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I have launched three Kickstarter projects in the past and failed miserably each time. My fourth and current project has reached 46% funding in 36 hours. http://kck.st/1UCQPP7

My other projects fell flat at 10% funding in 30 days. I think there are a few lessons I learned, but there may also be things I am unaware of. These may be obvious to everyone, but I just thought I would share what I learned from myself.


Promotion
This time I actually made a Twitter specifically for the project. I shared personal things like the art I was working on and pictures of the buttons I was handing out in other cities to promote. I felt like sharing "commercials" would annoy people. I tagged the guys who were printing my shirts and bands who inspired my art. In the past, I just shared the project on my personal account. That didn't do much because that just shared it with my friends. I also created a website for the project, promoting it at least two weeks before launch. I probably should have done two months though.

Graphics
I spent a lot of time creating graphics and charts for my funding, rewards, stretch goals, etc. this time. A "pretty" campaign looks more professional. My past campaigns were bare-bones, which is embarrassing because I am a graphic designer with 17 years experience. This time I revised my graphics three times before being happy with them.

Advertising
I know Kickstarter projects are for raising money you don't have or don't want to invest if nobody wants the product. It's hard to fork out money on a chance. However, I invested about $100 dollars into Facebook/Instagram ads on day one to run for a week. The ad has been seen by 2,092 people in 22 hours. Even though only 7 clicked, i think it was worth it.

If anyone manages to visit my Kickstarter and the ones I had done in the past, any constructive criticism on what you see I did differently would be very welcome.

Hi Matthew, I saw the campaign and I'll give you some honest feedback esp if you've created so many and failed each time.

Ok the first thing - your title ...it doesn't mean anything to me, you need to explain what you do in the title.

Same as the main description too.

Onto the tee's. As you can see the $14 tee's are all gone. This indicates how much someone values your tee's. You're up against other well known tee producers, esp Threadless.

There's only 4 designs to choose from and all based around bears or have "die" in them. I personally wouldn't one with with die in it and a single colour tee is pretty old school and there's alot more exciting things you could of done, with different tee designs, multiple colours, textures and so on.

Overall, I don't think 4 designs is enough. There's other similar crowdfunding platforms to Kickstarter just for Tshirts...I'd suggest you try there but I don't think yours would stand out.

Hope this blunt advice helps you as I feel you've spent so long on the campaign that from a fresh perspective, it's got many flaws which probably is the reason you're no where near being funded.

Best of luck!

Thank you for the feedback and checking out the project. Honesty is always welcome.

Would you mind elaborating on the title? You said I should explain what I do. It currently says "Independent Clothing Co." That's what the funding is for. If that's wrong, please let me know.

I understand your concern on the death connotation, but I do want to point out that one shirt is about beer. As far as other tee styles, I know there's raglan shirts, but those aren't very popular. What other style would you suggest?

I would love to offer more designs in the future. The reason I chose only have four designs is because I am looking to print 50 of each design, which is my printer's minimum. To make more shirts costs about $400 per design, increasing my goal substantially.

Finally, blunt is fine. I'm here to seek feedback and don't want it sugar coated. However, I feel you've over exaggerated the "nowhere near," as I have reached 47% in less than two days.

I was looking at the total of around $900 which made me think it was pretty small to your goal.

The title: Slumber Society Independent Clothing Co. = Doesn't mean anything to the general backer, if you're selling tee's mention the word tshirt or the types of design.

This post has been moved to the General Chat + Introduce Yourself section.