Hey! Curious as to how much Kickstarter's Discovery Page & Organic Sales contribute to a projects growth/client acquisition.

Could an extremely good, aesthetically pleasing project perform well (i.e high 5 low 6 figures) solely off Kickstarters Preexisting Clientele and algorithm) Or is it practically non-existent and reliant on external traffic/marketing.

Thanks

Hey all.

I have finally launched my first campaign. I had to increase my funding goal to keep everything honest about the costing of the final development process of the consumer ready product to not risk not raising enough.

Please share any feedback and also spread the word if this is of interest.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rep2max/r2x-count-every-rep-set-and-never-over-rest/rewards

I'm gonna be launching a kickstarter soon (just got approved yesterday) and I made up some nice, colorful flyers with a short description and a QR code to my website but I feel like in this day and age maybe hanging flyers is a little too...old fashioned?
Does anyone pay attention to flyers anymore?
My kickstarter is for a board game tavern so I'd try to hang them in relevant game/DnD/board game meetup places but don't know if it would actually do me any good. I just keep picturing people ripping it off the wall and tossing it in the trash.
**I am advertising through social media and whatnot too, flyers were just kind of a *shrug* why not give it a go sort of thing.

​

https://preview.redd.it/2diyn5q0pbvc1.png?width=1800&format=png&auto=webp&s=8f2bf74f8396af698090ccaf7910d4ede326b9fc

Hey! Welcome to my collection of hand poured soy candles. There will be five candles inspired by Middle Earth, Arrakis, Elantris, Tatooine, and Pemberley, and each will have a unique scent.

Help me make this dream collection a reality and get custom candles or destination candles as a reward.

​

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cjlistro/destination-collection-candles-around-the-fictional-world

​

Thanks for looking!

Hi everyone! I used this subreddit to learn before I launched our Kickstarter, so I wanted to share our journey from our Kickstarter to product fulfillment in case it helps anyone here.

We created Poplight! It's an easy to install wall light designed for renters. We spent 3 years designing our product before we launched our Kickstarter in February 2023. I used the book Launchboom religiously to plan our Kickstarter. I also talked to as many successful Kickstarter brands as I could to learn as much as I could.

There's a lot of great info in this sub about how to launch and manage your Kickstarter. I wanted to share about the biggest hurdles we faced post Kickstarter in case it's helpful to anyone. Our product is a relatively simple electronic product but still required a lot of design, engineering, and testing. Plus, we are manufacturing in China and shipping to the US. That being said, our logistics and manufacturing might be more intense than others so this might not be helpful for everyone.

Here we go!

1. The biggest pain point and most challenging thing for us was hands down managing our manufacturing.

We really quickly learned that it was a full time job to keep our manufacturer on time.

When we launched our Kickstarter, we were pretty confident we could get our product to customers in December because we had already started the manufacturing process and this was the timeline our manufacturer provided. We intended to use whatever funds we raised from Kickstarter to fund our first PO.

We ended up delaying our fulfillment until January, and then again until May. 50% of the delay was due to our manufacturer, the rest was due to the severe slow downs in international shipping (and extreme price increasing in shipping). But here's what we learned through the manufacturing headaches:

• You need a 3rd party quality control team. Your manufacturer can do some QC, but you need an unaffiliated, professional QC team to double check quality. It's a huge waste of money and time to ship damaged product, plus it's bad customer experience. This is an investment, but I really think it's worth every cent.

• You can't blindly trust your manufacturer's problem solving skills. Every 'solution' our manufacturer had for engineering or design problems created more problems. In the early stages, this was because we trusted their expertise too much. We eventually found a great rhythm where we dove deeper on problems alongside them.

• You need to connect with your manufacturer often. We had started our collab with our manufacturer just communicating over email. We transitioned to a weekly 1-2 hour call and upgraded to faster communication via a messaging app. This made a big difference (seems small, but really impactful). I talk to our manufacturer almost every single day.

• (This is not do-able for everyone, I totally get it...) Try to meet your manufacturer IRL. We went to China to meet the team, see our production in person, and meet all the people that contribute to our product. This was amazing for building our relationship with them, but it was even more important for problem solving. We were able to solve things in half a day that would have taken us days or weeks through email or texting. It also saved us so much time shipping samples back and forth since we typically get samples a week later.

2. Shipping and logistics is about to be your new role. I underestimated how much supply chain work was going to be involved. I actually love this work! But it might be helpful to share what we've learned:

• You need to budget for your shipping. Tariffs plus freight can get really, really expensive. Plus, you need to budget for shipping the product to your customer in your Kickstarter setup. We opted to charge customers for shipping when we actually fulfill. I think this was the right choice, because I've met other Kickstarter creators who ended up losing money on their Kickstarters because they included shipping in their pledges and underestimated how expensive it would be.

• If you're shipping your product from overseas, the world of reliable freight times might be over. What I mean is, when we estimated how long it would take to get our product from China to the US, we were told consistently 3 weeks. With the war in the Middle East, low water levels at the Suez Canal, the Baltimore bridge collapse, and all the pressure thats creating on shipping lanes, 3 weeks is no longer the average. Expect it to take longer to receive your product.

I guess the overall lesson is 'budget for more time!'

3. How we ended up on Shark Tank - Use Kickstarter as a springboard for more brand awareness. We used all our wins in Kickstarter (hitting our goal, hitting our stretch goal) as ways to grow our brand and share our wins. We hyped up our Kickstarter go-live date and had built an awesome community of people that were excited about pledging!

Here's the hard part; after you're exhausted from setting up and then running your Kickstarter campaign, you need to keep going! We were relentless about continuing to post on social media and communicating via email with our backers (and non backers so we could try to win them over!). Trust me, all I wanted was to relax for a bit, but we really pushed to continue the momentum. And that's how Shark Tank found us! A producer from the show reached out and we pitched and got a deal on Season 15.

Plus, you can blow all your money on ads. We're really trying to get good at organic social so we can build community versus just pump dollars into Meta (we're still paying for ads though, just have a very small budget).

4. Communicate with your backers. It sounds straightforward, but in the thick of all the chaos of getting your product ready, updating backers can get lost in the sauce. I update our backers once a month, and now that we are close to shipping I will try to update them (as long as I actually have something to share) every 2 weeks. When I share technical updates, I include images and videos so our backers could really see what was going on. I try to be SUPER responsive with customer support, and I think that goes a long way for backers considering that our product was delayed.

Ok. I really hope that's helpful! I've loved this process - even though it was incredibly challenging at times and continues to be to this day. I really hope this helps someone! <3

We are launching our 8th crowdfunding project for Crokinole next month and we're looking for candid feedback regarding the project and presentation. This is for an entry-level board ($99) so keep that in mind.

Link to Kickstarter Preview Page. We would love your input/insight and keep in mind this is a work in progress so we are going to be putting the finishing touches on the project in the coming weeks for a May 10 launch.

Any comments can be posted here or directly in the project link. We are including wax for the first time ever and the price is actually $10 less than our last 2022 project due to decreased shipping costs post-pandemic. Would love to hear your thoughts/feedback or any suggestions or edits or if there are any typos?

Recommend the collab project: The Red Clip Design Team and ANAN are bringing back the retro VTB dice for a relaunch!

​

https://preview.redd.it/pwuo347s69vc1.jpg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d10371385f9459784b472a15d17bdd75bb3959cd

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/theredclip/the-retro-vtb-dice-30

I'm a bit over a week into my first BackerKit funding campaign. I've done around 20 Kickstarters now.. Previously I've used BK (and CrowdOx before that who they merged with) for post-campaign funding and their "Launch" email tool. My new project is Restless Encounters (a deck of tabletop RPG encounter ideas for when the party is resting and the GM determines there is a "random" encounter). Yes, I'm dropping my project link there, but I'm a regular in this sub as you'll see if you check my post history.

So because my prior KS campaign (Fantasy Sidequest & NPC Decks--$28K) didn't do nearly as a similar one before that (RPG Sidequest Decks--$192K) I wanted to try change things up a bit. I still don't fully understand why the latter KS didn't do as well... I think it was a big combination of factors, but that is for another post.

On to the main point. So a week into this campaign and we're at $4600 or so. Even if we're generous and it triples (assuming the old "bathtub" KS curve where you get 1/3 in the first couple days, 1/3 in the last couple of days, and 1/3 in the rest) We'd be at about $14K or so. Although now with everyone focused on pre-launch these days I see many folks saying you get closer to half in the first couple of days.

The primary reward on this new project is just one deck for $5 (pdf) and $12 (printed and pdf). Whereas the prior $28K Kickstarter was for 8 new decks. This new project has a higher level reward to get 3 more related decks, but the prior project also had a similar reward that let people get 24 additional decks. So to say that this new project has about 1/8 the rewards (and therefore expected contribution per backer) that is about right. So from that point of view the prior KS was less that $4K/new deck offered and this is already above that.

Many folks feel backer count is a better metric, and that prior KS had 393 backers, and this new project has about 225 already.

Marketing wise, what have I done? Well, the prior KS did get some early paid FB ads during the first week based on the success of the KS before that one. However, when they weren't converting as well as before we turned that off. The new BackerKit project did get a week of paid ads well before launch to add followers, but probably only $100-200 in all. And we delayed our launch to finish delivery of something else so those leads may have cooled some. Otherwise it has been a matter of focusing on our existing lists of prior backers and relationships with a few other fellow publishers and youtube channels.

At first thinking of all this I was pretty happy with the results. If the new project ends up at 450-675 backers and the prior one on Kickstarter was <400, that's pretty good right? But then I was sharing some of the stats with a fellow publisher and he keyed in on something: only about 20 of the backers came from Backerkit's discovery. To be fair, my biggest bucket of backers (about half) came from the initial launch notification Backerkit does for all the folks who asked to be notified and some of those may have come from people discovering the project through Backerkit's upcoming projects list. But even it that doubles the number to 40, 40 out of ~225 is less that 20%. I feel many folks think Kickstarter projects get closer to half their backers through Kickstarter's discovery. Looking at my prior KS if I'm strict about the attribution too it is only about 20% as well. Other creators tell me they see it much higher--close to half. I only get close to half of backers coming from KS if I include things like KS's ending soon emails and such--but did those backers originally come from KS discovery or from my promotion? Without better metrics the closest we can guess is it would be in line with the other attribution.

And it could be that Backerkit is better at keeping the attribution and KS loses the attribution if people follow your link then bounce around KS a bit then back. It could also be that currently there aren't any big TTRPG crowdfunding projects on BackerKit and if I launched when there were that number would be higher.

Other factors:

• Spam seems to be much lower. I didn't get a single message from "consultants". Maybe that will come if BK gets more popular, but it seems like KS could do so much more to limit it.
• I liked the idea of their "Backer Train". I can't explain it well, but it is a nice little way to try to get some sense of urgency at any given moment. I don't think it moved the needle for my project, but it was kinda cool.
• Support has been phenomenal. For example, I didn't just get an approval email to launch--I got a 3 page punch list. I know it was 3 pages when printed because I printed it and used it as a punch list.
• The editor is better. For years, the KS editor adds blank lines every time I add or change an image! The BK editor also is broken down in to sections that you add and can reorder so editing is easier.
• I'm hoping post-campaign setup will be much easier. Last time, setting up 2 versions of 32 different decks in Backerkit was very painful. Hence why I'm only doing the 2 main rewards with 2 versions and no other add-ons. So it should be significantly easier just because of this.
• I'm really curious about the "Overtime" mode option BK added. Basically, a pledge in the last 10 minutes adds 10 more minutes to the campaign. So the campaign could continue for a good bit if it gets popular at the end.
• BK gives you some price breaks if you used them for the crowdfunding, not just for the post-campaign pledging and Launch emails. I'd likely use both of these even if doing a KS. (KS did just announce they are piloting a post-campaign feature.)

Key Take-aways:

• All of those intangibles at the end add up and are worthwhile to me.
• I might look at the list of upcoming projects and try to launch at the time of some other similar projects by bigger names. Or take part in a group campaign. (They had an enamel pins thing going on recently.)
• My new BK project is a moderately different concept than the KS one that I'm comparing it to. So the concept might be a bigger or lesser hit with my supporters. It is hard to do a true apples to apples comparison.
• But switching to BK definitely didn't bomb.
• At this point it is too early to say if I'll do BK for my next campaign, but I'm definitely still open to it. We'll see how the next few weeks go.

https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/elizabeth-kaneda/bookish-pins-by-snarky-co?ref=reddit6hrs

Hey guys - a quick question:

Is anyone seeing an uptick in canceled pledges to their campaigns toward the end of the campaign? I understand downgrading a pledge, but we've had a few folks pledge up to $125 for a higher tier and then cancel it without selecting a far less expensive tier ($10-20). It seems strange. Is there some sort of scam going around? Do folks do this frequently?

Hi all,

About.... 3 years ago? (Honestly I've lost track of time) I backed this project. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lunacharlotteart/the-octopus-tarot-and-playing-cards/description. There has been 68 updates, the most recent one in November of 2023, with no deadline to when we might receive the tarot deck. I have honestly given up hope of receiving this item and have had them change my address twice already.

However - I have the charges on my credit card and paid an extra 50 pounds for shipping to the UK from Canada, however I don't have the original emails from Kickstarter showing my purchase anymore and for whatever reason - the campaign isn't shown on my account. I'm at a loss of what to do because I could receive nearly £100 back if I do go ahead with a chargeback if at all possible.

I'm launching my first Kickstarter soon, it's a TTRPG Card Game, alongside a Lore Book & a bunch of misc/monetization aspects. - I've been into online businesses for the last 4 years; and I'm certain I can make the project well monetized, (pledges + stretch goals) & can make it aesthetically pleasing as it gets (on the landing page etc) - I've only been looking into KS for the last week or so, I'd appreciate any advice on how to market; prior to launch, post launch & finishing point.

I've heard garnering up Wishlists, similar to steam is a good rule of thumb prior to launching too; if so what would you say the best marketing strategies are? - I'm very experienced when it comes to Marketing as whole but I'm curious where I'd target Kickstarter backers.

Chargeback

I ran a wildly successful campaign last month and got about 6500% of my initial goal. I had a backer pledge $1000 AUD to the campaign and the pledge was successfully collected.

At the time I thought this was incredible! But was wary that it may be a scam. This morning I got a charge back notice saying that Kickstarter will review the claim and act accordingly.

What will happen in this case? Is it likely the backer will get their money back? I’m not that worried as I don’t need the extra money to produce the merch but I’d like to know what to expect. Thanks!

DUNGEONS OF EVERTERNAL KS BANNER

Adventure, strategy, and legend await! We are on the cusp of unlocking a realm where your bravery and wits will be put to the test. The pre-campaign for Dungeons of Everternal is unfurling, and your chance to etch your name in the annals is closer than ever.

Step forth, explore the structure of the campaign page, delve into the rewards, and sign up for the launch. Join our community of intrepid explorers and receive exclusive updates that will guide you to the heart of Everternal!

Don't miss this epic tale! Visit the pre-campaign page and sign up to be notified at the moment of launch. [CLICK HERE]

Basically just title. I launched my first project 3 weeks ago, reached funding really early on, and have been continuing to grow. I'm looking for thoughts and feedback on my project and how to improve moving forward from people with more experience. Thanks!

Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/162406126/towns-taverns-and-tales-a-travellers-guide?ref=odjv4a

Moment of nail-biting is here: we just launched our second Kickstarter. this one is for neurodivergent kids and adults who want to see them thrive. A deck of cards with questions helping kids explore who they are and who they want to be :D Check them out

​

https://preview.redd.it/cykpl6zlk1vc1.png?width=3900&format=png&auto=webp&s=d289df182b8814485dc5c4727824eabc4b2be81c

​

​

Hi, I was planning to back this KS for Fist of the North Star themed santoku knives, I watched the show quite a while ago and enjoyed it, and I like cooking so I thought picking up one of these would be fun. I was just wondering if anyone has any experience or knowledge regarding the materials used for the knife and sharpener, or if there's anything you can glean from the Kickstart listing. My only worry is that quality may not be worth the cost, and the campaign is a bit ambiguous when describing certain things.

Here's a link to it:

Anime Knife -Fist of the North Star Edition (KS Exclusive), via @Kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/giant-salamander/anime-knife?ref=android_project_share

Any help is appreciated.

If I were to raise $1M for my Campaign and I was able to provide ALL Rewards, market & successfully launch the game for $700K, would I then be able to keep $300K for personal use.

Hi r/kickstarter! Spent the last couple of years developing a board game, and we're super excited to launch it today on Kickstarter.

There have been a lot of great threads here we've taken advice from, but despite all our research and personal experience with Kickstarter, this is our first time launching which can be very anxiety inducing. I would love to receive any feedback that can help us improve the page if possible. Thank you! :)
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pieland/attack-of-the-snacs

About the Game:
Join the Huntmaster in the fight to save Pieland from the dangerous but delicious SNACs (Spooky Nectar Affected Creatures), like the Beeholder, Hater Tot, and the Abominable Snowcone!

Featuring push-your-luck dice rolling, worker placement, and engine building Attack of the SNACs functions as an accessible gateway game, like Catan, where it has enough depth for hobbyists but simplistic enough mechanics for those newer to board games.

​

https://preview.redd.it/8z49lqgtlwuc1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=22303eba7a05cec29f2ce834ad2a853bba59ae47