This post was originally shared in our email newsletter on June 6th, 2024.
Keap is turning 10 next year! In preparation, we asked you all how YOU would most like to see us celebrate this significant milestone. A few hundred Keapers answered the call. Thank you to all who took the time to share their thoughts! I really enjoyed reading your comments. There was so much gold in there, and I wish I could do more justice to all the individual nuggets of wisdom that were shared.Here is my best attempt at summarizing the responses.
First, we gave an open canvas for folks to share ideas
What shall we do to celebrate our community for our 10th birthday?
Word cloud of the ideas we received
New Scent
By far the most mentioned suggestion was launching a new scent. I know there is a lot of eagerness for new scents, and I am excited to say that we are already working on it! A number of folks mentioned it would be nice for the new scent to somehow involve Keapers in development. We love that idea, and we’ve been hard at work trying to figure out an effective way to do that. I don’t know what the answer is yet though, so stay tuned! If you’ve already expressed interest in being a part of our Keaper Lab, we haven’t forgotten you.
Limited Edition Candle
The second most mentioned idea was some kind of limited edition candle, beyond just a new scent. This included various sizes: a small candle, a slightly smaller candle, a big candle, a very big candle, and even a giant bonfire candle! It also included various kinds of vessels with particular traction for the idea of a limited edition ceramic candle.
Party!
Lots of ideas for parties! There was a noticeable “block party” theme in the responses, along with suggestions to combine such a party with an Open Studio and tour for Keapers. Some Keapers shared wonderful suggestions to add a remote element for non-NY based folks, such as sharing a virtual tour. I particularly loved the idea of a synchronized party, including a simultaneous candle lighting at the studio and in Keapers’ homes. :) On the same thread of meeting in person, we had a lot of requests for pop-ups here in Kingston, back to our origins in NYC, and across the country so Keapers in other locales can interact with us in person.
Many More Ideas
While a plurality of submissions focused on the above, we had dozens of other ideas, often mentioned multiple times. These included:
- Limited edition accessories and items, such as special matchboxes
- A candle making workshop
- Using the celebration as a fundraising event and/or as an ecological stewardship event, such as tree planting
- Mini documentaries showing our process from fragrance design to arriving at Keapers’ homes and/or showing our team
- A special anniversary contest
- A big Zoom call for Keapers to be together virtually and/or Keaper meetups across the country
- A Keaper handwritten card exchange!
- Special birthday discounts or free stuff for Keapers
- ... and more! Sorry for not including every single one here!
Next, we asked you to vote on a few of our ideas
We asked you to rate the following ideas on a emoji scale that went from “throwing-up-face” to “wearing-sunglasses”.
- An open studio celebration: Opening the Keap studio to the public for tours with the addition of some fun activities, a sample sale, and potentially food and drinks from local vendors.
- A Keap board game: Celebrating our ten years with the launch of a humorous small business game, where players compete to build the most regenerative candle company!
- A 5-minute mini-documentary: Recapping Keap's history so far, including quotes from Keapers.
- The unveiling of a permanent art installation in our studio: Celebrating the Keapers who have helped build this company (e.g. a mural elegantly displaying the names of consenting subscribers or collage of photos submitted by Keapers).
- A "Keap Olympics" fundraiser: Inviting Keapers to partake in a series of games related to our studio operations in which they can win prizes for themselves and for our nonprofit partners.
-
Host a conference: Bringing various stakeholders to discuss what a regenerative economy might look like in our context.
Here’s how those ratings combined:
Since we hadn’t brought up the idea of special celebratory products (big blind spot, it seems!), it wasn’t too surprising to see the idea of a big party and open studio take the cake out of these ideas.The rest of the ideas ranked fairly evenly, with the exception of the board game, which we’ll (sadly) scrap for now!
Lastly, we got some lovely comments in the “Anything to add” segment
Word cloud for the optional "Anything to add" question
What we do is all about love, so it really touches my heart to see Keapers sharing it back with us!
What’s Next
When we get back from our summer break , we are going to dive right in to our annual planning and look back at these answers. It’s clear there is appetite from our community for new scents, other product-related launches, a big party, and other ways to connect both locally and remotely. I can’t wait to reconnect on this topic in a few months!
- Harry, Steward-Owner at Keap
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