Hello Casemate Kickstarter VMPs
33Welcome to that old membership program we used to have.
Our Kickstarter sold out of the primary VMP reward level on New Years Day. Welcome newcomers who made it in. After the Kickstarter Campaign ends and you respond to the backer survey, you’ll officially be recognized as Very Mediocre People. Entry to VMP is again closed (other than any Party reward add-ons that sneak in). You are grandfathered in as long as you stay subscribed (after your 1 year prepaid period it is $5/month).
so what did you get yourself into?
VMP was originally launched when Meh was our only ecommerce project. @matthew has a fun intro video to it posted over on the Meh VMP benefits page. Over 10,000 customers joined at the $5/month level when Meh was the only site to support the free freight benefit. We added features over time to create the Meh VMP benefits list that you see now, prior to the halting of new signups early last year. If you’re into the classic snarky daily deal experience, you might find your subscription value on the Meh site alone.
When the MorningSave project launched, we created a new set of benefits that are described over at the Mediocre home page for VMP. The majority of folks who signed up to VMP via MorningSave only use their benefits there, so if you like the MorningSave site, you might find your subscription value on MorningSave site alone.
As you are aware, the Casemates project will be launched this month. VMP member free shipping benefits will be extended to this site for all subscribers. With shipping costs a bit higher here than Meh or MorningSave, you might find your subscription value on Casemates alone.
Future projects by Mediocre will be supported, like our Checkout.org branded storefronts for content creators. Should you come across one of these sites, your VMP member free shipping benefits will extend there as well.
TL;DR:
As a VMP member, you will be in good company amongst our most loyal early followers. Your benefits will start shortly after the Kickstarter ends and we have your backer survey. You will be grandfathered into a closed subscription program with a few bonus benefits others don’t have access to. You will gain additional new benefits as we grow. Thanks for your support across our projects.
We’ll now pretend you all had been members for years and never speak of this again.
- 18 comments, 40 replies
- Comment
For those who are not in as VMP, we do have a Universal Membership in the works that will simply offer unlimited shipping. We do not have an ETA on this other than sometime after Casemates launches.
Let’s never speak of this again.
(and maybe lock this topic now)
@baqui63
@communist @baqui63
@baqui63
@lordbowen hmmm… cheeseburgers would be good… too much work tho.
Original VMPs are the best VMPs
/image star belly sneetches
@Ignorant
@Ignorant
/image original Power Rangers
@Ignorant yeah you newbies can’t touch our mediocrity!
@Ignorant wooo
@Ignorant yah, there ought to be a prime (’) mark next to legacy V’s!
@Ignorant Where do original VMPs who forgot to renew one month (and never could again), but now are returning rank?
@otherstalin sorry.
/image starbelly sneetches without
@snapster Your commitment to do right by your supporters while also course-correcting on shipping models is both noble and ridiculous.
@JerseyFrank I may have to use that on my twitter bio. Noble & Ridiculous.
Coming soon: Very Average Mediocre Persons…
@eljefetwisted that sets up the one after it nicely. Really Emblematic Very Average Mediocre Persons
@snapster Ahh, the old revamp…
re: "Your benefits will start shortly after the Kickstarter ends and we have your backer survey."
Having never been on a Kickstarter before, how will I be notified of its end and the availability of the survey? or, should I be looking in my junk and trash folders already because I probably already missed it?
@axewelder Kickstarter still has 7 days left. Whatever email you entered when you made that account will get an email from Kickstarter telling you it has ended and funded. You will either get an email from Casemates or their survey group asking for your information.
@axewelder You can see the end date on the Kickstarter Page or here:
Basically, on this date the campaigning ends and Kickstarter allows us to construct a survey of questions for things like who you are and where to ship stuff. It arrives by email link to you and then can also be accessed through your account on Kickstarter.
YAY YAY~ I was never sure how I lost my VMP membership. I suspected it was an expired payment method but suddenly, it was gone and I was morose. Thank you for the opportunity to get in on such an awesome service (who doesn’t like wine??) and get my VMP back as well. ~YAY YAY
@trailtroll if it happens again contact support. They can fix things, they have the technology.
@jbartus Thanks!! I will.
Proud backer #109!
I’m sure this has been asked/answered, already, but since I am a $5 a month VMP prior to Casemates, does that monthly payment get put on hiatus for the duration of the 1 year Casements pledge?
@ACraigL yes.
@Ignorant Thx!
@ACraigL it had better be!
Is OK to regard the latter part of this $60/year statement as a bit of bluster?
Amazon Prime, $99 per year, free 2-day shipping, amongst few trivial other things we can ignore for this comparison.
@RedOak Meh.com was the only Mediocre Labs project to offer free shipping. Since then, Morningsave.com has added a VMP program, and now Casemates.com. No word on where MediocriTee.com will fit into the family, or any future Mediocre Labs creations.
Youre not big on context, are you?
@mike808 just read what was written. If that were the intent why not say what you said. “When Meh was the only mediocre site”?
How can anything (like free shipping) actually be exclusive when you have only one site.
And as sites have been added, VMP member benefits applied to each of them, still not an exclusive feature.
I see your point but the words don’t say that regardless of “context”.
@RedOak Apparently not. The words are clear. The reference was to, as I said, context. It is a function if reading comprehension. Let your lips catch up, m’kay?
Pretty clear that the context is “the set of Mediocre Labs ‘projects’”, of which there are more than one, and Meh was the only ecommerce project from that set of multiple projects launched by mediocre labs.
Thus, the next reference one sentence later, is clearly in the context of the collection of Mediocre Labs sites.
So where did you get the context that the comparison was to the entire internet and across all ecommerce sites? Or do you think that sentences in the same paragraph have nothing to do with each other?
/mute @RedOak
@mike808
/Whatever
@mike808 you appear more willing to out-labor your point than I am mine. Touché.
I’m so excited. My VMP lapsed (I suspect I went more than 30 days without a purchase) and ever since I haven’t purchased as much.
Will the $5/month be dependent on a purchase each month from classmates? Or just so long as my payment method works I get to keep it?
@RedHot VMP is yours as long as your $5/month tribute to the Octopus God continues. What you buy, or not buy, is up to you.
@RedHot More likely your credit card expired and you didn’t update it. Or your debit card was declined for some reason. VMP auto-renews unless you cancel it or your payment fails. I’m hoping the kickstarter VMP reward kicks in before Jan 18 (when my VMP is next set to charge my CC) but if not then Feb to Jan will be free instead of Jan to Dec, either way, I plan to keep VMP… was worth it for just meh and now with casemates being $8-$12 per order, I’m sure I’ll get way more than $60 of value out of it.
@RedHot Classmates?
@chipgreen stupid autocorrect…you’d think I would turn it off
I made a $60 pledge (backer 81) for the Casemates Kickstarter campaign. Is there any way to verify that the VMP status has been correctly applied to my account? (I’m wondering if there might have been a disconnect due to two email addresses being involved.)
@Mark_L I don’t think anything is done or applied until after the Kickstarter ends. Your email will likely be part of the survey and I would use the one on your Meh account then.
My guess is that the VMP will be ready at the time of the first casemate offer. In other words, a while.
@Mark_L As @RedHot said, when the Kickstarter ends we’ll send out a survey asking for your Casemates email address & username and after that we’ll be applying VMP credit.
How do you know your backer #?
@candiedisilvio1 it is in the confirmation email you received from kickstarter when you backed the project
@candiedisilvio1 it’s in the email you got when you pledged. What ^^^ he said.
Commence VMPn
Woohoo I am a Very mediocre person, casemate Kickstarter #1275–and I don’t even drink…meh
First time ever on Kickstarter, backer #380. It’s been an interesting experience!
Kickstarter #406. $60 level, existing VMP.
VMP is great.
When the Kickstarter Campaign zoomed past the $50,000 goal within a few days of inception, @Snapster discussed coming up with “stretch goals” that would presumably result in additional benefits for supporters.
Seeing as how the campaign raised more than 240% of the goal - over $120,000 total - and the stretch goal thing was never mentioned again, I propose that VMPs get 2 years of free shipping instead of one year.
Thoughts? Other ideas of what to do with the additional $70,000?
@chipgreen
As I understood in an exchange, a stretch goal would be something provided by additional contribution from a backer. Add an extra $100 or something and get additional benefits.
Some Kickstarter campaigns attempt to increase value of already funded reward levels as they go, to inspire fans to spread the word. We initially thought we might do the same.
We decided not to add additional quantities of rewards as we couldn’t think of good stretch goals that would make sense or energize folks.
A mode of Kickstarter as a fundraiser independent of a direct exchange of services for money is possible, but we didn’t have rewards of this type. Usually this involves media production. One could argue the digital badging was of that type, but those didn’t amount to much.
@snapster Ok, so we will meet in the middle at 1.5 years?
@North316 @snapster That seems fair