A bit about this post. Some of it was written immediately after the Low Poly Dino kickstarter. But I decided not to release it then, waiting until I was ready to start again. It sat for a year before I went back to review and edit it a little in preparation for my second 3D modeling kickstarter. So this is a combination of what I learned at the time with what I learned a year later. In other words, I feel this is about as complete as I can get it at this time.
The year leading up to the Low Poly Dino kickstarter was weird one for me. I was in some financial straits, losing my job and just trying to keep things together. It felt at times like this YouTube thing was the only thing I had that people wouldn’t take away from me. Then I did the first March Madmess series of videos where I spent a month reviewing 3D printers and learned that there’s good money in doing hardware reviews. The only problem was I really didn’t want to do hardware reviews. Then I got a job, and things were better, but not great. So I decided to try something different and launched the Low Poly Dino kickstarter were I spent a month running a kickstarter and doing 3D modeling. And I discovered that there’s could be good money in doing 3D modeling for a month. Fortunately, 3D modeling IS something I enjoy.
I enjoy modeling a lot.
As a fund raising effort, it was wildly successful. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t things that can be learned and done better next time. To that end, let’s postmortem this amazing kickstarter.
What went right
The biggest thing this kickstarter did right was attract some of the most wonderful backers and give me a chance to interact closely with them. I’m going to say “humbling” many times in this write up, and it’sYou Guys
From @AlkeshOne on Twitter
true. If I think about it for any length of time I am left without the capacity for articulation. It leaves me speechless. Even writing these words, there are huge pauses between… heck between the words sometimes. And I’m not a guy who’s often left without something to say. This wrecks my brain state. “Thank you” doesn’t seem like enough, but I have nothing else to say.
When I started this kickstarter, I thought it would raise, at a minimum, $2000. I was going to push for $3500 (As attested by the original stretch-goal graphic). $5000 would have been a great success in my mind. I never anticipated at the end of this thing to be just one backer away from raising $8500.
Again, humbling. That wasn’t me. That was you all blowing away my expectations.
Just to put things in perceptive, this campaign raised in a month (three if you count the lead up and delivery time) more than I make on YouTube in 4 years. That, I think, is a success.
From James Cox
Modest expectations
I set a low goal for this campaign. I figured $500 would be the minimal to do something to improve my channel. Sure, I wanted more. But I figured a low goal, that I could potentially reach in the first 24 hours would put me on the trending chart for kickstarter, and that would lead to greater success. And then you guys blew that away. We hit the funding goal in the first HOUR, and went on to raise $1000 in the first 24 hours.
Again, humbling. Where did wonderful people like you come from?
Getting a Run Up
No doubt, part of this campaign’s success was the lead up to it. A month of videos, each one having either
a hint of dinos or
straight up being about the low poly dinos. Plus, that intro video, I thought, was pretty funny. Sure, it was made for cheap, and it shows, but there was also real effort and, I hope, heart that came through. These might not have been my best viewed videos. But in the end, if you look at them as being part of what made this kickstarter successful, they were worth it in the end.
YouTube
From Calvin Witt on YouTube
However, I don’t want to make it sound like YouTube isn’t important here. An informal poll taken after the kickstarter showed that the biggest reason people backed was to support a YouTuber they loved. It’s important that the video content continue and continue to improve, because that brings the audience, and that brings the backers. My livestreams were some of the biggest boosts the kickstarter had, and when I released a video it always came with a boost in backers.
Gamify
My idea for this kickstarter was a sort of PBS pledge-a-thon. It’s got an aspect of a game to it, where the more people that backed it, the better a deal it was for everyone. I wanted buy in from my backers, I wanted excitement for everyone, and I think I got that. However, it wasn’t perfectly planned, and I will have more to say about this in the next section.
Getting in Close
Being in constant communication with my backers was fantastic. It helped that I had something to talk about every day, sometimes twice a day. I love the video updates. I love the livestreams. I loved the feeling of connection I had with people.
I’m actually an introverted person, meaning being around other people drains me. But I’m a social introvert, which means I love being around other people, especially if I get to be the center of attention. It’s weird, I know. If I were a social extrovert, I’d be a rock star, jamming out in the concert, then partying all night because the concert gets me so wired. But that’s not me. At the end of my concert I’d be like “Good night Cincinnati! No seriously, I’m going to bed. You all drive safe. Thanks for clapping.”
I’m getting off topic here.
Also, by handing the design process to the public, I was not allowed to be lazy. I would have knocked off a few easy models, then maybe challenge myself with a few hard ones. But nope. The public said “Get on those Spinosaurus and Rapors. We want to see the cool ones. And figure out a Megalodon while you’re at it.” They forced me to step up my game. And I produced work that have been the most proud of for a long time.
The Joel Bump
The campaign saw a major boost at the end when
Joel Telling released a video with some of my dinos, telling people about the kickstarter and linking to it. I don’t think Joel realized what this would mean for my campaign, monetarily. But I don’t want to say that in the future I’ve got to get these models into the hands of a major influencer quickly. I do communicate with Joel occasionally, but not because he’s an influencer. And I didn’t give him the models to the exclusion of everyone else because I wanted the boost. That’s not what happened.
From @AlkeshOne on Twitter
I mean, yeah, in the end I got the models into Joel’s hands and I was hoping he’d share them with others, but it didn’t start there. It started when I found an excuse to quietly leak a model or two to many of my backers who printed them and shared some excellent pictures (and amazing time lapses) on social media (which are decorating this post). And whenever that happened I privately leaked a few more to them so they’d continue the buzz (you scratch my back, I’ll let you keep scratching. I like back scratching). Generally, giving away the product before the money is collected is a bad idea. but in this case it was invaluable in generating buzz.
That buzz meant I could approach people who weren’t backers, like Joel, without awkwardness. It’s about being friendly and genuine not about focusing on one or two individuals and ignoring the rest, because they’re not going to give you the boost you want. And if it happens to lean to an influencer or two giving you a $2000 bump at the end (holy carp), so be it.
The Artyzen Deal
From Calvin Witt on Twitter
During the campaign, I was approached by a company called Artyzen filament who were trying to boost their Amazon numbers by having people approach their filament from a certain link and then buy it with a discount code. This was a great deal for the backers, as well as giving me an excuse to put a few select models in the backers hands a little early. It was a real potential win-win.
Digital Distribution
Without a doubt, having a kickstarter that can be fulfilled with digital distribution is the way to go if you can. 299 happy backers in an instant, no postage, no complaints.
What could have been done better
Begin with the End in Mind
I suppose the best place to begin this section is at the beginning. I apparently never learned anything from Stephen Covey because I failed to begin with the end in mind. First of all,
the start of the kickstarter was delayed. This caused me to shave a day off the kickstarter because I didn’t want it to continue through Sunday, though in the end I kinda wish I had, but we’ll get to that. However, more importantly, I didn’t start the kickstarter at a time that would be good for me being present in some way. The kickstarter runs until the time that you started it. I started it at a time when I would be at work at the end, meaning I couldn’t really do anything but watch the clock run out. It was infuriating. I wish I could tell kickstarter what time to end the kickstarter, because I truly believe those first 24 hours were a direct result of starting when I did, so I kinda don’t want to change that. But that ending.
Questioning Kickstarter
Was kickstarter the right platform for a make-a-thon styled fund raiser? Was it even appropriate for the platform at all? Is there a better one? Kickstarter’s pledge-first, collect at the end, deliver whenever platform works great when you’re raising money for a project that will take you months to complete before you can deliver on your promised deliverables, but less ideal when your promised deliverables are basically a being cranked out during the campaign.
If I could make a perfect platform for this campaign, it would take the pledges up front and allow you access to the growing repository so you could access the files that I just threw in there as I made them. Basically you’re buying a key to the party. But I don’t think a platform anything like this exists. So short of writing my own model-a-thon platform for the future, there may not be a better option than kickstarter. Plus there’s no denying the powerhouse that kickstarter brings to getting the models in front of people. So in the end, kickstarter isn’t the worst platform and the best doesn’t exist… soo.
Make a Clear Pricing and Reward Scheme
The reward scheme for this campaign was a confusing mess, and God bless everyone who took a chance and backed me at the $25 level at the beginning. The way I set things up, it honestly didn’t make sense to do that at that point. It worked out in the end, though, thanks to 17(!) $100 backers.Make a Clear Pricing and Reward Scheme
From @sonicmakerspace on Twitter
I had more $100 backers than I had $10 backers. Again, “humbling” is the only word that describes that. But that means the broken math of this campaign was saved by something I couldn’t and shouldn’t have been able to bank on. I should have come up with a pricing scheme that made sense from the beginning, and I will definitely do that next time. Yes, the $100 tier, saved this campaign.
I didn’t think very carefully about what was going into the tiers. If I had I would have realized that, as this campaign started, $10 for 4 models vs $25 for 4 models, well obviously that wasn’t a great deal. But as the campaign grew, the plan was that it would even out, and eventually become an even better deal, as the $25 tier got added to more often than the $10 was. However, I failed to do my math check, and that was not going to be the case for a long time. However, $100 backers created a loophole I could exploit because a $100 backer got a new bonus dino thrown on the pile that didn’t count towards the $10 tier, as that one only grew every 3 stretch goals we met. And that also wasn’t the original plan for the $100 backers. I originally thought a $100 backer would basically get their dino and then reset the clock for the next tier… but that was just a bad idea, logistically. So I subtly changed it where the $100 backer just got their dino thrown on the list and the countdown continued, accelerated by their pledge. This meant that the $25 tier grew way faster than it should have and quickly became a clearly better deal than the $10 tier.
From Chris Taylor on Twitter
Well, maybe not so clearly.
I definitely needed to have a clearer picture of what each tier was getting and communicate that better from day one. Who knows how many people hit the kickstarter that first day and turned away confused. An intermediate tier was just a mistake.
Get Gud
Generally speaking, I’m not a very good business person. I’m not comfortable pressing people to support me. If I did any sort of good business in this campaign, most of that came from a friend who encouraged me to constantly ride that mailing list and get them to back. But that doesn’t come easy for me. I don’t know if I can ever learn to do that without changing in a fundamental way that I’m not comfortable with. But that sort of thing is important to a campaign where the point is to get people to give you money. I’m probably just going to have to suck it up and learn some business skills.
From @AlkeshOne on Twitter
The Artyzen Deal again
As good as the Artyzen filament deal was good for backers. But it could have been better for Artyzen. The deal was to boost their Amazon analytics. So what they needed was a certain number of people each day to buy their filament, even with a coupon. That way the Amazon algorithm would recognize that they’re doing steady business. But they also needed buyers who didn’t buy with a coupon to leave reviews. And this they didn’t communicate to me until after it started. And maybe that’s because they didn’t know that at the time.
And since I had no idea what I was doing, I didn’t get codes in the hands of people committed to using them, and there was no strategy for getting the reviews they needed.
From @AlkeshOne on Twitter
Now, personally, in this day and age of algorithms driving our lives I have no qualms using win-win strategies like this to build a business. And next time I would know better what would be good for them and for my backers. Of course, I’d need a seller who’s small time, wanting to game Amazon, and has a product that is a match for my audience. Kinda hard to find those guys. This time I was lucky. Next time, I’ll see what I can do.
Post-Kickstarter Distribution
Distribution is less something that could have gone better, and more a kavetch about the options that are out there.
There are lots of channels to sell 3D models, and they all want their pound of flesh.
Pinshape and
3DSha.re will let you sell models, but they’ll take a hefty commission. MyMiniFactory… the less I say about them the better. They know what they did.
Gumroad doesn’t take commission, but charges you $10 a month for your shop, which is okay as long as you’re making sales, but when things slow down, they still want to be paid.
Etsy takes a reasonable $0.20 per listing and a small commission, making it a good choice if you’re worried that sales are going to significantly drop later, but it’s not the name people think of when they are looking for 3D models. Of course you could always go the
Shopify route, but you have to handle hosting and web design yourself, and they’ll charge you a monthly fee on top of that. Or you can build an e-commerce site yourself from scratch using, maybe using WordPress and plugins, and you’ll keep a more of the sales after you’ve put in significant sweat equity.
And of course none of these options let you sell a product before you have a product, which works none at all if you want to let people get in on “kickstarter pricing” before the kickstarter is delivered. The “pre-post kickstarter” option. Fair, considering that taking money for nothing is sure fire way to promote a scam. But it does make a plethora of choices, all of which have short and long term consequences. Why can’t there be an option that is basically free, requires little to no effort, is great for building your brand, and gave you 100% of sales?
In the end, I tried a little of all of them and ended up partnering with
Alien3D to build… this web site, which afforded me the option to try an
experiment or two. But it’s been a lot of work.
Digital Distribution, the other side
While digital distribution is definitely the way to go, I handled it by emailing people a link to a google drive file. Now, that’s fine, but I’ve been getting a lot of “I’ve lost the link” messages, and every time I have to go back and re-send them the link. So maybe it would have been better to send them across kickstarter messenger? Well, that’s okay as well, but I think the better option would have been a listing in my shop with a free coupon for backers. That wasn’t an option last time, but it will be next time.
The New Video Set
In the kickstarter, I stated that the purpose of this fund raising effort was to help me build a better set. However, it turns out construction is hard, especially when you’re working a new job 6 days a week and the weather doesn’t cooperate. I bought a few supplies, but I have yet to assemble. If I had put all the funds I earned towards a contractor or handy man, maybe I could have had the new set. But that would have been all I had.
Instead, the balance of money went to improved camera and sound equipment, better lights, and a trip to the Midwest RepRap festival. But having that set project hanging over my head and not being able to do it meant that I delayed starting another kickstarter and buying the equipment for far too long. I tied myself down a single goal that I couldn’t accomplish and it got in the way of me doing what I should have been the whole time. So this time, keep the goal more general.
The new set isn’t entirely off the table, either. In fact, I’ve made some progress towards it recently. But it’s going to be a long haul.
Lessons Learned
This is going to be tough. How to sum up a whirlwind experience into a few bullet points. Let’s do this:
- It’s the people who back that made this successful, and never lose sight or stop communicating with them.
- YouTube is a large part of the success, so don’t lose sight of that.
- Keep the reward tiers simple.
- A gamified model can work.
- Digial-only distribution is the way to go.
- Plan out when to start and, in particular, when the kickstarter will end.
- I’m not the best at business, so I need to get better or get help.
- Keep stated goals general.
Now that I’m getting ready to launch the
Chibimals Kickstarter, I hope I’ll do better this time. But I also hope this helps you in your projects. And if it does, drop me a message and let me know. I like it when people say hello.
