Last summer I started looking at Kickstarter and wondering what I could use it for. I wasn’t really interested in raising a lot of money. I mostly wanted to test it. What is running a campaign actually like? How does the whole process work? What do you have to do before, during and after a campaign?
I figured that if I ever really needed crowdfunding later, it would be useful to have some experience already.
In October 2013, I didn’t just start working on Virivee. Kickstarter also opened up its platform to creators in the UK, and I decided to take the opportunity. I couldn’t have asked for a better way to test the system.
At that point, as far as I knew, nobody had launched a Kickstarter campaign from Hungary before. So I started reading everything I could find about how I might be able to do it from Hungary, even though the platform rules technically didn’t allow campaigns to be launched from there.
I went through Kickstarter’s guidelines from beginning to end and noticed that there was some flexibility in how the person behind the campaign was presented. You could use a nickname, for example, and the city and country information could be entered separately.
For a small experimental project, this seemed like a workable solution. For a campaign raising a substantial amount of money, or for someone who wanted to bring the money into a company in a proper business structure, it obviously wasn’t a solution.
I talked to a friend who lived in London and decided that he would be my person on the ground. I wasn’t planning to raise much money anyway. My main goal was simply to understand how Kickstarter worked, so we would handle the practical side through him.
It would give me a chance to see the whole process from the inside. And, admittedly, I also thought it would be interesting to be among the first people from Hungary to appear on Kickstarter with a project based in Hungary.
The world’s least impressive campaign video
I wanted to make the simplest possible project. Nothing complicated, nothing that required a lot of money or time.
So I filmed the video myself, sitting on a sofa with the camera on a tripod. No lighting, no proper sound recording. It was dark and you could hear the sound of pots and pans in the background. Even with this extremely sophisticated production setup, I made about 50 versions before I managed to say my approximately one-minute text reasonably normally in one take.
There was no editing and no product demonstration. It was basically just me sitting on a sofa talking to the camera.
It was so embarrassingly bad that I eventually removed it at the end of the campaign because I didn’t want it sitting on Kickstarter for all eternity. 🙂
This is worth explaining for anyone who has never run a Kickstarter campaign: once a campaign ends, you can no longer edit the project page. So whatever video you have uploaded stays there in that form.
My first Kickstarter rejection
So I had the video, the project page was finished, everything was ready, and I clicked the button to submit it.
Then came the waiting. Kickstarter doesn’t simply let every project go live immediately. They review campaigns to make sure they comply with their rules.
A few days later, on December 31, New Year’s Eve, I received an email from Nicole:
“Thanks for writing in and sharing your idea, but Kickstarter is not a site for raising general business expenses. A focused, finite project that has a clear beginning and end and expectations that everyone can agree to is essential. Is there a way for you to focus your project on the tights, rather than the studio space? Rewards, in turn, should reflect the project coming to fruition. Let me know! Best, Nicole”
In other words, my project had been rejected. I was extremely disappointed. I had seen dozens of campaigns that seemed to be doing essentially the same thing I was trying to do. They had simply explained in more detail in their campaign text what they needed the money for.
I needed about two days to calm down and think about what Nicole’s email actually meant.
Originally, I had created the campaign to help me equip my brand-new studio, which at that point was completely empty. I wanted to buy some of the tools and equipment I needed to make my tights.
And actually, Nicole was right. The problem wasn’t really what I wanted to spend the money on. The problem was that a Kickstarter project needs to have a clearly defined beginning and end.
The end could be when your product goes on sale, when you finish a course, when you buy the particular piece of equipment you are raising money for, or when you put on the performance you are funding.
The important thing is that the project itself has a clear outcome. So I changed the goal.
My new Kickstarter project goal
I decided to make the project about photographing my spring collection. I genuinely needed the photos, and a professional fashion shoot is expensive. As a very new business, I didn’t want to spend that kind of money on it.
From the beginning, I had followed a fairly simple principle with Virivee: I didn’t want to put a lot of my own money into the business. I wanted to start making money quickly, even if it was less money, and then reinvest what I earned back into the business.
This new project required more money, so I changed the campaign goal to £1,100.
That amount would cover the photography and the shipping costs, and I calculated how many pairs of tights I could make for that amount. I wanted to make sure I could comfortably produce and ship all the rewards within one month, alongside my other orders and my other work. At that point I was still working as a graphic designer as well.
I deliberately didn’t want to raise a huge amount.I had promised to ship the tights within one month after the campaign ended, and because they were handmade, there was a very real limit to how many orders I could actually fulfil.
I rewrote the campaign page and uploaded a new video. This is the video that ended up on the Kickstarter page. It was slightly different from the original, although I wouldn’t say it was any better or worse.
I also kept the original end date at the end of January, so the new campaign lasted only 24 days.
By that point I had absolutely no enthusiasm or time left to make another video, so this was what I ended up with.
This was also the first time I really became aware of how bad my pronunciation was in English, and how difficult I found it to speak naturally while looking into a camera.
Accepted!
I wrote to Nicole again, basically saying, “Here I am, look at me now, please take another look at my project.”
And then the email arrived:
“Your project, Virivee – hand dyed gradient and ombre tights, has been accepted!”
I was absolutely thrilled. I shared it with some friends and acquaintances, but that was pretty much all I did to promote the campaign myself. In fact, Nicole was the main reason the project became relatively popular without me doing much promotion.
She backed the project herself right when it launched, choosing a pair of tights, and she also selected it as a Staff Pick in the Fashion category.
That meant the project stayed near the top of the Fashion section for practically the entire campaign, and quite a few backers found it through Kickstarter itself.
How the campaign went
The campaign went smoothly, and the result was pretty much exactly what I had expected.
There were 43 backers. Only three of them were people I knew. Everyone else came from somewhere else in the world.
I shipped the tights in February, the photo shoot took place in April, and by then I had spent all the money.
The campaign taught me a huge amount.
Afterwards, I started reading much more about what makes a Kickstarter campaign work and why certain things are important. There are some excellent videos, guides and case studies about crowdfunding, and more and more projects were starting to appear from Hungary too, although they were generally not launched from Hungarian addresses, which made them harder to follow.
I’ve also talked to quite a few people about the campaign since then, and several people have asked me why I didn’t use Indiegogo instead.
The answer is simple: back then, Indiegogo was still relatively unknown. Very few people were using it, and it was generally seen as the alternative for people who couldn’t find another way to launch on Kickstarter.
In 2014, for many people, crowdfunding practically meant Kickstarter.
A few things I learned about Kickstarter
Here are some practical things I would tell anyone thinking about launching a Kickstarter campaign.
- Getting noticed early matters enormously.
A huge part of a campaign’s success can depend on getting into a popular section or being selected as a Staff Pick.
You either need luck, like I did, or you need to generate a lot of traffic during the first couple of days so that Kickstarter’s algorithms consider the project popular.
That means getting your campaign mentioned on blogs, news sites and forums right when it launches, and bringing a lot of visitors to the page immediately.
If you manage to get that initial momentum, it can become self-reinforcing and the project can stay popular.
- Consider an early-bird reward.
An early-bird pledge can be worth doing even with very little profit, because it can generate additional traffic and help the project look popular.
There is also a psychological effect. If someone visits a campaign that has only been running for a day or two and already has lots of backers, they are more likely to think, “This looks interesting. I want to be part of it too.”
- Create a simple URL for your campaign.
It’s worth creating something like: yourdomain.com/kickstarter and redirecting it to your Kickstarter campaign.
Give that simple link to everyone.
Later, once the campaign is over, you can redirect the same URL somewhere else. So you never have to worry about updating old links.
- Don’t be afraid to make the retail price higher than the Kickstarter price.
If you show a retail price for your product, it can be higher than the prices of your Kickstarter rewards. That way, your early backers are getting a genuine special offer.This is especially useful if you already know that you want to increase your price after the campaign.
- If you want to raise a lot of money, treat the campaign like a huge wedding.
You are the bride. Everyone is interested in you. You have to talk to everyone. You have to keep answering questions, promoting the event, talking to people and generally keeping the whole thing moving. And there is no real stopping until the wedding party is over.
- Prepare a press kit.
Put together a downloadable folder, for example on Dropbox, containing photographs, product images, logos and other useful material.
Then you can simply send one link to journalists, bloggers and anyone else who wants to write about your project.
- The video is really important.
Unless you are deliberately running a tiny experimental campaign like I was, make the video good. Seriously. Don’t make it like mine. 🙂
More useful Kickstarter resources
Since I wrote this post, there has been a huge amount of additional information published about crowdfunding. But these were some of the resources I found useful when I was learning:
- Hack Kickstarter – 6 Experts Reveal Their Steps to Success
A very useful course with a lot of information and practical advice. It was sometimes available to watch for free, so if you get the chance, I recommend it. - Hacking Kickstarter: How to Raise $100,000 in 10 Days
A very long and detailed guide covering what to do to make a campaign successful, including successful templates and emails. - Cheap / Free Resources for Making Kickstarter Campaign Videos
A useful collection of resources and practical advice for making a campaign video without spending a fortune. - A Look at Play-i’s Successful Crowdfunding Campaign
This one isn’t a Kickstarter campaign, but it is still worth reading. There are some interesting lessons in it.
Good luck with your campaign!
Update: Since I originally wrote this article, an enormous amount of new advice and information about crowdfunding has appeared. One particularly good overview was published by Shopify: The Ultimate Guide to Crowdfunding.