KickstarterForum.org

As you all know, KickStarter has the incentive for backers with a rewards system. I feel this is ridiculous for one particular reason, KickStarter is for start up capital. It just doesn't make sense that we, during an already tough process of obtaining funds, would have to become dropshippers and wholesalers along with the process of setting up shop. The out of pocket expenses go against the capital gained thus making our requirements for goals higher and less obtainable along with the ultimate business goal being put in jeopardy to fulfill rewards.

What do you think about the rewards. I understand the need for incentives to help grow an attraction towards your product ideas, but do you really have the time to back up the fulfilment end?

For some pages, it seems a reward is more of an actual purchase of product opposed to start up capital. That raises another question, do you think rewards are just a way to move product for many of the KickStarters?

@TheSantaCruzDog

I think the key when it comes to rewards is choosing ones that at worst don't take away from your focus / capital and at best enhance it.

You can have all sorts of rewards that help make your supporters feel like part of the team. Sneak prevews & special reports are easy, and help incentivize them spreading the word.

You can also find things that you have to create anyways, that make nice mementos, or invites to special events for those in your area.

For example, in our project we have an extraordinary artist who's producing around 95 water colour images, one for each card in the Connection Deck. Because her process is a little involved, there are preliminary sketches for each of those, plus study sketches. And of course if we change direction on any of the art, that's another set of paintings and sketches for that card.

This gives us a whole lot of extremely cool one-of-a-kind art to give away directly from production, not to mention copies that we give as rewards at a lower tier.

We'd welcome any feedback on our reward tiers, which can be found in my signature link.

Of course one of the tricks is matching the reward to the tier, something we've had some challenges doing.

For a cool Hot Dog startup like yourself I could see all sorts of potential items. Things like:
- Some of your recipes
- Brief update videos on the work
- Some piece of cooking paraphernalia that you use when you first open.
- An invitation to the grand opening
- For people in your area, a natural one would be a BBQ (there's a cost in time and money, but it can also be great advertising depending on how its handled).

Those are off the top of my head, I'm sure you'll be able to think of others that would be a good fit.

I agree with ConnectionDeck; there are a whole lot of ways to get creative about rewards without having them eating away at the startup capital. In my campaign, I rely on the incentive of getting early access (to a webseries pilot), exclusive content that is relatively simple to produce (behind-the-scenes featurette) and the chance for backers to appear as animated characters in the pilot (which doesn't really affect production costs, as characters need to be designed anyway). I tried to shy away from physical rewards as much as possible, although I saw the need to include them, as I believe something tangible like that (a branded keychain) is something people respond to.

I think... as stated earlier, that it makes them feel a part of the team. I carefully budgeted what the incentives would cost and as closely as I could... budgeted them in.
How about some coupons for a free dog?

There are a certain type of projects for which you can give out rewards which are mostly cost-free. For example, when developing software and giving out a copy.

It really does depend upon the nature of your product; I've seen rewards offered that, to me, seem like they would be eligible for a Kickstarter all on their own. As an illustrator, I often offer small rewards like buttons and trading cards, but with a personalized touch so that I can express my gratitude but not detract from the campaign goal.

I think Kickstarter is used best when you raise money to complete a project and get the product in the hands of backers. The goal is to encourage the creation of something that didn't exist previously due to financial limitations. If people want to support the creation of some product, I think the best way to do incentivize them to do so is to offer them a copy of the product when it's finished or other related rewards. In my calculation, creators will usually make about a 5-10% profit in the tech field.

The angel investment or VC route is probably a better way to obtain capital which you can use to scale your business over the longterm. Naturally, you'll have to give up equity for that though.

The way I see it, if you are going to try to sell the product after Kickstarter, you are going to have to figure out shipping, manufacturing, and fulfillment anyway.

I think one thing a lot of people overlook also is that the goal should not be to raise money. The goal should be to get the product in the hands of backers so that you can get feedback on it. This feedback is invaluable and can improve the chances your product will be a success in the long run after Kickstarter. If the product was already finalized, it would just be an e-commerce sale, which Kickstarter itself seems to want to avoid.

These rewards are awesome!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/14 ... es/backers

I definitely think rewards are worth it — it always helps when the contributor feels he/she is getting something back for their contribution. It can also add to the "fun" factor of your campaign.

I've been using facebook to connect and introduce rich people to the page I have set up for my own upcoming crowd funding campaign.
I remember that one of them stayed silent and didn't honor my friend request.
Then I sent my next message to him with an image of one of the rewards I have made for the campaign.I haven't shown others, and haven't even launched the campaign yet, but since he's a big shot, I figured it was worth it to get him on my side.
What do you know?
After I sent him an image of the particular reward, he accepted my friend request.
This guy used to be mayor of Beverly Hills, so impressing him was probably a good move.
Long story short, this seems to show that good rewards impress people.
They make people more interested, apparently.
Its like giving away free candy or a free breakfast, while you're advertising to people - it will draw more people than if you don't do it, right?

Don't be discouraged if you can't come up with any great ideas for rewards in a few minutes.
It took me maybe two years or more to come up with my own list of rewards, but since I spent SO MUCH time and thought on them, I can say with confidence that they are good (in my estimate).

They are maybe so good in fact, that I could sell them as products after the campaign.