KickstarterForum.org

I don't think anyone here considers KS a panacea, nor expect to continually build a business based on KS.

While I've been involved in 3 crowd-funding projects, 2 of them were co-published with another publisher, and my most recent is my own publication. Still between those 3 projects, I've released a dozen smaller products funded out of pocket and not through crowd-funding sources. As a writer/cartographer/game designer I only look to crowd-funding for especially large or expensive projects - not for every project. At the same time, I don't feel that I shouldn't look to KS to fund other projects, even if such aren't intended as first-time products for a new business venture. I plan to run several more KS projects between my own publishing concerns and those of my co-publisher for my other project.

I guess I kind of do expect to continually fund my business in some of it's projects via Kickstarter on an ongoing basis. In the gaming industry, that has become the norm, rather than the exception.

What's interesting about this discussion is that you have business owners with entirely different businesses, products, needs, goals and perspectives using Kickstarter slightly differently. It is because each individual and or business is so different that boiler plate, step by step, how to instructions discussions and guides are at best just that - guides.

What I find most intriguing about crowd funding, social media, online marketing ... is that it put's the power and responsibility for one's success in their own hands. You are in control of your destiny. I have been in business for many years and from my perspective, smaller, undercapitalized businesses have never had the type of opportunity that they do today. So with a lot of work, determination and opportunistic thinking - it's a great time to be in business.

To me crowd funding is not the answer to everything, but rather a very useful tool that's part of a well thought out and executed business-marketing plan. Depending on your product, production capabilities - in house/out sourced, cost of production and many other related factors, Kickstarter may be best used sparingly as a way to mitigate risk, test the market and so forth. After which other methods of raising working capital may be required.


But ... What if you could use crowd funding over and over as not only your source of funding but as your exclusive sales engine? Some are doing that right now. Could you build your business without debt, partners or investors? Could you make products to order, prepaid with no returns? Imagine how much more efficient and productive your company could be.

Admittedly this can not work for every business, but it can for some. And even if it can't work entirely for all, could it at least work in part, for many? While I have not figured this out completely, this is my goal - debt free, financial control, creative control, safe-sustainable business.

sssamcz wrote:To me one of the primary benefits of Kickstarter is the mitigation of risk. You are able to just put something out there which is not that much more than idea and see if it is going to work. If enough people want it, great, they will back it, get what seems to be a good deal, and you make some money too. From there you have a proof of concept and you can take the product/service/whatever to the next phase with a degree of validation and therefore confidence that it has some mileage - without having to give up a significant chunk of margin. If it doesn't work out, that may be due to a lack of promotion or whatever, but it could just be that the world is not ready for your idea as it is. In which case it is an excellent and low cost way to test that without needing to order 100's or 1000's of whatever it is you are producing and hoping for the best.

Sam

My Project

This is exactly how I see Kickstarter working... But at the end of the day, you still need to get the word out to the people who might want your product/service... Everything seems to come back to marketing, doesn't it? Anyone can come up with an awesome idea/product but if no one uses it then you will struggle to keep that product/service around...

And as we all know, marketing is tough... It takes time and energy... From my experience, the only thing that makes marketing easier, is offering a product/service you know people want... If people want that product/service and no one else is offering it, then the market will support you and help get the word out to others...

I also see the backer pool as potential reocurring customers for future products.

In my first successful Kickstarter (for my product, but I wasn't the creator of the project) the Kaidan setting of Japanese horror (Pathfinder Roleplaying Game) run last summer, I created a side project myself as primary author/designer/cartographer with a haunted adventure site with a mini adventure and a hand-drawn map called Haiku of Horror: Autumn Moon Bath House, which I released after KS funding, but long before product release, and first promoted it to backers at a 33% reduced price through a private KS Update, prior to public release. Unlike many small out-of-pocket created products, this one paid for itself in the first week because of the initial sales boom when it was offered to Kickstarter backers.

I plan to serve my recent successful Kickstarter backers the same way. I have plans for additional map products, map tile products, map object sets, that I will offer first to backers at a reduced price as a private KS Update. Although I don't plan to use it as a sales platform for all future products, it's definitely a place I plan to create a strong fanbase, using updates as notifications.

Well - I sure have learned a lot from these posts! I failed at my first launch, and what I got from all the discussion is that the pre-launch preparation is critical. Buzz words like "build your following" and "generate buzz through social media" are completely foreign concepts for me. I can build a fantastic gizmo that I think a bunch of people will want, but I don't know much about this marketing stuff and "social media". So . . . time to buckle down and learn about this world.

It's been an adventure so far.

I'm thinking guys like me need expert help from people who know how to do this social media stuff.

Right now I'm agreeing with James - this could be a whole new way to market and launch multiple products or projects, but first this whole blog/tumblr/facebook/google+/SEO/etc. thing needs to be figured out. That's what I'm doing now. Before I launch again I need a "following" and a "network" and some "buzz" plus "blogs".

fvreeman wrote:Well - I sure have learned a lot from these posts! I failed at my first launch, and what I got from all the discussion is that the pre-launch preparation is critical. Buzz words like "build your following" and "generate buzz through social media" are completely foreign concepts for me. I can build a fantastic gizmo that I think a bunch of people will want, but I don't know much about this marketing stuff and "social media". So . . . time to buckle down and learn about this world.

It's been an adventure so far.

I'm thinking guys like me need expert help from people who know how to do this social media stuff.

Right now I'm agreeing with James - this could be a whole new way to market and launch multiple products or projects, but first this whole blog/tumblr/facebook/google+/SEO/etc. thing needs to be figured out. That's what I'm doing now. Before I launch again I need a "following" and a "network" and some "buzz" plus "blogs".

Fred,

I talked to a lot of different Kickstarter project owners before deciding to use the platform.

Here are the questions I asked them:

1) Why crowdfund? i.e. what does crowdfunding do for you which other means of advertising does not?
2) Why Kickstarter vs. other crowdfund sites?

For many people, Kickstarter is not really a net positive. It is convenient on one hand for presenting a 'line in the sand', but there are many demographic groups of people for whom creating a Kickstarter account and paying for products which don't exist yet - just isn't going to fly.

The Kickstarter use model which resonated the most for me was from the video game makers.

For them, the biggest headache is understanding how many units of packaging/documentation need to be made fora new game. Obviously ordering too few means the unit cost is higher, but ordering too many means the risk of having to throw away extras. To add to this, many foreign customers of these games like the paper versions and also pay a lower price via Kickstarter (due to VAT taxation, I suspect) than if they were to buy via other means. Lastly a customer who buys once on Kickstarter is accessible for future games, and thus represents a lifetime value beyond that single sale. I was also told that there are significant numbers of additional backers who find games because they search Kickstarter games section for new offerings. Lastly, the folks who play video games tend to be far more active on the Internet and have little or no objection to how Kickstarter works or opening an account there.

Put all that together - it totally makes sense for video game makers, especially ones with a stream of offerings as opposed to a one-off great idea.

Does this apply to others? It is not as clear.

On the fashion/clothing side, for example, the successes I talked to seemed to get to that state because of contacts into online or offline media. Having a positive review on a multi-million unique viewer site, and of course a good product which fits the site/audience, can itself launch 5 or 6 digits of funds raised.

The analogy I'd use is billboards vs. newspaper columnist vs. tupperware party.

The first one works because of massive traffic - but billboards with massive traffic are very, very expensive ($100K+ per month for the Highway 80 billboards in SF, for example).

A newspaper columnist - if you have something interesting and know them personally - can cost you nothing but will yield exposure to all the regular readers of that column. Conversely, you can buy into this also - not as much as a billboard, but not at all cheap. Still, lots of exposure.

A tupperware party is super cheap. You can have a great personal relationship with every person there. But unless you hold one every night with different people, you just aren't going to get your message out to that many.

I've talked to project owners who did zero social media, but paid $20K+ for a spot at the Consumer Electronics Show. The project owner I spoke to that did this, the project had almost no social media mentions - i.e. video views and facebook share numbers were both super low in relation to number of backers, but raised well over $500K. Notice, however, that CES has 200,000 visitors and thus constitutes a large audience which is furthermore specifically interested in new electronics gadgets.

Although it may sound a little biased from me to say this (and probably everyone says they same thing about their product). I found that no matter how good your product is (we feel ours is good) funding is HARD... I think the one thing I found is that a company MUST find the correct way to describe what their product does. Even if the product is simple to use, it is hard to describe what the product does....getting this right is essential.

The other thing I found is that no matter how good your product is, it does not mean people will flock and fund it or buy it...Marketing is essential for any product.

Our Campaign is still going......and things are getting a little dry regarding funding.....Salvador hope you do not mind me adding a link to it....if you have time would love to hear what changes you think should be applied?

http://kck.st/1dTzw9t

Hey Everyone,
Lot's of great info on this site, really useful! Especially as I'm 7 days into my project The FreedMan Chair. We've passed the 72% point with £127K/$203K.

It's been pretty intense. We decided to go to a trade show with a very small stand a few weeks before launch. We had a lot of interest and took a lot of names. Because our chair doesn't look comfortable it's pretty essential to get people to try it. We get a great response when people sit on them and in fact they become advocates and want to tell others, so we try to do that as much as possible. We've also got a series of events we're working through to keep up interest and momentum.

What a lot of people say is that you just can't be sure what action or event will really push things for you. It's the old adage of "Don't do one thing you think might sell 100, do 100 things that you think will sell one".

The one thing to say is yes it's pretty full-on, but it's also a lot of fun! I really enjoy talking to our new Kickstarter community and it's great to have so many people interested and behind us.

We're getting a bit stuck in the US. Many more people are buying in Europe, Australia and Asia. Even though the shipping is free to US and Canada. Anyone got any ideas on that one? Also, Kicktraq has us trending to £500K. I'm not so sure, do they know something I don't or is it just as simple as taking money raised, dividing by days run and multiplying by days to go?

Good luck everyone we're at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/929 ... way-to-sit

I'll try to update in a week.

Cheers,

Simon

Hi everyone,

We have a tech product called The Tel-Lynx Connexion on Kickstarter, almost halfway through. I was under the impression that Kickstarter could be a marketing tool, but was not aware of the advanced planning that's necessary. I have sent 20 letters to tech bloggers, consumer reporters, and writers who published articles on robocalls (still sending more, and sending follow-ups). I sent 150 e-mails to friends, family, and associates. We have had a small response, but also some very valuable contacts from people who have made suggestions regarding our product and possible collaborations.

I'm now doing more reading about social media marketing, although I would be very surprised if those in our target market (homeowners with cell phones and a landline--or VoIP, cable phone, etc.--who want control of who contacts them and when, and who want to get rid of robocalls; also those who have a small home business and want two landlines) use much social media.

My bottom line feeling is that until the product is available for sale, not many people will take action. Once some people have one and use it, the word will begin to spread. I know that's not all, but it's a big part of it I think.

I'd appreciate any opinions about our campaign as well as feedback about what you like and don't like, would use and don't care about, as far as our product goes.

Here's a link to our Kickstarter page: http://www.tel-lynx.com/kickstarter

Thanks,
Susan

We have 16 days to go and have already reached our $5K goal, but are working toward 7 & 10K Stretch Goals to get the most we can to ensure our project's longevity.

Honestly, my best advice, as simple as it is, is this:

A) Do a soft launch (twitter, facebook, bloggers, get people interested and keep them informed so that when you launch, there's already buzz around your project).

B) Keep in touch with your backers!! Make use of Kickstarter's "backer blog" to keep everyone involved and show how much you appreciate their support. We had multiple backers up their pledges from $25 to $100 or $250 even because they really valued the contact and open communication with the creators.

Here's our project link: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/darkersho/r-u-i-n