Kickstarter has grown immense popularity, it seems to be the holy grail for new projects and startups. The possibility of having your dream project funded without losing control based solely on people’s belief on your idea surely looks like heaven.
A few days ago I decided to give it a try. I’ve been writing a book on coding, yet it has been difficult to find time to write while I’m also in need of taking freelance jobs to keep having some income, after all, we all need income, don’t we? Then I thought, why not launch a Kickstarter campaign to substitute my income for 3 months so I can focus on finishing my book? It didn’t sound so bad, I don’t have anything to lose and if I succeed, well… it could be awesome.
So I went for it. I filled out the forms, wrote my story, added rewards & tiers, and clicked “Go Live”. It’s been 4 days since then, the project is at 14% funded and only god knows what the future of this adventure will be. However, these days, I’ve found out that there’s something far more valuable than funding a project when running a Kickstarter.
Running a Kickstarter campaign is a business simulation.
When my campaign started, I shared it with my friends and family and hoped for the best. The first day the project achieved 9%, the second a 1%, and the third one a 4%. It didn’t take me long to realize that one needs to keep a heavy marketing campaign during the 30 days Kickstarter gives to the project.
If you add it up with the fact that you have to think about all the finances involving your project (including taxes, as receiving a fund is counted as income), delivering the rewards you promised to your backers (the people who donate to your project), answering questions, etc. you’ll find out that running one of these campaigns is a test. And a very valuable one.
This test involves doing everything needed to run a business, or a project/startup. I believe that running one of these campaigns can help us find out if our ideas are ready to go out into the world.
This could be the best way to find out if your idea is worth making.
Why? because it is almost risk-free. Kickstarter’s nature to make projects “All or nothing” allows us to forget about the nerves and really focus on making it work, and if we fail then we lose nothing, we learn from our mistakes and get ready to try again. If we succeed, then we have a major boost.
Is there a reason not to try it?
There is always a price where there’s something to win, doesn’t it? However, with Kickstarter, I’ve found that the only setback is time. It is insanely time-consuming and if your campaign fails, all that time and effort was for nothing, yet I believe it is a small risk when there is so much to win.
Go for it!
If you have an idea and you believe it is worth the effort then there’s no reason not to try it! Go and start a Kickstarter campaign, I believe it’ll be an amazing experience. However, here are some of the mistakes I made, please keep them in mind before going live.
- Not doing pre-campaign marketing: Honestly, I never thought about this. I focused too much on writing the story, defining rewards, and making the video, so I kept the project to myself. I never spoke about it with my friends before going live. And social media never crossed my mind. Please don’t make this mistake, do a little pre-campaign marketing at least for a week before launch.
- Not having an appealing image for my project: It may sound dumb. Maybe I’m dumb. But the fact is that I didn’t think about it, I only uploaded an image with the title of the book. I’m in process of fixing that but there’s no way to get back these days without a proper image for my campaign.
- Advertising to the wrong audience: After realizing that I need to work hard to advertise my campaign, I went desperate, I started sharing my campaign on all Facebook groups about Kickstarter projects. The problem with doing these is that it’s like throwing a rock into the ocean. My posts were sinking amongst other posts in a matter of minutes. It wasn’t my best idea to stand out.
What I believe I did right
Not everything has been so bad. Even though it isn’t going as good as I would like, there are some things I feel I’m doing right. The main one is that I have stopped being timid on social media and with my friends. They are the ones who can help the most so, why should I leave them out? If you go for it, please remember that they are the ones who can help you get some momentum. Once they support your project it’ll be easier for others to believe in you and support you as well.
My Project
If you wish to check out my project please go to my Kickstarter campaign (link here).
My project is a book to make it easier for everyone to learn programming (a very useful skill nowadays) so than anyone can apply it to automate repetitive tasks and to express ideas. I believe everyone should learn programming and I wish to create quality education on coding. If you wish to support me you can go to the site and make a donation (there are multiple rewards) and/or share it with your friends.
Thanks for checking out my project!
Thanks for reading my post! I hope you liked it and found it useful. I invite you to follow me and check my project at Kickstarter.
