2024 Year in Review

Oh hi there! If you’re new here, let me introduce myself: I’m Ben, Co-Founder of Knafs. And it’s tradition for me to write a year-end recap for our investors, kind of. You see, we don’t have any actual investors. My wife Athena and I own the business 100%. This means you— the customers— are the investors. We feel a deep accountability to you, the ones who believe in what we’re doing and spend your hard-earned money with us. So, here’s our 2024 year-end investor report:

• Completed 3 Kickstarters (Lander 3, Lander 4, Sancho Pen) and you helped us raise $294K for new products. Soooo cool. 
  
• Launched Knafs@Nite! We've been having a TON of fun with the YouTube channel, and we released 27 episodes of solid knife content and racked up 96k hours of watch time and 2.1M views (and counting). Mind blowing.

• Launched the Moon Crew on Facebook. 2100 members and growing!
• Collaborated with Carry Commission, Big Idea Design, Wiha, Bladebinge, Backcountry Exposure, and Dan Becker.
  
• Sent 102 emails to our customers and hired Heather to join the marketing team. The witty copy you're seeing across our emails and website is her handiwork.
• Responded to 3,018 customer inquiries. Jenn and Vee rocked this, and they loved hearing from you all.
• Hosted parties and events at our shop in Clearfield, Utah. It's been a joy to have people hang with us in our space.
  
• Hired Jamie as our new marketing manager. He's been crushing it.
• Stressed as the economy did roller coasters and looptie-loops. Marveled as the Knafs Crew navigated the chaos.
• Watched as Matt W. and Robyn optimized our Operations like pros. We have a 99.8% accuracy rate on our inventory counts.
• Promoted Austin from Marketing Manger to General Manager. That Bad Boy's been rockin' it! This freed up Athena's time to exit the day-to-day of the business and spend more time at home with our four kids.
• We made our own things!! Keith made kydex sheaths for the Large Lulu in our very own shop. He also sharpened 290 feet of customers' knives. That's over 700 knives!
• Met people across the globe: Las Vegas, Fort Worth, Yangjiang, Guangzhou, Taipei, Taichung, Chattanooga (stitches anyone?), Atlanta, Apeldoorn, Kinderdijk, Copenhagen, Farre, Hamburg, Salt Lake City, Kenosha, and Watkinsville. Remembering all the hugs, handshakes, conversations, and deep friendships makes me smile.
• Released so. many. new. products. Around 40 new products. Much of that new, new came from the desk of Matt Fitzgerald as he rocked our product design AND toiled through his senior year of college.
• Offered 401(k) benefits to employees with a 3% employer match.
• Added sick leave, a bereavement policy, and retooled our PTO.
• Ended the year profitably as a business.
• Made big plans for 2025: bought a CNC mill, tumbler, and we've got more planned. Stay tuned. This rocket is just barely leaving the launch pad.

This is a wildly inadequate list of everything that happened at Knafs this year. But my hope is it gives you an inside look into how we’re running this business. When I left Corporate America to pursue Knafs full-time in 2022, I wanted to create a place where employees like to come to work and customers feel like they are part of something. I think we’re getting there. Thanks for being part of the magic. To the Moon, Amigos! 

Best,

Ben