Our first project, SNO: Revolutionary Paper Snowflakes
Posted: Wed May 07, 2014 11:11 pm
Good evening everyone, I wanted to start out my post with how my Kickstarter came to be, I realize it is on my page... but I wanted to share it personally with the community.
My business partner Mike began creating ornate paper snowflakes in 2004, nearly 10 years later he approached me with an idea. He was inspired the stickers used to help people carve pumpkins. He wanted to create a product that would help people to easily create beautiful paper snowflakes. I honestly thought he was joking at first, but he cut out an amazing snowflake with snowmen and ice crystals, free-handed, right in the middle of the big-box-retailer where we worked.
We met after work to discuss ideas, and settled on a die-cut craft book and then spent weeks researching other paper snowflake books on the market, making sure that ours could be unique and new (I even bought some of the potential competition on Amazon!)
Mike and I spent 9 months working around full-time jobs (my freelance clients) and spending time with our growing families. We both welcomed daughters into our families in the middle of SNO's development! In spring of 2014 we officially launched our company, Toy Rocket Studios.
We developed each "snoflake" by drawing a sketch or even just folding and cutting. Next we drew multiple versions on a template that I developed, and refined each design from there. Between the two of us, Mike and I cut out literally hundreds of variations. We made sure that each one was balanced, and that the designs were not merely just themed, but the interior "felt" like a snowflake as well as reflected the exterior designs.
While Mike handled the majority of creating the snowflakes (my skills pale in comparison), I created the die-cut page idea and managed the design aspects of the books: typography, color and fonts, as well as digitized the snoflakes. Having launched a Kickstarter Campaign in the past (Super Mario Go Fish! as 8BitAurum), which was shut down by a kind lawyer on behalf of Nintendo, I had a pretty good handle on how work generate a Kickstarter campaign.
We spent nearly 40 hours over 4 days shooting the video, the night shots had to be filmed from 10pm to 2am; currently it does not get dark in Ohio until around 10pm! We spent an entire day syncing the music and cutting the video, only to realize that a pesky Macy's bag was in the background of one of our shots. The next day we re-filmed the scene and re-synced the video to our music track.
Mike and I believed so much in our project that we have invested nearly $5,000 into the project to date: forming an LLC, registering for a patent on our process, printing prototypes, buying web domains and hosting and of course all of the physical media used to create our designs.
Finally it was launch time; we submitted everything through Kickstarter and eagerly awaited for 4 long days until approval. Then launch. I had read what I thought was everything I needed to know about promoting a campaign: I had created twitter and Facebook 30 days prior to launch and teased the project for 1 week leading up. I sent out a passive letter to all of my 90 FB friends, Mike to his 150.
To date we have raised 5% of our goal, all from Facebook. Funding has slowed (with 26 days) remaining in our campaign and we are beginning to get anxious. I have spent the last few days combing the internet for ideas on how to generate support and found this blog which directed me to the really helpful article on CrowdCrux. I also came across several blogs for improving your page. Thanks you to everyone for this great resource!
My business partner Mike began creating ornate paper snowflakes in 2004, nearly 10 years later he approached me with an idea. He was inspired the stickers used to help people carve pumpkins. He wanted to create a product that would help people to easily create beautiful paper snowflakes. I honestly thought he was joking at first, but he cut out an amazing snowflake with snowmen and ice crystals, free-handed, right in the middle of the big-box-retailer where we worked.
We met after work to discuss ideas, and settled on a die-cut craft book and then spent weeks researching other paper snowflake books on the market, making sure that ours could be unique and new (I even bought some of the potential competition on Amazon!)
Mike and I spent 9 months working around full-time jobs (my freelance clients) and spending time with our growing families. We both welcomed daughters into our families in the middle of SNO's development! In spring of 2014 we officially launched our company, Toy Rocket Studios.
We developed each "snoflake" by drawing a sketch or even just folding and cutting. Next we drew multiple versions on a template that I developed, and refined each design from there. Between the two of us, Mike and I cut out literally hundreds of variations. We made sure that each one was balanced, and that the designs were not merely just themed, but the interior "felt" like a snowflake as well as reflected the exterior designs.
While Mike handled the majority of creating the snowflakes (my skills pale in comparison), I created the die-cut page idea and managed the design aspects of the books: typography, color and fonts, as well as digitized the snoflakes. Having launched a Kickstarter Campaign in the past (Super Mario Go Fish! as 8BitAurum), which was shut down by a kind lawyer on behalf of Nintendo, I had a pretty good handle on how work generate a Kickstarter campaign.
We spent nearly 40 hours over 4 days shooting the video, the night shots had to be filmed from 10pm to 2am; currently it does not get dark in Ohio until around 10pm! We spent an entire day syncing the music and cutting the video, only to realize that a pesky Macy's bag was in the background of one of our shots. The next day we re-filmed the scene and re-synced the video to our music track.
Mike and I believed so much in our project that we have invested nearly $5,000 into the project to date: forming an LLC, registering for a patent on our process, printing prototypes, buying web domains and hosting and of course all of the physical media used to create our designs.
Finally it was launch time; we submitted everything through Kickstarter and eagerly awaited for 4 long days until approval. Then launch. I had read what I thought was everything I needed to know about promoting a campaign: I had created twitter and Facebook 30 days prior to launch and teased the project for 1 week leading up. I sent out a passive letter to all of my 90 FB friends, Mike to his 150.
To date we have raised 5% of our goal, all from Facebook. Funding has slowed (with 26 days) remaining in our campaign and we are beginning to get anxious. I have spent the last few days combing the internet for ideas on how to generate support and found this blog which directed me to the really helpful article on CrowdCrux. I also came across several blogs for improving your page. Thanks you to everyone for this great resource!
) Thank you to everyone in advance who takes the time to provide a constructive critique our project with the points below; or with any I may have missed. I look forward to hearing back from you!