Running a Kickstarter was fun. The DIY Spray Can Vinyl Toy was a success. We made goal in 9 days and went well over goal by the end of 30 days. We at Discordia Merchandising did a lot of research to prepare for our first Kickstarter project, and still ended up picking up a few tricks in the process. Here is a few things we learned.
Tips:
1. Study other Projects. Learn from others mistakes. Figure out what they did wrong, and avoid making their errors. Do your research. Download the KS App and watch those Ending Soon Projects, as well as Newest Projects for the Dos and Dont's.
2. Pay for as much of the preliminary expenses as possible. Don't
expect Supporters to put down cash for something you won't invest in
yourself. This will also likely put your item into production before your KS project even begins and speed up the fulfillment of your items to Supporters. Being able to provide the project items to Supporters in weeks instead of months or even a year or more later is a much better look. A Pre-Order Kickstarter is much more appealing to potential supporters.
3. Don't bill your Supporters for your production costs. Just let them pre-order the product alone. See #2. Sure MOST KS projects do exactly that, and does that make it ok? Not
really. Any business writes off their expenses on their taxes. If you
run a KS and get the public to give you those funds, that's not
investment any more, that's income! If you write that off as anything
else, that is technically tax fraud. And in the case of Supporters
funding your project, be it Music, Toys, etc. that basically makes those
Supporters your Producers and they technically own your production and
the rights to it. Ask any Music Producer who owns Studio Recordings.
4. Offer Double, Triple, and Quadruple the items! Offer Wholesale!
Supporters will likely want more than one of an item. Will want extras,
for gifts to friends. Will want to stock your product in their shops and
test sales. This will spawn future Wholesale orders. This is way better than expecting Supporters to make a pledge and then double it or triple it and message you about the extra items. And when they do go about doing just that, you will miss out on shipping costs for those additionals that will come out of your pocket in the end.
5. Don't
count on the KS Community alone to make your project happen. If you
don't have a pre-existing network of Supporters of your own, on social
media, blog, or email list, you will fail! Around 50% of our Supporter
base was KS Community, the other half we drew in from across the web by
all those other means. Without our own pull, we would have gotten no
where at all.
6. Participate in the KS Community. Take the time to Sign Up, Download the App, Connect your Facebook, and Follow other KS Community Members and projects in advance. Years in advance if possible. Support other projects, as much as you can, in advance as well. Other KS Community Members will get notifications of your support and take extra note of your project launch because of it. Give and Support. No one likes a leech.
7. Make your Goal as low as possible. Better to have a small success than a huge failure. We have seen many other projects asking for $15,000 and getting to $10,000, asking for $175,000 and getting to $100,000. Do your best to lower costs and get that goal down to the lowest level possible. Again See #2.
8. Make sure your item is available after the Kickstarter on a retail
site. What good is all that exposure and success if you have no Retail
follow through? Seriously, we've seen KS projects with cool items on
offer, and then after the KS is over you can't even locate a shop that sells the
excess production run, or even get the project director to answer a
single email about getting any of it wholesale off them. WTF?
9. Network with Artists to offer additional Tie-In Items. We got down with 10 Custom Toy Artists from Carson Catlin to Patrick Wong to JCorp to offer Customized DIY Spray Can Vinyl Toys to Supporters. This helped us to reach more potential Supporters via those Artists informing their fan bases. And their Reward Tiers helped us to make our KS Goal quicker. FIY, we committed to providing them each with 90% of the asking price they set for their Custom Toys.
Maybe you don't agree with all of these points and sure they won't all fit your particular KS project. But hey, this was our experience. And we did pretty good.
In fact, will be coming back with another Kickstarter DIY Toy very soon. One designed by a Designer Toy Award Nominee.
So Stay Tuned! DIY Spray Can Vinyl Toy - RETAIL HERE: LINK
DIY Spray Can Vinyl Toy - WHOLESALE HERE: LINK
Posted By: Starr Mignon
