New marketplace for us

There’s a new marketplace for makers and hackers called SmallRun.

SmallRun exists to give independent makers a place to sell what they build with their hands. We believe small run goods carry something commercially manufactured items can’t – the hours of practice, the decisions made at the bench, the craft refined over years. Our job is to get those things in front of the people who love them.

The site builder envisions “kind of a mashup of the former ThinkGeek, Tindie, and Hackaday.”

This is exciting.

One of my gripes about being on Etsy is that makers don’t really use Etsy to find things (tho their partners, children, and parents do).

I knew this when I set up my store. But, Tindie was in a death spiral, and Crowd Supply and Lektronz didn’t really fit my shirts. I didn’t want to set up my own Shopify, but plug into a marketplace. Hence, Etsy.

Adding as we speak
I heard of SmallRun when the builder followed me on Bluesky. Curious, I checked it out and saw that it could be the place for me, more so than Etsy.

So I’ve stated building some listings on SmallRun, starting with my best sellers on Etsy.

Right now there are only three. My ever popular Raspberry Pi 5, Nixie tubes (with surprise number), and the Field Guide for Adafruit Boards.

Thanks to a very handy Etsy listings importer, I was able to start building a catalog in SmallRun.

Next?
What’s next is for me to put more in the store and promote the krap out of it.

Indeed, the real test of this marketplace is if it can build the traffic needed for the stores to thrive.

Let’s see. I think it’ll be a collaborative effort of the site owner and all the shop owners promoting this new market.

Exciting, indeed.