Kickstarter: Pros and Cons
Today we will share tips on creating a project at the crowdfunding site and describe the process using the example of a kickstarter, since, unfortunately, it is the most popular and has the most stringent requirements - you will not have problems with the rest of the sites.
List of tips:
live case studies
Write live case studies of your product / project, and do not list features. The user is interested to know what the product will help him with, and not what he can and how wonderful he is. Unfortunately, it is easier to give advice than to follow them. Despite the fact that we knew about this when creating a promo video, we still managed to step on the rake described in the article.
promo video
create a promotional video needed. Users can watch the video and, if interested, read the text, but are unlikely to do so if there is no video. Do not forget the simple truth: it is better to see once than to hear a hundred times. In this case, read. When creating a video, do not hesitate to show the most interesting things from the very first frames - everyone is terribly tired of talking heads and if known people can get away with this, then he is unlikely to get away with others. In the best case, the user clicks the video, and given that the kickstarter does not allow you to jump to unloaded areas, many videos remain unanswered. This also applies to the duration of the video: 3-4 minutes still all right, but if the user sees that more time is needed, his desire to even simply turn on the video drops sharply. Can you tell the idea in 1-2 minutes? The best way! If you need to give details, then you can put them either in another video that goes in the project description, or simply in the text.
If you simply have nothing to show, since there is only a bare idea in your hands, then find someone who will speak about the idea brightly, with charisma. There is nothing more disheartening than looking at a boring storyteller.
voice acting
If you decide to create a promotional video, and even if you speak in your native language, it’s better to use the services of a professional announcer, rather than trying to voice it yourself. On fiverr.com or another resource you can easily find a suitable candidate. Good pronunciation and diction are your assistants in winning the user's favor and in his understanding of the information being conveyed. No need to force people to rewind and turn up the volume to the maximum to hear what you said. Duplication of information in the form of subtitles will be a great idea: it will help those who find it difficult to understand English by ear, or if you are voicing a video in another language for some reason, then give information in English even in subtitles.
')
write correctly
errors greatly affect the user's opinion, so re-read the text more than once or twice. If you write in a language that is not native to yourself, it is advisable to deduct everyone who speaks it perfectly. This is very budget, you can once again use the services of fiverr.com
simplicity
we deliberately took a risk and prepared our first project for people with knowledge of such terrible words as Bitcoin, P2P, etc. We published information about the project, respectively, in various specialized forums, but this did not work, to which, in general, we were ready. After posting on the kickstarter, we received a lot of letters in the style: “Wah! It sounds very cool, but completely incomprehensible. ” Therefore, we decided to write for the future for a wide range of people. It is difficult: “to write simply about the complex is not just” K.O.
emotions
It is sometimes very difficult to tell ordinary users what the salt of your product is. In this case, play on emotions. Suppose the user does not understand all the technical subtleties (often this is not necessary), but says “Shut up and take my money!” ©. Humor, a good joke or some kind of emotional charge is a great addition to the video and can push people to take the last necessary step towards their decision to help the project and / or share a link to it with their friends. Help in disseminating information is often more important than direct financial participation.
common misconception
It is a misconception that the main thing is to get on a kickstarter, and there are already many who support the project. It's not like that at all. Kickstarter practically does not give you donors (only if you are not lucky enough to get into the Project of the Day or Staff Pick) you need to attract them to the kickstarter yourself! This is one of the reasons for disappointment and the question “why then go on a kickstarter?” This is a good question and more and more people have been asking it recently, refusing third-party services and collecting money on their own websites. If you are ready to organize a collection of money, then you really should think about not using the services of a kickstarter, or use another platform that makes less demands and often takes a smaller percentage. So, what are the pros and cons when placed on a kickstarter?
Minuses:
Pros:
And another answer to the question that we were repeatedly asked: is it possible to publish the same project at different sites at the same time? Yes you can. This is not prohibited by the rules of the kickstarter, but it is very difficult to convince people to come to the same site, they should not be scattered in different ways. However, upon completion of the collection on one site, you can try to continue to collect on the other. At the end of the fundraising, people often continue to ask how and where they can participate in supporting the project.
awards
You must offer something to your donars in exchange for their money. Usually this is the result of your project itself, a certain product and various trinkets like souvenirs, t-shirts, mugs and other things. To offer interesting and worthy rewards is a big deal. Even if people want to support your project, but the rewards are frankly weak and useless, you should not rely on cash flow. It should be very clear that if you need to collect, for example, $ 10,000, then you need to declare $ 30,000 - $ 40,000, since you should lay not only the cost of rewards and expenses for Kickstarter and Amazon Payments + taxes, but also the costs of your campaign: promotional materials, PR, etc. Some idea you will be given the figures given here http://148apps.biz/kickstarter-pros-and-cons/
create community
Probably the most important advice: before publishing a project, take care to create a loyal community around it - people that will support you and your team morally and financially, as well as help in disseminating information about the project. To do this, write articles, talk about your development experience, which may be useful to others. Show the project creation process, technical implementation details, details. Why it was done so and not otherwise. Be generous in sharing your experience, perhaps people will help you in return in due time. However, remember: there will always be those who do not appreciate your work, your project or article. People can be negative for various reasons. Thank those who expressed constructive criticism, even if not the best word, it is still worth the help and will help you improve the project / article; and keep silent, but do not engage in controversy in the opposite case - yes, it is a shame when they criticize something that is necessary for so much work, but what you say in a rash can greatly damage the cause, even if the critic is not right. Remember, people are emotionally on the side of other users, not yours. This is not because they are against you, just in these relations you are and they are an unflattering word to one of the users, easily perceived by others.
Allow your users to subscribe to your newsletter, collect their email addresses and you will have the necessary initial audience after launching or during fundraising. It is necessary to collect at least several hundred potential donors before the publication of the project, some of them will be the first for which others will catch up - it is much easier for a person to decide on something if this decision has already been made by someone else. Sociality in action.
PR
You can spend a certain amount of banknotes on the promotion of your project through Facebook, Twitter, etc., but we ourselves do not consider this a good idea. Try to get users interested in a useful product / project and they will voluntarily help to promote it. It is better than to feed them with advertising. Also, do not use the services of people from fiverr.com or other resources in the style of “tell your product about your 100,000 twitter to falllovers!”. These are inflated numbers and they will not help you attract people - it’s verified.
press releases
Press releases are a very good option, but they take time to create. And, most importantly, we must also convince him to publish profile resources. Before sending, be sure to study the format of the publication and honestly tell yourself whether your materials are suitable for them. Do not send out a press release to everyone.
personal contact
Another good option would be to contact the people in charge of the press directly. At the end of the article you will find a list of such people who can help in the dissemination of information. Please do not spam! Treat with respect to someone else's time, contact only if you are sure that your material may be interesting to them.
and last
use
www.alexa.com
www.google.com/trends
if you need to find out the popularity of the resource for the intended publication
Remember that it is often worth publishing your projects not only and not so much for the sake of money, but for people to simply know about it.
We will try to consider all of the above for preparing a new project, the announcement of which we will do in the foreseeable future. If you want to receive a notification about it, we will be glad to see you on the list of subscribers to our newsletter ! Either you can follow us on twitter or on facebook
We hope that our experience will help you in creating your own projects!
references:
www.kickstarter.com/help/stats Useful Kickstarter Statistics
www.kickstarter.com/projects/1129580574/ia-individual-assistant link to our past project
Some alternatives to kickstarters:
www.indiegogo.com
www.rockethub.com
peerbackers.com
www.crowdtilt.com
If your project is related to charity, then the following sites will help you:
crowdrise.com
www.globalgiving.org
www.gofundme.com
fundrazr.com
www.justgiving.com
www.firstgiving.com
www.causes.com
For press releases. Thanks to lastochkoff and his article habrahabr.ru/post/141371 :
tips [at] allthingsd.com
tips [at] businessinsider.com
news [at] centernetworks.com
tips [at] geekwire.com
press-leads [at] gigaom.com
new [at] infoq.com
tips [at] inquisitr.com
editorial [at] kernelmag.com
tips [at] lifehacker.com
muonews [at] makeuseof.com
tips [at] pandodaily.com
ashish [at] pluggd.in
tips [at] readwriteweb.com
hello [at] splatf.com
editors [at] tech.li
tips [at] thenextweb.com
tips [at] venturebeat.com
tips [at] xconomy.com
Receiving information via web form:
Ars technica
Boingboing
Daily tech
Killerstartups
Mashable
Sitepoint
Theverge
Techdirt
Techvibes
Techcocktail
The register
Twitter accounts:
allthingsd
betabeat
building43
centernetworks
geekwire
gigaom
Johnhcook
karaswisher
makeuseof
mashablehq
paidcontent
pandodaily
Rww
sai
sitepoint
Techcocktail
techdirt
techDOTli
techvibes
Todddishop
twitter.ars
venturebeat
verge
waltmossberg
List of tips:
live case studies
Write live case studies of your product / project, and do not list features. The user is interested to know what the product will help him with, and not what he can and how wonderful he is. Unfortunately, it is easier to give advice than to follow them. Despite the fact that we knew about this when creating a promo video, we still managed to step on the rake described in the article.
promo video
create a promotional video needed. Users can watch the video and, if interested, read the text, but are unlikely to do so if there is no video. Do not forget the simple truth: it is better to see once than to hear a hundred times. In this case, read. When creating a video, do not hesitate to show the most interesting things from the very first frames - everyone is terribly tired of talking heads and if known people can get away with this, then he is unlikely to get away with others. In the best case, the user clicks the video, and given that the kickstarter does not allow you to jump to unloaded areas, many videos remain unanswered. This also applies to the duration of the video: 3-4 minutes still all right, but if the user sees that more time is needed, his desire to even simply turn on the video drops sharply. Can you tell the idea in 1-2 minutes? The best way! If you need to give details, then you can put them either in another video that goes in the project description, or simply in the text.
If you simply have nothing to show, since there is only a bare idea in your hands, then find someone who will speak about the idea brightly, with charisma. There is nothing more disheartening than looking at a boring storyteller.
voice acting
If you decide to create a promotional video, and even if you speak in your native language, it’s better to use the services of a professional announcer, rather than trying to voice it yourself. On fiverr.com or another resource you can easily find a suitable candidate. Good pronunciation and diction are your assistants in winning the user's favor and in his understanding of the information being conveyed. No need to force people to rewind and turn up the volume to the maximum to hear what you said. Duplication of information in the form of subtitles will be a great idea: it will help those who find it difficult to understand English by ear, or if you are voicing a video in another language for some reason, then give information in English even in subtitles.
')
write correctly
errors greatly affect the user's opinion, so re-read the text more than once or twice. If you write in a language that is not native to yourself, it is advisable to deduct everyone who speaks it perfectly. This is very budget, you can once again use the services of fiverr.com
simplicity
we deliberately took a risk and prepared our first project for people with knowledge of such terrible words as Bitcoin, P2P, etc. We published information about the project, respectively, in various specialized forums, but this did not work, to which, in general, we were ready. After posting on the kickstarter, we received a lot of letters in the style: “Wah! It sounds very cool, but completely incomprehensible. ” Therefore, we decided to write for the future for a wide range of people. It is difficult: “to write simply about the complex is not just” K.O.
emotions
It is sometimes very difficult to tell ordinary users what the salt of your product is. In this case, play on emotions. Suppose the user does not understand all the technical subtleties (often this is not necessary), but says “Shut up and take my money!” ©. Humor, a good joke or some kind of emotional charge is a great addition to the video and can push people to take the last necessary step towards their decision to help the project and / or share a link to it with their friends. Help in disseminating information is often more important than direct financial participation.
common misconception
It is a misconception that the main thing is to get on a kickstarter, and there are already many who support the project. It's not like that at all. Kickstarter practically does not give you donors (only if you are not lucky enough to get into the Project of the Day or Staff Pick) you need to attract them to the kickstarter yourself! This is one of the reasons for disappointment and the question “why then go on a kickstarter?” This is a good question and more and more people have been asking it recently, refusing third-party services and collecting money on their own websites. If you are ready to organize a collection of money, then you really should think about not using the services of a kickstarter, or use another platform that makes less demands and often takes a smaller percentage. So, what are the pros and cons when placed on a kickstarter?
Minuses:
- You must be a resident or have a friend in US / UK ready to help you to have a bank account in one of these countries
- premoderation You still have to do a promo video and all the necessary information for potential donors, but the kickstarter requirements are becoming tougher and not every project will be pre-moderated: there is no ready-made prototype? The path to the tech section is closed to you. Is your project related to charity? The path is closed. Also, not every IT project will pass if the moderator considers it to be “insufficiently creative”. The project should have a clear phase of completion, that is, you will not receive money for a project that does not have any product at the exit. More information here www.kickstarter.com/help/guidelines
Nevertheless, according to them, about 75% of the projects are moderated - in case of a successful fundraising, you will pay 5% Kickstarter and another 3-5% Amazon Payments + taxes in the country of the open account
- this is not quite a minus, but you need to keep in mind that financing for a kickstarter works in the key “all or nothing”, that is, if your project has not collected the full amount, it will not be funded at all
Pros:
- if you are chosen by the kickstarter team in the Project of the Day or Staff Pick, this will significantly increase the influx of people to the page of your project, respectively, significantly increase the chances of collecting the required amount
- there is no need to think about the technical side of collecting money
- it's easier for users to trust and give money to the kickstarter than to your site, especially if you are an unknown small team to anyone
- We received several offers from Chinese manufacturers after placing their project on Kickstarter - obviously, they monitor it for possible cooperation
And another answer to the question that we were repeatedly asked: is it possible to publish the same project at different sites at the same time? Yes you can. This is not prohibited by the rules of the kickstarter, but it is very difficult to convince people to come to the same site, they should not be scattered in different ways. However, upon completion of the collection on one site, you can try to continue to collect on the other. At the end of the fundraising, people often continue to ask how and where they can participate in supporting the project.
awards
You must offer something to your donars in exchange for their money. Usually this is the result of your project itself, a certain product and various trinkets like souvenirs, t-shirts, mugs and other things. To offer interesting and worthy rewards is a big deal. Even if people want to support your project, but the rewards are frankly weak and useless, you should not rely on cash flow. It should be very clear that if you need to collect, for example, $ 10,000, then you need to declare $ 30,000 - $ 40,000, since you should lay not only the cost of rewards and expenses for Kickstarter and Amazon Payments + taxes, but also the costs of your campaign: promotional materials, PR, etc. Some idea you will be given the figures given here http://148apps.biz/kickstarter-pros-and-cons/
create community
Probably the most important advice: before publishing a project, take care to create a loyal community around it - people that will support you and your team morally and financially, as well as help in disseminating information about the project. To do this, write articles, talk about your development experience, which may be useful to others. Show the project creation process, technical implementation details, details. Why it was done so and not otherwise. Be generous in sharing your experience, perhaps people will help you in return in due time. However, remember: there will always be those who do not appreciate your work, your project or article. People can be negative for various reasons. Thank those who expressed constructive criticism, even if not the best word, it is still worth the help and will help you improve the project / article; and keep silent, but do not engage in controversy in the opposite case - yes, it is a shame when they criticize something that is necessary for so much work, but what you say in a rash can greatly damage the cause, even if the critic is not right. Remember, people are emotionally on the side of other users, not yours. This is not because they are against you, just in these relations you are and they are an unflattering word to one of the users, easily perceived by others.
Allow your users to subscribe to your newsletter, collect their email addresses and you will have the necessary initial audience after launching or during fundraising. It is necessary to collect at least several hundred potential donors before the publication of the project, some of them will be the first for which others will catch up - it is much easier for a person to decide on something if this decision has already been made by someone else. Sociality in action.
PR
You can spend a certain amount of banknotes on the promotion of your project through Facebook, Twitter, etc., but we ourselves do not consider this a good idea. Try to get users interested in a useful product / project and they will voluntarily help to promote it. It is better than to feed them with advertising. Also, do not use the services of people from fiverr.com or other resources in the style of “tell your product about your 100,000 twitter to falllovers!”. These are inflated numbers and they will not help you attract people - it’s verified.
press releases
Press releases are a very good option, but they take time to create. And, most importantly, we must also convince him to publish profile resources. Before sending, be sure to study the format of the publication and honestly tell yourself whether your materials are suitable for them. Do not send out a press release to everyone.
personal contact
Another good option would be to contact the people in charge of the press directly. At the end of the article you will find a list of such people who can help in the dissemination of information. Please do not spam! Treat with respect to someone else's time, contact only if you are sure that your material may be interesting to them.
and last
use
www.alexa.com
www.google.com/trends
if you need to find out the popularity of the resource for the intended publication
Remember that it is often worth publishing your projects not only and not so much for the sake of money, but for people to simply know about it.
We will try to consider all of the above for preparing a new project, the announcement of which we will do in the foreseeable future. If you want to receive a notification about it, we will be glad to see you on the list of subscribers to our newsletter ! Either you can follow us on twitter or on facebook
We hope that our experience will help you in creating your own projects!
references:
www.kickstarter.com/help/stats Useful Kickstarter Statistics
www.kickstarter.com/projects/1129580574/ia-individual-assistant link to our past project
Some alternatives to kickstarters:
www.indiegogo.com
www.rockethub.com
peerbackers.com
www.crowdtilt.com
If your project is related to charity, then the following sites will help you:
crowdrise.com
www.globalgiving.org
www.gofundme.com
fundrazr.com
www.justgiving.com
www.firstgiving.com
www.causes.com
For press releases. Thanks to lastochkoff and his article habrahabr.ru/post/141371 :
tips [at] allthingsd.com
tips [at] businessinsider.com
news [at] centernetworks.com
tips [at] geekwire.com
press-leads [at] gigaom.com
new [at] infoq.com
tips [at] inquisitr.com
editorial [at] kernelmag.com
tips [at] lifehacker.com
muonews [at] makeuseof.com
tips [at] pandodaily.com
ashish [at] pluggd.in
tips [at] readwriteweb.com
hello [at] splatf.com
editors [at] tech.li
tips [at] thenextweb.com
tips [at] venturebeat.com
tips [at] xconomy.com
Receiving information via web form:
Ars technica
Boingboing
Daily tech
Killerstartups
Mashable
Sitepoint
Theverge
Techdirt
Techvibes
Techcocktail
The register
Twitter accounts:
allthingsd
betabeat
building43
centernetworks
geekwire
gigaom
Johnhcook
karaswisher
makeuseof
mashablehq
paidcontent
pandodaily
Rww
sai
sitepoint
Techcocktail
techdirt
techDOTli
techvibes
Todddishop
twitter.ars
venturebeat
verge
waltmossberg
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/161519/
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