Diary of a successful Kickstarter

Quite a few people asked about our Kickstarter campaign, so I thought I would write a blog post about it. This will also inaugurate my personal blog. I hope you will enjoy!

I run a game studio called Atom Republic. Earlier this year, we successfully raised £25k via Kickstarter (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/882445008/atom-universe-a-virtual-reality-theme-park-on-pc-a?ref=card) to make a VR virtual world build around a theme park, for PS4 and PC. We learned a lot in the process. Here are some tips if you would like to run your own crowd-funding campaign:

Before the campaign

-decide of a launch date and duration

-tell your social media community a few weeks in advance, announce the date. You need most of your donations in the first few days to create a momentum. Consider Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Linkedin groups etc...

-tell your friends

-tell your family

-get people you trust to proof-read your campaign page

-seek advice from Kickstarter themselves, they're really helpful

-seek advice from people who attempted a Kickstarter campaign before you

-choose the right PR agent, that won't be the cheapest.

-build up your Kickstarter page with animated gifs to attract the viewer's attention, and clearly explain the rewards for each pledge level.

-add subtitles to your video trailer, to make sure everyone understands what's being said.

Diary of the campaign

15th March: launch!

24th March: Moments of doubt

-The typical funding curve should reach 30% in the first couple of days: normally this can predict that is when you know you'll succeed. We looked like we'd fail...

1st April: April's fool?

We went from 39% to 72% funding in 24 hours! In 1 day we doubled what we earned in 2 weeks... Why? All this happened:

-PlayStation Home ended that day, prompting its users to look for an alternative virtual world.

-Youtuber "Casey Likes Games" featured us

-a PS4 demo got released

3rd April: False alarm

We attained the goal for a few minutes... Then our biggest backer withdraws his £4,000 pledge !

4th April: goal attained again !

This is when we had to publish an update with our stretch goals

5th April: stretch goal

8th April: stalling again

-People withdrew their pledges as new backers pledged! One particular “backer” pledged then withdrew £2,000, 3 times.

-unpopular and unclear stretch goal?

16th April: rollercoaster ride

We did it, got 125% of our funding! But it was a rollercoaster of a ride, and very stressful: until the very end, we were far from certain we would succeed, for fear of another big backer withdrawing their pledge at the last minute.

Lessons learned

#1: Statistics are just statistics

-Typical Kickstarter curve:

Take those statistics with a pinch of salt, every project is different. For us the timing was crucial, the 1st April was when everything happened half-way through due to external circumstances, but we knew they would happen, that's why we timed our campaign around the 1st April.

#2: Educate your audience

-Some people don’t always read all your updates, you'll come across misinterpretations rumours. The worst part of the campaign was having to fight the avalanche of misinformation spread through the comments (we got no less than 615 comments in a month)

-most backers don’t understand how Kickstarter works: the fact that if the project fails, they keep their money for instance.

-Use the updates and social media to patiently respond and explain (community management).

-explain your stretch goals: people don’t understand why you ask more after getting what you wanted. In retrospect, this is one thing I think we could have done better.

Was it worth it?

What did it cost us?

2 man-months off our project development, to inform and respond:

-Twitch broadcasts

-Posted 38 updates

-6 Youtube videos

-posts on Google +, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, forum, blog

-Live Q&As in PS Home

-50 extra daily emails to respond to

What we gained:

-crowd validation

-media exposure

-investors contacts

-New partners (architects, musicians, game studios...)

-tripled forum members (300 to 800)

+50% youtube subscribers (300 to 430)

+200 Facebook fans

+ 20% Twitter followers

A few tips

-Ask for less than what you really need, and add stretch goals later

-We couldn't do this, but would have if we could: set up your account in dollars if you have a US bank account: A lot of Kickstarter donors are US based, and they will trust US-based campaigns more. Also some US bank accounts are not allowed international payments.

-Cross-promote with other crowd-funding campaigns (Indie gogo, Kickstarter...): in an update, add a link to crowdfunding project that is relevant to yours. they will do the same for you. For us, we linked to other interesting staff-picked videogames, and VR hardware manufacturers.

-Boost Twitter and Facebook posts, this will cost you $5 to spread your posts to friends of your friends.

-Timing: pick the right date, it was crucial for us.

-find the sweet-spot for pledge levels: check similar projects, see what are the most popular amounts (typically around $20) and have many pledge levels around those sweet-spots.

-Use regular updates to keep community engaged

-Have something to show (a playable demo, preferably)

-No physical rewards: no shipping, no expense

-Propose a Paypal option. You are allowed to have a link but not a logo. If unsure check with Kickstarter. It's better if people pledge via Kickstarter, as Paypal donation are not visible and don't contribute to the success of your campaign. So encourage people to use Kickstarter preferably. But some people don't have a back account or can't make donations abroad: for those the only option is Paypal.