I’ll share my story that will be useful for those who are considering to start their first Kickstarter campaign and want to raise up to $10,000 with no (or minimal) marketing budget. Also, in the end of this post I’ll share a link to get a free chapter that reviews 6 methods to generate leads for your first Kickstarter project for free. So read till the end
My project was a book, you can check it here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/50 ... ness-start. By having just a manuscript of it, I launched a Kickstarter campaign and raised three times more than I needed to self-publish the book (do editing, formatting, layout and cover design, etc.)
The only investment I did was $160 to make a professional video. I raised AU$ 12,191 (around $8379) from 200 backers from 35 countries worldwide (see funding graph from Kickstarter below).
- Funding progress in Kickstarter
- Funding progress in Kickstarter.png (34.19 KiB) Viewed 1229 times
If you check Kickstarter stats (see screenshot below), most successfully funded projects raise less than $10,000. We all dream about millions, but let’s be realistic. Just 0.08% of all Kickstarter projects raised $1M or more. Think big, but start small.
- Most successfully funded Kickstarter projects raise less than $10k
- Most successfully funded Kickstarter projects raise less than $10k.png (41.28 KiB) Viewed 1229 times
The book I wrote was related with the industry, where I worked in. So most of my clients, prospects, and partners were potential readers of my book. That was a big advantage as during my career I’ve spoken to thousands of people. I had their contacts in different sources, such as CRM, email, LinkedIn and Skype.
Here’s exactly what I did:
- Gathered their contacts from different sources in one place and built an email list.
- Sent an email, saying that I’m writing this book and asking if they’d like to be notified about it.
- Those who agreed were added to a separate list. I also followed up with those who didn’t respond. After that I had a list of nearly 2000 leads.
- Engaged with them by asking to review the manuscript, provide tips on what else could be added to the book, vote for the book cover, etc.
- Wanted to validate my idea with minimal budget and as mentioned before, I spent only $160 to make a professional video. That’s all. No other expenses.
- Emailed my audience 24 hours before the launch.
- Launched a campaign, sent an email to my audience, shared my project in social networks (LinkedIn and Facebook) and messaged my friends through Messenger asking them to support my project with at least $1 (increasing amount of backers has a positive effect on Kickstarter algorithms.)
- Reached 100% funding in 5 days.
- One thing that has worked really well was higher reward tiers. They were dedicated for those who were willing to support my project with higher amounts. There were five backers who pledged $1605 in total to publish their reviews on the back cover of the book and there was one backer who supported my book with $1095 by choosing reward “A day with an author.”
- Sent 4-5 emails to my mailing list throughout the campaign. I also followed up by Skype chat and even called a few people asking for their support. I'm an introvert, so it wasn’t easy, but it worked well.
- By the end of the campaign I raised 243% of my initial goal.
- After a few months I completed the book and shipped rewards to my backers
- Uploaded this book on Amazon, where it received 43 5-start reviews and after some time became #1 Bestseller in its category (“Telephone Systems Engineering.”)
- Experience with Kickstarter was so positive that it became my second passion. I decided to interview other creators, who successfully funded their ideas in Kickstarter. This way I established new relationships with awesome people and gathered valuable information for a new book.
- Wrote my second book for Kickstarter newbies and first-time creators "Your First Kickstarter Campaign" (you can download a free chapter of this book here https://www.kickstarterbook.com/.) It explains how to prepare for your first crowdfunding campaign with minimal budget and get 100% funding.
Hopefully, my story will be useful to you!
If you have any questions, post them here or email me at vilius@kickstarterbook.com.