Clackeys Inc. 2016 - 2024
Hello visitor, Robert the founder of Clackeys here. I wanted to share some news today. Clackeys will be closing its doors the end of May, 2024 and completing our 7 year, 7 month run of crafting artisan keycaps.
I want to thank everyone who has been a part of our community over the last 7 years. It is because of you that this insane Etsy-born-side hustle even became something so legitimate. The fact we grew into a full art studio making 10s of 1000s of artisan keycaps was nothing short of a special. I also want to say thank you to all of our long time followers and discord boosters for believing in Clackeys all the way. I am sorry I could not keep this boat afloat.
The first question someone might have is will I get my stuff?
Yes, we are fulfilling all of our customers' existing orders and processing any open refunds if applicable. We will also be putting everything on sale through the end of May to liquidate.
The second question one might have is why are we closing?
The short answer is we don’t make enough money to stay open and we never did reach profitability, but we somehow did have enough overlapping sales + business clients to keep us going strong for years. Unfortunately the lack of sales (no demand?) and business clients combined with growing overhead costs has made it impossible to keep Clackeys open. That said, don’t be sad for us. Our remaining team is looking forward to moving on and this is the longest “job” I have dedicated myself to, ever. I am excited to move on and spend more time with my family and get back to making my own art.
BIG STATS
Before I go, I want to share some fun stats/facts with everyone. Maybe these data points will be inspirational or at least educational. Keep in mind, most of this data is from 2019 and onward. I don’t have any legacy data laying around unfortunately.
We made enough money to ramp up, rent studio space, hire several people and do great work for seven years!
Clackeys was never profitable!
At our peak our monthly operating cost was over $20,000 a month! (I absolutely hate managing cash flow)
Clackeys had over 1 million page views and about a half million unique visitors.
The top 10 countries to visit Clackeys.com were - USA, Canada, UK, Australia, Germany, Singapore, South Korea, France, Japan and Philippines
My first Artisan keycap was a boob.
Our last Artisan keycap to be made was an official run of Star Wars (Big thanks to Team Liquid!)
We sold 1 solid gold 14k Apollo artisan (~$1000)
We employed over 18 amazing individuals from the University over the years.
Our workforce was almost entirely female!
We paid at least $18+ an hour in salary to our employees.
I learned so much, did not pay myself a salary and lost a lot of sleep & family time.
To wrap it up, I want to leave a huge thank you to everyone who ever worked for Clackeys. The studio would have not existed without your drive, patience, leadership and communication. You all pushed me to be the best that I can be. My hope is that your experience here was a memorable, educational and positive experience. Also big shout out to our Discord mods for stepping up, keeping the chaos to a min and just being there while I was afk!
Before you go..
We are still loaded with a lot of overstock. We are doing our best to pay back debts, bills, payroll. We also would love for this stuff not to end up in a landfill.
Any last minute purchase from our store would be a huge help or if you simply want to donate?, any and all proceeds will go to help us close up shop, expedite shipping remaining orders and help cover debts.
Thank you,
Robert
robert@clackeys.com (feel free to email me directly with any questions, love or hate messages)
