Careful what you promise, you might get more than you can handle.
First World Problems.. being too successful.. Kickstarter has its fair share, and I honestly thought my little project would be too self contained for such.. but.. here we are, and I'm at 600%+ of funding, facing 300+ hours of work for $5.50 an hour.
I hoped to learn 3 things.. How to set up marketing for a kickstarter.. How to Run a kickstarter, and finally how to push through the funding, chasing the market to cross the finish line..
two out of three ain't bad.. but this new lesson, well that's gonna teach me.
I moved my goals around in the first 48 hours, which lost me a little respect.
I added a new tier without properly calculating the plausible (and now actual) end result, and I didn't do my math on the results of that new tier, adding 80% more work, for very little increase in payment.
Kickstarter has an internal algorithm, If you hit certain thresholds within certain time frames, their system promotes your project. People spot it, and if they like it, they'll back it.
Because I had funded in the first 24 hours, I got an initial bump, I saw a bunch of new and increased pledges in that period as the news went out to 'saved' backers, so KS internal advertising was promoting my project.
I was hitting 10 pledges a day or so.. some, maybe 3 from external sources, and the rest from internal search engines. Meaning, if someone came to kickstarter to browse the projects, mine was bumping into 10th place average, people were finding it often and pledging often..
External vs Internal.
Kickstarter works by having people come and pledge, if they don't come, existing pledgers might pledge, but since they have already and recently, they might have spent their monthly/quarterly amount, so kickstarter is likely to prioritize external pledges as being more of an advertising boost for them, as a result, by my staggered posts to several locations about my project, meant I was bringing in a steady stream of backers.. so kickstarter was rewarding me by keeping my project high up in the charts.
Higher than Average follow on pledges.
When someone backs a project, similar products are posted in the spot below your success screen. The problem here might be, after backing a $100 board game, I'm done for the month, so I'm unlikely to back another $100 board game.. BUT.. at $4 a map, I was in the sweet spot of.. just 1 more thing, and inexpensive.. so as often as not, I think, people were spotting my project and deciding that little bit extra was worth it.
How do I know all this? Well that's why I did a kickstarter.. to discover how their metrics work. They use a different link mechanic to record each and every backer, where they came from. If a backer spotted my project from the screen of another project.. I can see which project lead to them choosing mine.
A Break down of what happened and When:
(Apologies, Kickstarter doesn't give out data until later so I had to rig up this, which is in reverse)
The Purple is the "make 100" limited pledge, light purple are people pledging at $4, dark purple are people pledging above $4, and red are people adjusting their $4 pledge later, I wanted to see the typical level of people understanding what they are doing up front, vs coming back and pledging more later.. (doesn't yet take into account the shift from dark purple to red, just the increase)
So far so good. People tend to be pledging at the amount they intend to pledge at, the red 'adjustment' at the beginning stays true for most of this part of the graph, that person was the first pledge, who adjusted up, not realizing he could from the very beginning.
Now, the next stage in the process.. the goal has been achieved.. but I had 12 days left.. How to keep it going?
Kickstarter has this stretch goal system, adding more and improving your product to raise more capita, Its not directly created by kickstarter, it was done by some board game projects and has just become 'the done thing'. I didn't expect to have to do this, so my initial stretch goals were just 'pie in the sky' thoughts, but now.. at almost $400, I had to consider, I was actually going to hit $500.. I needed to have more realistic goals... AND means to achieve them.
So I added in the $3 Easter Egg pledge.. (I named it 'a little thing' but later I couldn't change the name, another lesson learned) but.. note the rocky road after.. no.1 was the first cancelled pledge, there were some adjustment pledges in there, people giving up their $4 pledge for a $2 map, but straight away, it gets snapped up (99 of 100 taken.. 1 left... fear of missing out.. people jumped on it)
People who had backed before, were not 100% keen on the change, some voiced it, some acted on it. My experience is, for every 1 person that does something, 25 people are thinking it. I hope I addressed the concern in my next update message, that I had no intention of diluting the project, I just didn't want anyone to miss out.
C) from here starts The New Yellow Wedge, the new $3 Easter Egg pledge, which as you can see goes as strong as the map pledge.
D) Some people like to help out, this was a map pledge +, just helping the project to get to the $750 tier.
E, F and G) Once it was understood that there were no real bounds.. some people just started pledging crazy amounts, some, to break the rules of the map (which was allowed.. i.e. you pay for it, I'll break it) and some want whole kingdoms of stuff going on..
For 200+ backers, I've had only 5 cancelled pledges.. I understand this is very very good, but maybe in the last 24 hours, some might quickly jump out. (I understand some advertising companies, pledge to access your details, then back out in the last 24 hours)
So there I am..
The graph doesn't show, someone bought the map, and pushed the total to $1830 at the time of writing.. have 20 hours left of the project, so if you've just seen this pop up in your feed and want to grab a final slice of the pie, feel free.
I don't know where this will go from here. There is enough interest, so I'll likely post a drivethuRPG map PDF for $4 or something fair to the backers (can't have it cheaper than the KS price), Many of the backers have asked I do another.. which I'll consider. but won't have it as cheap as this (I'd like to gauge what kind of interest people would have if it was twice the price...)
Kickstarter First World Blues
First World Problems.. being too successful.. Kickstarter has its fair share, and I honestly thought my little project would be too self contained for such.. but.. here we are, and I'm at 600%+ of funding, facing 300+ hours of work for $5.50 an hour.
 |
| My Earlier, colourised, world map.. well, an unfinished part.. |
What went right:
I gathered a decent community of people before I started, I let everyone know months, then weeks in advance, I expected to get 50% of the way there from my own marketing, and maybe 25% from the kick on effect of that, then I'd have to promote it to cross the finish line.I hoped to learn 3 things.. How to set up marketing for a kickstarter.. How to Run a kickstarter, and finally how to push through the funding, chasing the market to cross the finish line..
two out of three ain't bad.. but this new lesson, well that's gonna teach me.
What went wrong:
I was woefully unprepared to succeed.I moved my goals around in the first 48 hours, which lost me a little respect.
I added a new tier without properly calculating the plausible (and now actual) end result, and I didn't do my math on the results of that new tier, adding 80% more work, for very little increase in payment.
What Happened?
Kickstarter, kickstarter happened, exactly as its meant to.Kickstarter has an internal algorithm, If you hit certain thresholds within certain time frames, their system promotes your project. People spot it, and if they like it, they'll back it.
Because I had funded in the first 24 hours, I got an initial bump, I saw a bunch of new and increased pledges in that period as the news went out to 'saved' backers, so KS internal advertising was promoting my project.
I was hitting 10 pledges a day or so.. some, maybe 3 from external sources, and the rest from internal search engines. Meaning, if someone came to kickstarter to browse the projects, mine was bumping into 10th place average, people were finding it often and pledging often..
External vs Internal.
Kickstarter works by having people come and pledge, if they don't come, existing pledgers might pledge, but since they have already and recently, they might have spent their monthly/quarterly amount, so kickstarter is likely to prioritize external pledges as being more of an advertising boost for them, as a result, by my staggered posts to several locations about my project, meant I was bringing in a steady stream of backers.. so kickstarter was rewarding me by keeping my project high up in the charts.
Higher than Average follow on pledges.
When someone backs a project, similar products are posted in the spot below your success screen. The problem here might be, after backing a $100 board game, I'm done for the month, so I'm unlikely to back another $100 board game.. BUT.. at $4 a map, I was in the sweet spot of.. just 1 more thing, and inexpensive.. so as often as not, I think, people were spotting my project and deciding that little bit extra was worth it.
How do I know all this? Well that's why I did a kickstarter.. to discover how their metrics work. They use a different link mechanic to record each and every backer, where they came from. If a backer spotted my project from the screen of another project.. I can see which project lead to them choosing mine.
A Break down of what happened and When:
(Apologies, Kickstarter doesn't give out data until later so I had to rig up this, which is in reverse)
 |
| The First 16 hours.. to 120% funding. |
So far so good. People tend to be pledging at the amount they intend to pledge at, the red 'adjustment' at the beginning stays true for most of this part of the graph, that person was the first pledge, who adjusted up, not realizing he could from the very beginning.
M) The first pledge for 'just a map' it increases at maybe 2 pledges a day for the first 3 days.
A) You can (sorta) see here the jagged increases as people realise they can pledge above the base $4, some friends and family who've come in with their first backing at $10 bring up the darker purple line, A0, A1 and A2 are people pledging $10 or $12, they've got an idea of what they want on the map, and know how much they need.. so hopefully my descriptions were on par, people understand what the 'rules' were and followed along.
Between A2 and B), there are a number of people just joining with increased their pledges, note the dark purple bump up a few times.. they can see 'oooh, look, I can jump from $4 to $6 to help fund the goal.
The Psychology of wanting something to succeed is all well and good, but if you don't give people the tools to do so, how can they. People here have pledged the minimum, but to get it higher, they either need to go out of their comfort zone and sell it to their friends.. OR they can just give a little more.. yet.. what will they get for this little more, you need to reward people, just a little reward, to increase their pledge.
A) You can (sorta) see here the jagged increases as people realise they can pledge above the base $4, some friends and family who've come in with their first backing at $10 bring up the darker purple line, A0, A1 and A2 are people pledging $10 or $12, they've got an idea of what they want on the map, and know how much they need.. so hopefully my descriptions were on par, people understand what the 'rules' were and followed along.
Between A2 and B), there are a number of people just joining with increased their pledges, note the dark purple bump up a few times.. they can see 'oooh, look, I can jump from $4 to $6 to help fund the goal.
The Psychology of wanting something to succeed is all well and good, but if you don't give people the tools to do so, how can they. People here have pledged the minimum, but to get it higher, they either need to go out of their comfort zone and sell it to their friends.. OR they can just give a little more.. yet.. what will they get for this little more, you need to reward people, just a little reward, to increase their pledge.
 |
| 13 days of funding, 630%, 20 hours to go... |
Now, the next stage in the process.. the goal has been achieved.. but I had 12 days left.. How to keep it going?
Kickstarter has this stretch goal system, adding more and improving your product to raise more capita, Its not directly created by kickstarter, it was done by some board game projects and has just become 'the done thing'. I didn't expect to have to do this, so my initial stretch goals were just 'pie in the sky' thoughts, but now.. at almost $400, I had to consider, I was actually going to hit $500.. I needed to have more realistic goals... AND means to achieve them.
So I added in the $3 Easter Egg pledge.. (I named it 'a little thing' but later I couldn't change the name, another lesson learned) but.. note the rocky road after.. no.1 was the first cancelled pledge, there were some adjustment pledges in there, people giving up their $4 pledge for a $2 map, but straight away, it gets snapped up (99 of 100 taken.. 1 left... fear of missing out.. people jumped on it)
People who had backed before, were not 100% keen on the change, some voiced it, some acted on it. My experience is, for every 1 person that does something, 25 people are thinking it. I hope I addressed the concern in my next update message, that I had no intention of diluting the project, I just didn't want anyone to miss out.
C) from here starts The New Yellow Wedge, the new $3 Easter Egg pledge, which as you can see goes as strong as the map pledge.
D) Some people like to help out, this was a map pledge +, just helping the project to get to the $750 tier.
E, F and G) Once it was understood that there were no real bounds.. some people just started pledging crazy amounts, some, to break the rules of the map (which was allowed.. i.e. you pay for it, I'll break it) and some want whole kingdoms of stuff going on..
For 200+ backers, I've had only 5 cancelled pledges.. I understand this is very very good, but maybe in the last 24 hours, some might quickly jump out. (I understand some advertising companies, pledge to access your details, then back out in the last 24 hours)
So there I am..
The graph doesn't show, someone bought the map, and pushed the total to $1830 at the time of writing.. have 20 hours left of the project, so if you've just seen this pop up in your feed and want to grab a final slice of the pie, feel free.
I don't know where this will go from here. There is enough interest, so I'll likely post a drivethuRPG map PDF for $4 or something fair to the backers (can't have it cheaper than the KS price), Many of the backers have asked I do another.. which I'll consider. but won't have it as cheap as this (I'd like to gauge what kind of interest people would have if it was twice the price...)
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