Hothouse on BACKORDER again … what’s up with that?

tl;dr

Released only last fall, the Hothouse is a new type of product for Cleveland Music Co. and the demand for it has been unexpectedly high. That it’s a product at all was entirely unplanned; it “just happened”. The first several runs sold quickly and the holiday season exhausted the inventory completely. So, we’ve increased the run size to get ahead and prevent supply chain issues in 2025. Thank you for your interest and your patience!

A Bit More Detail

Let’s jump in the Way Back Machine and travel 9 long months into the past. It’s spring and I decided to learn digital signal processing for embedded platforms. At that moment, I could barely spell “DSP”. Seriously. But being a software developer with embedded device knowledge, it seemed logical that experience would translate well. All that was required was a simple and affordable hardware and software development environment where I could learn.

Breadboards have their uses, but a smallish pedal form factor was the preference. I looked around and couldn’t find anything that ticked all the boxes. So, I designed a PCB to host the Daisy Seed with most parts already soldered on the board, and wrote a simple software library to match. It was well-suited for my learning needs.

Being a neckbeard geek, I shared it on a few social platforms. Then, the DMs asking to buy one began rolling in …

The First Few Runs

To start, we didn’t know we were “starting” at all. We put in a small parts order to make about 10 or so Hothouse kits and sent them to a few folks who had asked. Super “off the books”. But word spread and they were gone.

We decided to add some code examples, write a build guide, post the GitHub repo and the kit on the website, and placed a bigger PCB and parts order. When it arrived, we put everything in inventory and waited. All quiet on the Hothouse front.

Then the social media posts started appearing. People posted YouTube videos of unboxing and building their kits, reviews, demos of the effects they’ve created, and more. Mentions popped up in forums and Discords. GitHub clones increased. Traffic spiked. Everything sold out in a matter of days.

So, the next order was doubled and we restocked. But that stock was also wiped out in a few days, same as the previous. Following restocks were sold out before they even arrived. Rinse and repeat a few more times.

The Hothouse Going Forward

Expect to see improvements to the Hothouse based on user feedback. Also expect to see stripped back and souped up versions in 2025.

We were surprised by the demand for the Hothouse but we’re truly grateful for the interest, support, and patience.