One of my plans for the coming months will be to possibly set up another Kickstarter. But I can’t do that just yet. I ran a Kickstarter effort a few years ago but it failed. I very much want to do another one. There are things that must be done first. There are three tasks that must be completed before even putting together such an effort.
The first step will be to actually communicate with some successful Kickstarter campaigns. The plan is to ask them what they did right, what they wished they hadn’t done and what they attribute their success to. It’s important I understand why these campaigns succeeded and the mechanics of such campaigns. One example is that of Charles Dowd, the creator of Lilith Dark. Sometime ago, he had a campaign to raise US$5,000 for printing an original Lilith Dark graphic novel. He not only succeeded but also raised nearly THREE TIMES the original goal! I will be investigating some of the other Kickstarter successes including the ones I’ve promoted here on the blog in the past.
But that is not enough.
The second step will be to start hanging out with the crowdfunding communities. I want to know more about Kickstarter and other associated crowdfunding tools, learn the tricks & tips of the trade and find support. To be honest, when I went into my original campaign, I did it on the seat of my pants. I only read up somewhat on crowdfunding and based much of my drive on guesswork (more on that in a bit). It’s best to learn whatever I can from the online communities and work that into my own plans.
But that is not enough either.
The third step will be the most important. Do you know what that will be?
I have to take a good, long look at the original campaign and figure out what went wrong with it. While I do have basic ideas, I do NOT want to make the same mistakes I did on the first one.
Once I complete all three of these planned steps, I can then learn and build a new crowdfunding drive.
In the coming months, I’ll be sharing what I learn with everyone. That’s all for now. It’s time to get back to the drawing table.
