Kickstarter has quickly become the #1 place for an independent designer to strut their stuff. However, we are quickly realizing that not every deck that gets designed will end up getting produced. In the end it's about so much more than just pumping out a design and letting sit on the Kickstarter website for a month or two.
You're going to need to learn to market properly, talk to people, and learn how to not go on a serious killing spree with some of the people you end up contacting.
These 10 tips are 100% sure to make your Kickstarter project more successful.
1. You don't have to finish your design when you put up the Kickstarter, but being close to done is recommended. I launched my project with everything completed except a few court cards. Obviously don't be afraid to change your design as the project moves forward. I touched up the tuck box, the court cards, and the Ace of Spades at least five times throughout the project. People like to see consistency. Don't pump out random cards day after day. If you tell people "I'm working on the court cards" don't show them a gaff card two weeks later. This leads me into the next point.
2. Build trust with your pledges. Remember, this is NOT about how you can manipulate your customers the most, but how you can be transparent with them and let them in on the secrets of your playing cards. These are the people that are helping you fund your life or at the very least, make your dream a reality. They should be treated as such. Address people individually and learn to remember names. Lots of names. On top of that, don't blatantly lie to your customers about where the money goes. It's insulting to see people claim that money goes to funding things like uncut sheets. Why lie about that? Uncut sheets cost as much as any other deck to produce. And why claim money is going towards something that you haven't started yet? "Funds will be used for a trailer if enough money is raised" for example. How much money should be raised? Why would you drop $200-1000 on a trailer at all after you've raised $30k and the Kickstarter has ended? Consumers are slowly realizing these things, and you can't keep up a lie for too long. Eventually your cover is blown and you have to either compensate people, or get out of the business. Or, you can develop a relationship of transparency from the start, and be truthful. There is no reason to not tell your pledges that you will use some of the money to compensate living expenses. Who expects you not to? A Kickstarter is a full time project. Who will pay your bills while you raise money? Even non-profit charities use a huge portion of their funds to pay employees. Nobody in this world does work for free without ending up homeless.
3. Make a video. It doesn't even have to be a trailer. I decided a trailer would be most fitting for my playing card project, but if you lack the connections or the cha-ching, who cares? Get your laptop, sit in front of it and record a 2-3 minute shpiel about your product. Launching a Kickstarter without a video is a slap in the face to every other Kickstarter project that took the time to connect with their fans personally.
4. Create proper rewards. The rewards should vary in price from $1 to at least $1000. In my Kickstarter, the vast majority of funding came from the big spenders. I actually lost money for every individual deck sold at the $9 level with free shipping. I raised under $1000 from the 25% of pledges that purchased just one deck of cards. These people are amazing for helping you at all, and you should be thankful, but you should never under any circumstance limit yourself to those who can afford a few decks. The top 5% of my pledges raised more than $15,000. If I cut off the rewards at $200, I would never even reach my funding goal!
5. Realize you will deal with some atrocious people as well. For the most part the Kickstarter experience involves talking to countless people about how awesome you are, and how awesome you think they are for thinking you're awesome. This is a fun ego boost, and it's also very humbling. When all is said and done, however, you will deal with some scum of the earth as well. For every 50 supporters, expect at least one person who will go out of his or her way to mess with your project. It may be on purpose, or it may be because they don't realize the consequences of their actions. A great example would be this one fella I had who followed me around to every forum I posted my project on and told people how ugly the cards were. To each his own, right? Right. Which is why when you ignore someone like this, you come out on top.
6. Be wary of "flakers." These people will talk to you about making a big pledge, demand reservations of their cards, and then when it comes to game time, they disappear after you've already said "no" to other people wanting what they wanted. When it comes to limited stock, take my advice and do not reserve anything for anyone. Ever. I made this mistake and I can honestly say I ended up losing at least $3,000 of sales to other people that were much more interested but had to be turned away. If anyone asks you anything, let them know it's a first-come-first-serve basis. After all, you should be rewarding committed fans, not people trying to figure out whether or not your product is worth their time, while also making sure they can get what they want at the very last second.
7. Do not listen to anyone that has not pledged. This is not a blanket rule. Let me explain: During my project I had a few people ask for perks and price drops and special reward tiers just for them. I ended up putting in loads of man hours into acquiescing these needs only to be told "nah, not pledging" in the end. This goes with constructive criticism as well. Don't listen to the voice of one bloke who may not even support you after the problem is fixed. If you have already won the support of 100 people, why risk losing their support to gain the support of one random person? Don't change your design, concept, or anything in your project unless it is continuously suggested by many people.
8. Kickstarter has fees. Figure out how much money you need to fund your project, and add 25% on top of that. Don't ask me questions about this - just do it. You'll regret it if you don't.
9. Kickstarter staff is not very helpful. If you had problems logging in for a few days like I did, don't expect timely responses. I got my response a day after they fixed the problem. The result? Not being able to change reward quantities on time for demand.
10. When you see pledges coming in, get excited, but realize loads of them will back out. There is no commitment on Kickstarter until after the funding period is over. I suggest a funding period of 35-50 days. If I count how much money I lost to people making pledges and cancelling them later, I would say it's at least $10,000. Some of these people have legitimate life issues. Not everyone is loaded with thousands of dollars for cards. Don't feel bad since it is most likely not personal. However, you may find that person X cancelled their $800 pledge and tells you a sob story about how little money they have, and then a few days later you see them making a $1,000 purchase from someone else. You can let this bother you, and it most likely will for a little while when you realize just how scummy some people are, but then let it go.
After all, for every single scummy person you will deal with, you will deal with 100 amazing people that literally make you want to wake up in the morning and talk to them.
So, let me know, what questions do you have about Kickstarter? I'd love to help you guys succeed.
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