You should already be building your audience, locking down manufacturing, and preparing like you’re launching a full product – not just an idea.
I’m about three months out from launching Quickdraw, and the reality is setting in: a successful Kickstarter doesn’t start at launch. I see too many posts that begin with “Help, my Kickstarter is failing,” and almost all of them have one thing in common – no plan. Gone are the days of crowdfunding where you can just put out a good idea and watch it take off. Getting ready for a Kickstarter, Gamefound, etc. today is more like launching an actual product than getting support for an idea.
This is information I’ve gathered from a variety of sources, namely Jamey Stegmaier’s blog (who has more info on this topic than anyone), the Board Game Design Lab podcast, the Crowdfunding Nerds podcast, and just experiences talking to other indie publishers. There’s much more to all of these points, but I’ll cover the high level to help you start your game plan.
- Build a crowd. Star this one, underline it, tattoo it on your arm. This is the biggest misconception I see today from first time publishers going to crowdfunding. Your success is going to be directly proportional to how many followers you have going into a campaign. All the campaigns you see that have the badges like “Funded in the first day”, Funded in the first hour”, Funded in the first 47 milliseconds!”, they didn’t just launch their project and then cross their fingers. They got that huge immediate swell because they had spent months and hundreds or thousands of dollars on pre-campaign marketing. You can be successful without a huge marketing budget, but organic marketing is hard so its always better to start early. Also, getting immediate pledges and quick funding is going to fast track you in Kickstarter’s algorithm so that they proactively show your project to more people on the site. But it all starts with you building your crowd as early as possible.
- Look at other Kickstarter pages. To drive home my point that Kickstarter today is for basically fully formed product, not ideas, just go browse successful Kickstarters that are similar to your project. You’re going to see a lot of final artwork, box/component renderings, pictures of the game on the table, reviews, walk-throughs, and more. Get an understanding of what is standard today for a Kickstarter so you’re not behind the curve.
- Create a preview page. Don’t worry about a full page with you’re all your campaign details just yet. Right now just create an account and get everything needed for a preview page so that you can funnel your followers to it from other sources.
- Send out your game for reviews. This also means, have a mostly finished game. I’ve seen mixed feedback on how useful reviews are in terms of actual conversions of people watching a review to backing a campaign, but either way they add credibility to your campaign. You can pay for large in depth reviews and walk throughs, or find people willing to give you a review for free. Because reviewers, especially popular ones, have a schedule of games to review, getting in contact and sending games 2-3 months ahead of your launch will give time for them to complete the review.
- Figure out manufacturing, shipping, and fulfillment. This might be the most foreign item for people who are coming from purely a design side of the hobby, but it’s also the most crucial to bringing your idea to life. Understanding the limits and costs of your manufacturer will be key to understanding your funding requirements and how to structure your awards.
- Write down your plan. There is a lot here to keep track of, and only more as you dive deeper. No matter what your organizational style, at least write down some high level plan that touches all of these points so you don’t forget any crucial pieces.
I plan on doing future posts on many of these topics so stay tuned to learn more from my experiences.
Think I missed something? Disagree with any of my thoughts? Let me know, I’m still learning too!