Orca Communications Client Spotlight – Tiny Treehouses
Welcome to the Orca Communications PR client spotlight. Each month our clients tell you in their own words why they do what they do and provide tips for other growing small brands and businesses.
3-D Designer Lars Christian invented Tiny Treehouses during the lockdowns of the pandemic as a passion project. He put his initial designs on Kickstarter and the company quickly took off! It turns out everyone loves tiny, buildable treehouses. These brilliant and whimsical DIY wooden model kits don’t just wow consumers. They’ve become a media darling with multiple features in Buzzfeed alongside placements in other top-tier outlets including HuffPost, The Spruce, and Apartment Therapy. We sat down with Lars to see what makes his creative brain tick!
Tiny Treehouses is such a fun and creative product. How did you come up with the concept for it?
One afternoon I was tending to my plants (I have a small plant obsession), and I just started imagining little homes in the plants where garden elves might live. As a 3D designer, I couldn’t help but sketch out the ideas and I started working on my first prototype
What’s been your favorite design to create thus far?
I couldn’t pick a favourite, I love them all! But the most popular treehouse is the Woodland Outpost
I imagine your customers must get pretty excited about the finished product. What’s your favorite feedback from a customer?
Customers often send me their finished product in their plants on Instagram, which is just the most rewarding thing as a creator – to see my customers enjoying the product so much. Some customers even customize the treehouses, like painting them or adding scale model accessories!
You initially launched your product on Kickstarter. The campaign was wildly successful. How would you describe that experience?
It was the biggest rollercoaster of my life! I didn’t expect to reach anywhere near the amount of funding I did, so while it was amazing to get so many backers, the workload just grew and grew! It’s been an immense amount of hard work and effort, but it’s been the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done, and I’m so excited to continue growing the brand
What advice do you have for other entrepreneurs who are thinking about using Kickstarter to launch their products? Are they any expectations they should or should not have going into the campaign?
Do your research on shipping and get a solid fulfillment plan in place. I experienced lots of costs that I hadn’t accounted for, so make sure you understand the full process and all the associated costs. Don’t forget about taxes, it’s a hard slog to figure out international tax rules, but if you don’t do it, it’ll come back and bite you later!
Now for a question I ask all of our clients. Name one thing you like about working with Orca Communications.
Orca has been a fantastic partner to work with. I love that I have a dedicated rep as my point of contact!
Are there any specific projects or designs you’re working on right now that you’d like to share?
I’ve got so many tree houses lined up to design, but it takes a while to get from design to my warehouse – about 4-6 months in total!