KickstarterForum.org

[pbsanford]

Maybe it's too early to judge, maybe I'm too sensitive, maybe I had a bad idea, maybe... maybe...
I spent the afternoon trying to sleep off my disappointment in the abysmal starting day of my ks campaign. I'm guessing the problem is simply it hasn't yet been in front of enough eyes. I just don't know. I'm thinking I probably violated a cardinal crowdfunding rule by not having enough social media following prior to launch.

So - now, what to do? Should I try to catch up with social media (seems daunting) or should I shut down the campaign, do my due diligence with social media, get tons of followers, then relaunch?

Or - is there something basically wrong with my campaign write-up, video, pics, rewards, etc.?

I'm trying really hard to stay positive. Would hugely appreciate any ideas from any or all of you.

Best regards,
Peter

[quadzool]

Being discouraged seems part of the process for a lot with this type of endeavor. Take it to the end; do everything you can think of, and everything that's suggested, and see what works best. If it fails, drop the goal down to the bare minimum you viably get away with, and try it again. And if not on Kickstarter, than some other funding site. Don't give in. A failure here is only a temporary set-back. And by the way, your illustrations, tech. info, etc. looks good.

[comickickstarter]

Suggestion: update your website and target it on your company and products you are promoting in your campaign.

You can make it look modern and at least use a wordpress template until you can get something better built. You've got a website domain I see, so you can get into your ' cpanel ' and activate wordpress from there. You can also pay someone on fivver.com to set it up for you.

the thing with kickstarter is that you have to do the leg work for getting people's attention...they aren't already there for you to show your stuff and they buy. It is all about the hustle of getting the information in front of them.

Hang in there and let people know your campaign is going on. You have plenty of time to achieve the goal but you are going to have to push your process outside the box.

[lmatute]

I think it is a great idea, I really like it, but price and goal seen very high. you need to ..((and please let me clarify here, this is a very personal opinion)) ... do a better job explaining how you want to use the funds, why take so much to make such a product.

I know you want to keep manufacturing in the US, however talking that mold to Asia would cut your cost considerable and give you a better chance to get things starter it, I am the same way as you, I want to create jobs and help my community, however you have to realized that if you don't make it, then 0 job will be created. Having those mold cost cut to 1/3 to 1/5 of the price of what you are currently expected to pay, would allow you to get things started and maybe transfer the mold to the states at a later point.

[nerdkidleo]

Wow man! That's a really good idea. I'm having my problems with my own Kickstarter too. Check it here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/12 ... t-da-blank

Well i guess as you said social media may be a really important thing! I Have also found out the same way. We lunched the project thinking that Kickstarter itself will market the card game for us in someway or form, but after a few days we realized that we really have to do our own marketing. I think posting your problem here was a brave move, but don't give up from one follow Kickstarter to another!

[pbsanford]

Well... I've finally gotten myself out of bed (from being pretty depressed) and decided to get through this.

I think we newbies at ks tend to make this mistake - I definitely should have done an extensive pre-launch to include setting up social media pages, and acquiring a good following base BEFORE launching my ks project. We must generate excitement, anticipation and a bunch of people who are ready to pounce and pledge the day of launch.

I considered shutting down the campaign. Trouble with doing that is that you can't simply relaunch by posting the same project. You have to copy and paste it to an entirely new one. So, I decided there's no downside to simply leaving it up and getting off my ass with what I should have done with social media in the first place! Luckily I had set the ks project duration at 40 days. So - if we can manage to get a social media presence and following in a week to 10 days, we really won't be that far behind; we'll still have the usual 30 days or so to run the campaign. While it's running we'll bust our own chops to promote. If the project "fails" we'll keep promoting and simply relaunch.

Realistically, I'm a total dud when it comes to social media. I'm a bit of a reclusive engineer although my friends and acquaintances see me as being social and outgoing. So here's what I did...

I posted a (free) job listing on the local Cal Poly job site looking for a student who really knew how to handle the social media - setting up pages at FB, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, all of them. He's amazing and knows what I don't know about that stuff. In about a day he set them up. We work even on the weekends and into the night. I don't know why the rest of the planet shuts down on Sat and Sun and after 5 pm.

This will end up being a huge experiment - but I'm sure learning a bunch!

Thank you for your kind words about my invention. Everybody who has seen the concept, especially those who have seen the prototypes up close, thinks it's a winner. That's encouraging for me. I've put several years into the design, patents, etc. I'm not the type to give up - engineers are used to solving problems. This is just one bump in the road that should be able to be smoothed out.

I'll keep you posted.

To address an earlier post - we did look into having injection molds made in overseas. That will be up to the injection mold company to do it the best way. Their estimate of $30K per mold is, actually I believe, a Chinese mold. The actual production (molding) of the parts, it turns out, isn't any cheaper in China once the mold is made and tested. I'd really like to keep those jobs in the United States.

Best of luck with your campaign as well! It looked pretty cool to me!

Thank you all for your comments and support!

Best regards,
Peter

[hogeandco]

Use a lot more pictures and graphics in your campaign. I rarely read and almost never watch campaign videos (im probably in the minority here), so being able to scroll down the page and quickly see what the campaign is about and everything is great.

Also, through in some testimonials from test users.

[pbsanford]

Good tips. Thanks!

[lmatute]

To address an earlier post - we did look into having injection molds made in overseas. That will be up to the injection mold company to do it the best way. Their estimate of $30K per mold is, actually I believe, a Chinese mold. The actual production (molding) of the parts, it turns out, isn't any cheaper in China once the mold is made and tested. I'd really like to keep those jobs in the United States.

Best of luck with your campaign as well! It looked pretty cool to me!

Thank you all for your comments and support!

Best regards,
Peter

Great, let me know your social media links and we can do some cross promotion

30K for a molding on Asia seen very very high, if you are willing to take a second look at some other sources let me know, I'll can get you in contact with 2 supplier I used all the time. No commitment, if you don't like it or it come higher than expected just move on.

you can contact me at lmengineeringdesigns.com when ready

[pbsanford]

Thanks. Who should I contact at lmengineeringdesigns?