SHARD Labs Official Fundraiser
Donation protected
THE STORY:
SHARD Labs was created by Carter Schaap a nearly two years ago as a website dedicated to bringing readers news about small-business, entrepreneurial, and Maker-style technology projects and concepts out on the internet. News and small reviews came in from websites like MAKE:, Arduino, and Raspberry Pi.

Over the course of 2015, however, it slowly evolved into something unique: a website dedicated to reviewing crowdfunding projects... before they were released to the public.
Thus, Project: Preview was born. It's a unique news series that brings its hundreds of monthly viewers honest, unbiased reviews and interviews with successfuly crowdfunded (and still in the process) companies such as:
-VIVID Storage
-Black Card
-RezaNinja
-Qoo
- ...And more still to come! We're contacting new and exciting companies with products on websites like Kickstarter daily to increase the number of reviews delivered straight to all of our readers.
However, we will need some financial help along the way. As we talk about below, running a site and working with these companies isn't always cheap. Some income does trickle its way into the lab, but not enough to turn this into more of a full-time occupation. And that's where we hope our readers as well as others can help get involved.
HOW YOU CAN HELP:
The expression goes "There's no such thing as a free lunch." Unfortunately, the same goes for websites, too. Our hope is to raise $10,000 to pay for upgrades to the site, purchase extra reviewing equipment, and most importantly, allow us to create more reviews. 75% of the funds received will be channeled toward getting companies' products to our door, speedily reviewed, and published for all of you to read and enjoy. The other 25% will go toward web upgrades and equipment.
Any amount will be a help! We do have some small rewards for sending a few bucks (or a lot of bucks) our way.
REWARD LIST:
$1 or more: SHARD Donator:
You'll receive a personalized thank-you as well as your name appearing a wall of pledgers on the SHARD site. (Plus the warm fuzzy feeling of doing something nice.)
$50 or more: Premier Donator:
You'll receive a personalized thank-you as well as your name appearing on a seperate section for premier pledgers who sacrificed a large chunk of their hard-earned dollars to make our goals become reality. (Plus the aformentioned fuzzy feeling.)
$100 or more: Executive Donator:
The big one. You'll get the personalized thank-you, your name on wall of executive pledgers, a shout-out on social media, a chance to write one (or possibly more?) articles for SHARD Labs, and an opportunity to be on the SL Podcast. (If we reach that stretch goal.)
$350 or more: Team Member:
Besides everything else, you'll actually be part of the SHARD Labs home team and help shape, write for, and review products for the site. (We'll contact you shortly after to work out the deets.)
FOR SPONSORS:
SHARD Labs isn't a prime-time internet hotspot, but we do average over 200 unique viewers monthly, and that number is slowly growing. We're offering a couple sponsorship options for any website or business that wants to get their product seen by more of the internet.
$150: One Year Sponsorship:
You'll get your product/website sponsored on the front page of SHARD Labs for one year. This should help drive more potential customers to the site!
$200: Two Year Sponsorship:
The real steal. You'll get twice as long of a sponsorship for only fifty extra bucks!
(We'll contact you shortly after your pledge to arrange details, obtain graphics, and finalize everything.)
ROADMAP & STRETCH GOALS:
While we aren't a huge operation, we do have plans and goals we hope to hit that will enable us to do more with the site. Here's a roadmap of our plans for SHARD Labs over the course of 2016:
$500: MORE CONTENT:
Bonus work and possibly a new series for the website will be added.
$1,000: EXTRA STAFF:
We'll look to add extra staff to the website.
$5,000: SITE UPGRADE:
Blogspot is a great free website creator, but it has its limitations. Once this goal is met, we'll look into upgrading the site off Blogspot to a paid, premium service.
$10,000: GOAL REACHED:
Our goal will have been reached! Hooray! Thanks to everyone for helping us reach this point.
...And the stretch goals:
$15,000: SHARD RADIO:
SHARD Radio, a crowdfunding-oriented podcast, will be started.
$20,000: SHARD CHANNEL:
Our goal will have been doubled! And SHARD Channel, a (possibly YouTube) video show, will be started.
SHARD Labs is a small website, with just one writer and graphic designer working together. The hope is to expand that team base over the course of 2016, with more writers, web designers, and others to help bring you more content. We appreciate any and all help you're able to give us, and promise to put your gifts to good use over the next few months!
THE TEAM:

Carter Schaap has been giving himself electrical shocks for over 16 years now. A strong Christian, he does all his hacking and making with the assurance of the ultimate Maker on his side. He is the founder and webmaster of SHARD Labs, and spend most of his time working on the site or soldering resistors in a chain. (For the fun of it!)
He also enjoys splitting wood, dodgeball, airsoft, dancing, C++, and most importantly, tinkering with electronics until he voids their warranties. He currently resides somewhere in the deep woods of southwest Ohio, along with 7 wonderful siblings (plus one on the way), a mischievous dog, and several goats.
plus.google.com/+CarterSchaap
http://shardlabs.blogspot.com

Charlotte Boyer is a Christian young lady, growing up in the rural atmosphere of southwest Ohio. Besides being the graphic design wizard behind SHARD Labs, she finds herself most content when behind her “Big Mac” computer editing her latest photographic masterpiece, wildly ticking out some bizarre code, or designing a logo, graphic, or website; all the while listening to her favorite Imagine Dragons or Owl City playlist.
Her extra-digital adventures include, but are not limited to: singing 1940s Swing music with her two older sisters, sewing, knitting, discovering some new way of making pizza, finishing up her home education, and styling & photographing shoots for her and her sisters’ blog, boyerfamilysingersblog.com.
http://charlotteboyer.blogspot.com
http://facebook.com/charlotteboyerphoto
THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT!
...And if you can't help out financially, feel free to help us out via social media! You can share this campaign with your friends via Facebook and Twitter, as well as using the shareable link in the bar below. Just getting the word out there is a huge help in and of itself, and we will appreciate all the help we can get!
Need to reach us? Have a question? Just use the contact button below!
Thanks!
SHARD Labs was created by Carter Schaap a nearly two years ago as a website dedicated to bringing readers news about small-business, entrepreneurial, and Maker-style technology projects and concepts out on the internet. News and small reviews came in from websites like MAKE:, Arduino, and Raspberry Pi.
Over the course of 2015, however, it slowly evolved into something unique: a website dedicated to reviewing crowdfunding projects... before they were released to the public.
Thus, Project: Preview was born. It's a unique news series that brings its hundreds of monthly viewers honest, unbiased reviews and interviews with successfuly crowdfunded (and still in the process) companies such as:
-VIVID Storage
-Black Card
-RezaNinja
-Qoo
- ...And more still to come! We're contacting new and exciting companies with products on websites like Kickstarter daily to increase the number of reviews delivered straight to all of our readers.
However, we will need some financial help along the way. As we talk about below, running a site and working with these companies isn't always cheap. Some income does trickle its way into the lab, but not enough to turn this into more of a full-time occupation. And that's where we hope our readers as well as others can help get involved.
HOW YOU CAN HELP:
The expression goes "There's no such thing as a free lunch." Unfortunately, the same goes for websites, too. Our hope is to raise $10,000 to pay for upgrades to the site, purchase extra reviewing equipment, and most importantly, allow us to create more reviews. 75% of the funds received will be channeled toward getting companies' products to our door, speedily reviewed, and published for all of you to read and enjoy. The other 25% will go toward web upgrades and equipment.
Any amount will be a help! We do have some small rewards for sending a few bucks (or a lot of bucks) our way.
REWARD LIST:
$1 or more: SHARD Donator:
You'll receive a personalized thank-you as well as your name appearing a wall of pledgers on the SHARD site. (Plus the warm fuzzy feeling of doing something nice.)
$50 or more: Premier Donator:
You'll receive a personalized thank-you as well as your name appearing on a seperate section for premier pledgers who sacrificed a large chunk of their hard-earned dollars to make our goals become reality. (Plus the aformentioned fuzzy feeling.)
$100 or more: Executive Donator:
The big one. You'll get the personalized thank-you, your name on wall of executive pledgers, a shout-out on social media, a chance to write one (or possibly more?) articles for SHARD Labs, and an opportunity to be on the SL Podcast. (If we reach that stretch goal.)
$350 or more: Team Member:
Besides everything else, you'll actually be part of the SHARD Labs home team and help shape, write for, and review products for the site. (We'll contact you shortly after to work out the deets.)
FOR SPONSORS:
SHARD Labs isn't a prime-time internet hotspot, but we do average over 200 unique viewers monthly, and that number is slowly growing. We're offering a couple sponsorship options for any website or business that wants to get their product seen by more of the internet.
$150: One Year Sponsorship:
You'll get your product/website sponsored on the front page of SHARD Labs for one year. This should help drive more potential customers to the site!
$200: Two Year Sponsorship:
The real steal. You'll get twice as long of a sponsorship for only fifty extra bucks!
(We'll contact you shortly after your pledge to arrange details, obtain graphics, and finalize everything.)
ROADMAP & STRETCH GOALS:
While we aren't a huge operation, we do have plans and goals we hope to hit that will enable us to do more with the site. Here's a roadmap of our plans for SHARD Labs over the course of 2016:
$500: MORE CONTENT:
Bonus work and possibly a new series for the website will be added.
$1,000: EXTRA STAFF:
We'll look to add extra staff to the website.
$5,000: SITE UPGRADE:
Blogspot is a great free website creator, but it has its limitations. Once this goal is met, we'll look into upgrading the site off Blogspot to a paid, premium service.
$10,000: GOAL REACHED:
Our goal will have been reached! Hooray! Thanks to everyone for helping us reach this point.
...And the stretch goals:
$15,000: SHARD RADIO:
SHARD Radio, a crowdfunding-oriented podcast, will be started.
$20,000: SHARD CHANNEL:
Our goal will have been doubled! And SHARD Channel, a (possibly YouTube) video show, will be started.
SHARD Labs is a small website, with just one writer and graphic designer working together. The hope is to expand that team base over the course of 2016, with more writers, web designers, and others to help bring you more content. We appreciate any and all help you're able to give us, and promise to put your gifts to good use over the next few months!
THE TEAM:
Carter Schaap has been giving himself electrical shocks for over 16 years now. A strong Christian, he does all his hacking and making with the assurance of the ultimate Maker on his side. He is the founder and webmaster of SHARD Labs, and spend most of his time working on the site or soldering resistors in a chain. (For the fun of it!)
He also enjoys splitting wood, dodgeball, airsoft, dancing, C++, and most importantly, tinkering with electronics until he voids their warranties. He currently resides somewhere in the deep woods of southwest Ohio, along with 7 wonderful siblings (plus one on the way), a mischievous dog, and several goats.
plus.google.com/+CarterSchaap
http://shardlabs.blogspot.com
Charlotte Boyer is a Christian young lady, growing up in the rural atmosphere of southwest Ohio. Besides being the graphic design wizard behind SHARD Labs, she finds herself most content when behind her “Big Mac” computer editing her latest photographic masterpiece, wildly ticking out some bizarre code, or designing a logo, graphic, or website; all the while listening to her favorite Imagine Dragons or Owl City playlist.
Her extra-digital adventures include, but are not limited to: singing 1940s Swing music with her two older sisters, sewing, knitting, discovering some new way of making pizza, finishing up her home education, and styling & photographing shoots for her and her sisters’ blog, boyerfamilysingersblog.com.
http://charlotteboyer.blogspot.com
http://facebook.com/charlotteboyerphoto
THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT!
...And if you can't help out financially, feel free to help us out via social media! You can share this campaign with your friends via Facebook and Twitter, as well as using the shareable link in the bar below. Just getting the word out there is a huge help in and of itself, and we will appreciate all the help we can get!
Need to reach us? Have a question? Just use the contact button below!
Thanks!
Organizer and beneficiary
Heidi Brandt Schaap
Organizer
Wilmington, OH
Heidi Schaap
Beneficiary