I wanted to make a video, but I guess, you don´t want to see a grown-ass man cry. So...

In order to empty our storage without wasting our creations by being destroyed, we offer these to all our former supporters for a final time at production costs here: https://www.cinks-labs.de/

Let me explain what happened:

In 2016, right after I finished my mechanical engineering studies, I started my very first crowdfunding campaign "The Universe in a Sphere" which skyrocketed and created my main job for the next 6 years, in which I created several campaigns with the Universe Spheres, cubes, games, 3D prints, photos, and videos. Build my own company from scratch, basically from a successful crowdfunding to an online shop, an implementation of fulfillment, storage, manufacturing, packaging, marketing etc.

 

But then, things went downwards, with an insolvent reselling partner, an unsuccessful campaign, delays, and high running costs and now we have to close our gates, possibly forever.

For two years now we, Clemens, Jan and Karja have tried to save our seemingly successful business after we failed to completely fulfill our Solar System campaign. We took a loan from family, realized two further campaigns of which we were able to fulfill the the first Black Hole campaign (Backerkit Crowdfunding). But now we face similar problems again.

Over the past years, we had nearly 15,000 satisfied customers in 9 successful campaigns and created dozens of products, we worked hard and since we also had some incredible awesome cooperation in sight, we hoped for so much and still can´t believe that it went down.

We are sure, it feels like a scam to some of you, but I can only assure you, that was never our intention and we did all we could in order to keep our business and the universe Spheres alive because apart from our economic failure, we received so much wholesome feedback and even honest interest by scientists and companies for our work. We made some prototypes of a particle collision for "the" CERN and for the famous Youtuber Minute Physics and even Michael from VSauce was interested in our works for possible use in his curiosity boxes with an Atom Orbitals Sphere. We also sold big Spheres to a company that builds and sells whole planetariums.

 

The running costs of a GmbH in Germany ate up our budget and the so much hoped-for cooperation have not come to fruition yet. Each month we have expanses of around 8.000€ for a net income of 1800€ each (for two persons) and 450€ for the third one, but the additional costs, such as health insurance and social security contributions, double the amount, plus storage costs, fulfillment, tax advisor. This worked fine as long, as we had lots of shop sales or a big campaign, but when sales decreased and we then had delays in production, the bank account went down rapidly. To compensate for this after the Earthling campaign was tiny and after the solar system campaign went not as planned, we had to take a loan from my mother as we prepared our black hole campaigns in which we put much hope.

As an example: We raised 30.000€ on Kickstarter and 20.000€ in Add-ons and shipping fees. Our manufacturing costs were around 15.000€ which leaves us with 35.000€ for shipping and our expenses. We started the campaign in May which is 4 months á 8.000€ = 32.000€ and we calculated the shipping costs to be around 15.000€. We put our salaries on hold for 3 months despite this being our only income, but we still had to pay the health insurance, not to forget the taxes, and since the first black hole campaign on Backerkit also was delayed and even worse our sales plummeted in our webshop, we happen to have only 5000€ left for any expenses that come with the bankruptcy. 

And now?

By now, we have a total of 1600 manufactured Spheres in stock, but can't afford to deliver them, yet the storage becomes more expensive. We also ran out of money privately, and all that, because we had the hopes and actual chances that we could get back on our feet. We also never offered the Solar System and the Black Hole products in our shop because we wanted to be fair to the Backers who have not received their goods yet. We also have 500 brand new 3D printed Bases, "The Space Bases" no customer has seen in real life so far.

But since I have a family that I have to take care of, I need to have an income, find a regular job, and stop trying to make this work, at least for now. So basically I have to be a grown up. Leading my own company to create my own inventions and products is my dream, but sometimes you have to take a step back before it's too late, and to be frank, it has already become too late..

This said, We have to empty the storage, so we decided to offer one last chance to purchase them for all our customers for a fraction of the price as long as our fulfillment and storage are in place and contract.  

If you want to grab the last chance of buying some Universe Spheres, Cubes, Startetz card games, led bases, etc., and support us a last time, go to our shop and order something. We cannot discount the shipping costs, but in order to empty our warehouse we make a 75% discount for you. This way we hope to save at least some of our creations from the trash.

https://www.cinks-labs.de/

I know it feels like we sell the goods twice, I can certainly understand if some of you think of some fishy business tactics, but I can assure you, we are honest guys who just were not able to remain successful and tried everything in our power, this all without proper business education, but to be fair 15.000 customers own a Sphere and might want to get one or two more. The alternative to our sale would be the destruction of all the goods, in this way, nobody would get the last chance to receive our creations and we find that thought very depressing. 

How can you be sure, that these orders will arrive this time?
Because our online shop and the storage are bound to our fulfillment and will be automatically handled within 2 business days. In the past, we fulfilled our crowdfunding campaigns by waiting until all the different goods were in our storage to run one or two large shipment campaigns. But we ran out of funds to do this last step.

I want to deeply apologize to my backers.
Many of you were there from the beginning, saw our Idea grow, and rewarded us with wonderful comments. But the Backers that only backed the last campaigns deserve my deepest apologies, because they hoped for a successful campaign, trusted us, and are now the ones with nothing...

Please forgive me!

I will keep a list of all of my backers to whom I owe goods and when life wants me to become really successful someday, I guarantee you I will come back to this list, but for now, I have to take care of my family and ask you for forgiveness and compassion in exchange for some imaginary shares.


Shop:
https://www.cinks-labs.de/

Feel Free to Comment

We have made a comment section available for all of you to participate. I´m sure, many of you want to get rid of their negative thoughts about this whole message, whether it´s insults, words of doubt or just anger about the situation. I can understand these and in some ways I deserve it, but since we also made thousands of people very happy with our work, there is some hope for friendly, understanding and kind comments. 

We have made a comment section available for all of you to participate. I´m sure, many of you want to get rid of their negative thoughts about this whole message, whether it´s insults, words of doubt or just anger about the situation. I can understand these and in some ways I deserve it, but since we also made thousands of people very happy with our work, there is some hope for friendly, understanding and kind comments.