Wyrmwood’s new standing desk requires a $3,000 buy-in on Kickstarter

Wyrmwood has long been well-known for creating luxurious wood gaming accessories. Now, the company is expanding its range of home furnishings. Wyrmwood Modular Desk is the heir apparent of the Geek Chic throne. It’s a solid wooden work-from-home desk with an optional stand/sit feature. This is the best-looking new peripheral for PC gaming this year.

Wyrmwood was founded in 2015. It has been a leader in the gaming industry with its innovative storage solutions. In 2020, Wyrmwood launched an ambitious Kickstarter campaign to fund the Wyrmwood Modular Gaming Table. This raised $8.8M in just the first months of the COVID-19 epidemic. The project helped the company expand, with a new U.S. facility and improved tooling. But the economics of that project didn’t work out in the company’s favor.

“It could have been the end of us,” said co-founder Ed Maranville in a recent interview with Polygon. “We knew it could go one of two ways. Either we’d be out of business, or we’d be a much different company — and a much bigger company — than we had ever been. […] We’ve been operating at a loss the past couple years. This year, though, we’re out of that. We are actually turning that around, and all the investments we’ve been making the past few years are set to pay off in a big way.”

The Modular Desk is available in a standard (60” by 30”) and an XL (78” by 36”), in both a fixed height and as a motorized sit/stand desk with onboard memory that recalls three different heights. The Modular Desk also features a strong cable management system and customizable storage. You can even add magnetic accessories to store cups, mugs or headphones. There are many options available for podcasters or streamers. Mounts can be added for lighting and microphones.

Wyrmwood Modular Desks are available starting at $1750. But, the Kickstarter opened on Tuesday and required that potential buyers spend much more in order to reserve their desk. Wyrmwood has set $3,000 as the minimum buy in for its first 1,000 desk wave. Maranville explained that Maranville was aiming to make additional tranches of 1,000 desks available at a lower cost during the campaign. The company achieved this goal on Oct. 19.

What was it that made the buy-in price so high in the first place? Maranville said it’s because of several factors. First, past campaigns have shown that few consumers opt for Wyrmwood’s least expensive solutions. In this instance, $3,000 represented what the company’s leadership expected consumers will want to spend on a desk. This is due to the high quality of the desk, with solid wood panels and drawers made from sophisticated joinery. But that high price point is largely just a byproduct of Wyrmwood’s maturation as a company.

“It’s not just us anymore,” Maranville said, referring to himself and co-founder Doug Costello. “We’re responsible for these lives. […] In total, we’re approaching 200 people across two states. That’s a lot that’s dependent on where things go. So now, we’re moving into furniture because then we can scale up that way. There’s a massive market for it, and we can hopefully give everybody here a better living. We can also help ourselves. My responsibility, at the end of it all, has changed.

“We are a premium company at the end of the day,” Maranville continued. “Because we are making things in the U.S., we do have to aim pretty high. […] It’s like double the price [of the Modular Game Table] because it just has to be to be sustainable.”

October 18th marks the start of the Wyrmwood Modular Table campaign. Backerkit will take orders later.

Update, Oct. 18, 2008 We’ve updated this article with additional clarity on the price of the desk relative to other Wyrmwood products.

Updated (Oct. 19). After reaching $1.5 million in a matter of minutes, Wyrmwood’s campaign stalled out around $2.3 million — well short of its $3 million goal. Since then, Wyrmwood opened new tiers which require only $500 deposits. Backers should be available to receive their desks by Sept. 2023, or earlier.