Thanks for setting this up.
You've mentioned the (wise) step of not taking money up front, but are there any other lessons (that you could share publicly) that Paragon learned from the challenges prior prop replica companies have faced? I think MR was probably the most successful but even they imploded eventually.
Any interest in a nuBSG license? I'm still waiting for anyone to make a truly accurate season 1 sidearm replica.
Great question!
Well, we've all seen companies take orders, fail to deliver, take more orders and repeat.
Everyone knows how that movie ends...
It's also not enough to simply have the license or even the money; a company has to also have the talent to ultimately land the product they're showing off! A number of people have underestimated that seemingly simple, last step. A good team is just essential.
We've also seen companies who announce a product, take payment in full up front and then just talk about it forever, move the goal post back, talk about it some more, make you wait with little to no updates and
'if you're lucky' ultimately ship your item a year or more later.
That just puts a bad taste in everyone's mouth...
I basically consider all the things we've complained about here on the RPF a pretty good road map of what
not to do!
Interestingly, NOT taking pre-orders up front made for slow start for us. It's practically Pavlovian how conditioned collectors are to preorder and wait. It turns out that pre-selling and having people wait forever can lead to some decent press.
If people are waiting, they're talking about you...
When we just showed up with merch, it was almost like we did something wrong.
"Wait, who are these guys? Is this legit?" Comical in retrospect but an unexpected hurdle nonetheless.
People get the way we're doing it now and I think everyone appreciates that Paragon is willing to earn its place without taking cash up front. The reserve process was literally demanded from us as a compromise. People just didn't want to worry about having secured a given piece, so we said,
"Look, if you want to lock something down for peace of mind, let's do it like this. Essentially, we're so confident you'll love what we're doing that we'll let you reserve our stuff for 10% and if for whatever reason you change your mind, we'll refund your reserve without wait. If you see someone else offer something similar to us, look it over... If you think they're doing it better, we'll gladly give you that reserve back without wait. If you think we're dragging our feet on a project, here's your reserve back. You're not diggin' the way I say diggin'? No problem, here's your reserve back."
You get the idea. We really tried to make it bullet proof.
* BSG. Yep, we've got the old and new. A surprise or two yet to come there. 
