This is a continuation of our Crowdfunding your Meadery series, examining the funding tiers of successful mead Kickstarter projects to identify commonality between funding levels and determine what items are most likely to be purchased by a project’s backers. For a list of articles in this series, see the first article here. In this article, we will examine Bee Well Meadery‘s Kickstarter project, which can be found here.

Chris and Jeremy VanSice started their Kickstarter campgaign out of necessity to meet building code requirements. They had put five years of work into building out their facility, and were running out of funding just toward the end of their meadery build out. Like many enterprising entrepreneurs, they sought crowdfunding for the final push to install a new well and septic system.

Bee Well Meadery is located in a picturesque region of Northern Michigan. The VanSice brothers’ roots in the town of Bellaire span six generations. Their location nestled on a peninsula between Clam Lake, Lake Bellaire, and Torch Lake, guarantees that their bees only forage the local fruit orchards and wild thistle of the peninsula, resulting in a truly unique product that can only be found at Bee Well Meadery.

The Bee Well Meadery Kickstarter project had a funding goal of $9,000 to support the construction of a new well, septic system, and heating and cooling odds and ends. The VanSice brothers offered six funding tiers, starting at $1 for recognition on their future website, up to a $750 tier to create a custom mead recipe they would produce and sell through the meadery.

Over the 30 day project, Bee Well Meadery raised $14,348 from 218 backers, beating the funding goal by 59%. Details concerning the funding tiers, number of backers who supported the funding tiers, and the total amount of funding per funding tier can be found in the figures below.

Bee Well Meadery’s Kickstarter project included stickers, honey from the Bee Well Meadery Farm, t-shirts, an exclusive founding club membership (to receive advance access to new products before they hit the shelves), and the unique opportunity to create the backer’s own mead recipe. Interestingly, every funding tier received backers, and the opportunity to create a mead recipe reached its limit of two backers.

Setting the first funding goal at $1 lured 14 backers into supporting the project, and likely much more from sharing the projects with their friends. Each successive funding tier included all of the rewards of the previous tiers. Interestingly, the honey and exclusive membership options were nearly identical in the number of backers, 65 and 73 respectively, but the funding received from the exclusive membership accounted for more than 50% of the total funding received.

Is Bee Well Meadery onto something here with the exclusive membership option to receive backers? Check us out later in the week (possibly next week) to find out if this trend continues as we continue our Crowdfunding your Meadery analysis series. Next up, Algomah Acres Honey House Meadery, whose Kickstarter project can be found here.