go! THIS IS SO EXCITING! I am abuzz with thoughts and ideas and plans that now get to become concrete. I am so thankful for everyone that put their faith in this concept and am ready to give it my all to make this place awesome.

Please let me know if you have suggestions about how to do it, and let's get to work!

Oh, just wanted to also leave you with this picture (it's by Jeremy B) that I've had open in my browser for the last week or so when it looked anything but sure:

And then we didn't fail! Yayyyyyy!!!!!! But just be reminded guys, try! You never know. Look, we did it!

Last day!

Wow! The last day or so has been really exciting! We are getting really close, even as we are running out of time. And we have had some lovely press. The Stir Crazy Moms of Durham wrote such a nice post about us, it was like a nice cup of tea and a hug to kick off the last 24 hours. Then we got another great surprise when Go Ask Mom on wral.com posted about us again to remind people how short our time is. Whatever happens, it has been so so nice to feel the support of our community for this plan. I really hope we get it and we can all have a big group hug and high five over at the cafe soon!

10 hours left! Let's see what the day brings!

The Kickstarter experience

Well we have 9 days to go with our kickstarter campaign! I thought I'd write a little bit about what it's been like to run a project on kickstarter and why we chose to do it this way. The why seems like a good place to start. Obviously reason number one is it takes money to open up a cafe-quite a bit, and more than we have. But we really think that this is a place Durham needs, and hope that enough people agree that they would be willing to buy in early. We have had so many people get excited about it and have had such a great time meeting other parents of young kids that that alone has made it a really valuable experience. But boy would it be great if we could hit our goal. And if we can, it will have been such a great thing that we met so many of you ahead of time and have got some excitement going in the community even before we open our doors for the first time.

What is it like to put ourselves out there and try to sell our concept? Exciting and not as scary as I expected, probably just because the idea seems to sell itself quite a bit. I love it, and people I talk to almost always love it too. So that makes it really pretty fun. And I've discovered I really enjoy meeting random folks with kids, because just by virtue of being parents we have a ton in common right off the bat. The part of running the campaign that does knot my tummy up a bit is checking for our actual pledges. When we started the campaign, I thought well we'll throw this out there and see what happens. If we can't do it, no big deal, at least we tried. But the funny thing that has happened is that as I've been convincing others how great Stay & Play will be, I, myself have become even MORE convinced of how great it would be and how much we need it. I am still ok with the fact that we may not get there, but I'm even more excited about the idea than I used to be based on all the positive feedback I've received. So the will we or won't we do it question has become one I'm very concerned with. Refreshing my email for the latest stats on the project has become a nervous tic. : )

So there's a little peek inside our experience. What do you all think about kickstarter?

Happy Fourth of July!

Did you see us at the Children's Parade at Durham Central Park this morning? It was a great time!

How do you like our deco job on our wagon? Wagon decorating is a seriously fun thing. We'll have to see if we can somehow incorporate or channel that into a craft class once we open, eh?

We got to chat with some folks who are excited about what we're doing and saw lots of friends and also just had a blast hanging out with so many of Durham's young families. Hope you enjoyed your holiday too!