Can I see some customer builds? #2
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Molly and I were at the property this past weekend camping with friends, swimming at the river, slinging arrows...
Over some sausage grilling our friend Paul asked about folks building things from our plans… Who they were, what plans were most popular and, specifically, just how many people had actually built stuff?
I explained that the data’s scarce. I usually don’t hear from customers. And often when I do it feels like an afterthought. “Hey Jeff, we’ve been living in a cabin we built from your plans for the past year here in Lithuania and were just wondering if you ever thought about designing one with an attached pickleball court.” That sort of thing.
But, I did allow that photos had trickled in over the years and that there were probably a decent number of builds out there, especially considering the unseen builds the afterthought-emails hinted to. This was something I wrote about almost two years ago.
Can I see some customer builds?
I recently posted a roundup of some customer build photos over on our Instagram and figured I’d share some here.
Back home I got to wondering just where that number stood today—exactly how many folks sent photos of their builds, or posted them as a review on the site?
Turns out it’s about 115. Which is pretty damn cool. Equally rad is the gratitude for the rewarding DIY experience that generally accompanies those photos.
Paul and I also discussed was just how weird an enterprise this is…
I sell PDFs, basically. And not even because I set out to do it, but because people reached out and asked if I happened to have any PDFs to sell. That I’m not a terribly accomplished builder, nor a great designer—largely self-taught and oh-so-many-mistakes along the way—yet create and sell building plans, is a curious turn.
But, I suppose that my offering—in substitute of deep expertise—is experience. Going from 0 to 1. We actually did a thing. And… We found those things to be deeply rewarding. That’s quite a bit in the grand scheme of things, relative to those looking across the daunting horizon of just maybe, possibly, doing a thing. So what I’m really selling is my personal experience, my enthusiasm, and a healthy dose of encouragement.
Seriously… my customer service interactions are, like, 85% encouragement.
That a 100+ people have taken the leap and built something atop my motivation is quite something. Mind-blowing really. And it’s anyone’s guess just how many more are out there.
Anyway, you can see most of folks’ builds, along some of their feedback, in the reviews on the website. And I’m sharing some here, of course. But, for the real diehards, here’s 300 photos that have been sent in over the years.
A related thought that’s been on my mind, and one which I also talked with Paul about… I’ll be curious to see how this business evolves in the coming years with AI advancements.
Decent-enough-at-a-glance renderings and flawed-but-seemingly-usable-plans are becoming nearly free to produce and I’ve seen the market grow saturated with fluff. That doesn’t bode well.
But, I expect—or hope, anyway—that even as this trend continues and robots loom large, there will remain a contingent of folks looking for real builds, by real people. Fingers crossed.
…Real builds. Real people.
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