Note: All of this was written at the end of the Chibimal’s Kickstarter. However, I planned on making it public before the first PrintABlok:Mechs kickstarter… and forgot. Now I’m writing the post mortem for PrintABlok:Beasts kickstarter and realized I should have made this live back then… so I’m making it live now.

My 4th kickstarter, Chibimals, successfully raised over $5000 with 173 backers. Comparatively less successful than my previous kickstarter, Low Poly Dinos, but not disappointing at all. However, there were a number of reasons why things might have been different, this time.

What Did I Expect?

I want to address the theme directly. Chibimals are a huge departure from Low Poly Dinos, and that was a deliberate choice. When I was considering what my next kickstarter would be, I brainstormed a number of themes and aesthetics to go with them. Spaceships, DND minis, fantasy creatures, to name a few. All of these would have easily met or exceeded the success of Low Poly Dinos. But there was something about them that bothered me. They were all so much… boy toys.

It’s a known issue that without effort, most STEM fields skew towards the boys. 3D printing and making are, sadly, no exception. And I kinda wanted to fight against that, to buck the trend. So when my daughter brought home a book of Animagurmi… it’s like it set a fire in my mind.

Of course, my first thought wasn’t “these are perfect prints for girls.” That was secondary. My first thought was about how these designs were so simple, and yet captured the essential design of these animals so well. I immediately started a sketch book of the designs from the Animagurmi book to explore what they had done. Then I started playing with the aesthetic, trying to push it to designs they hadn’t done. Wanted to figure out what would be the hardest creatures to design in this way and to explore how to address those issues. A giraffe and a manta ray were at the top of my list for difficult designs, which is why one of the first 6 was that Giraffe. I wanted to push myself at the very start.

But, yes, in the back of my mind was the idea that this could be 3D designs for everyone, boys and girls. However, if your goal is making money, you target boys. So, since I was going for a more inclusive audience with Chibimals, I expected it wouldn’t do as well as Low Poly Dinos. I actually figured it would do about half what Low Poly Dinos did. Others around me expressed lower expectations.

It seems we all underestimated the appeal of Chibimals. And I have you, the backer, to thank for it.

I wasn’t trying to prove anything with a shift in theme like this. My goal was simply to make the world a better place.

What Went Right

For sure, there were some things that Chibimals did right. I applied the lessons learned from Low Poly Dinos well, and the result was a much cleaner campaign that was run with less confusion, stress, and headache.

Registering Chimibals.com

One of the first things I did right, and did differently than Low Poly Dinos, was registering a domain before the campaign. I can point a domain wherever I want, so without having to edit any links, Chibimals.com always remains relevant. before the campaign it was pointed at the mailing list, during the campaign to the kickstarter, and after the campaign to the store, and eventually maybe to a custom page for them. And the links made before during, and after the campaign don’t need to be edited. No matter when someone hears about chibimals, chibimals.com will take them to the right place.

Simple Designs

Before starting exploring Chibimals, I saw a TED talk about beauty that said that round and symmetrical are things we associate with beauty. That design philosophy permeated Chibimals.

I can’t deny that Chibimals are technically easy for me to make. Of course I’ve got years of experience in Blender making it a little easier. But I did the same thing with Low Poly Dinos. Why were they low poly? Because that cuts the modeling effort by 1/3, compared to a high detail model. Chibmals are more complete, modeling-wise, than low poly dinos, but not much more complicated to produce.

Chibimals are aggressively simplified. There were even times when I had to remove complexity that I had put in because I that drive for detail is so strong. But I had to keep reminding myself “round shapes, no creases you don’t need”. That design philosophy enabled me to build Chibmials quickly and keep up with demand.

Simple Tiers

Low Poly Dinos had a mid-grade tier which grew with the main grade tier, but at a slower rate. It was my attempt to be inclusive. It was a mess. Chibimals had no such tier.

Okay, I sent a small reward to the $1 backers. But it didn’t grow. I wasn’t trying to manage 2 tiers and confuse people along the way. One simple pile of rewards. You’re in, or your not.

There was a simple tier for those who wanted to support more and a simple reward to go with it. The source files. And of course there was the tier for big money spenders to get the VIP treatment. But they didn’t require individual management any than the main tier.

Simple Rewards

Now that I have a shop on 3DPProfessor.com, I figured that could be both a post-kickstarter selling system and a delivery method. I owe Low Poly Dinos both for giving me a reason and the resources to set that up, and for giving me a test bed for that system.

Livestreaming for Success

The day 1 live stream was an amazing experience, raising $500 in 10 minutes. It set the stage for the campaign. Having a livestream at the end may have not had the monitory effect that Day 1 did, but it was also a great effect. And the modeling live streams in between were a great way to connect with the audience. I definitely want to do more live streaming in the future.

Pulling out the doldrums with Starkey

Every kickstarter hits the skids at some point. There’s the first few exciting days where funds are flowing, the last few days when the people who asked for reminders see that it’s doing well. And then there’s the middle. A good kickstarter will see steady growth. A mediocre one will level out.

Chibimals had an amazing start. More dramatic than Low Poly Dinos for sure. $500 in 10 minutes, and over $2000 by the end of the first day. The first week continued fine, but then it flatlined, and for that second week there were days with zero pledges. In some ways that was good. I had a lot of models to make, and continued growth might have meant I couldn’t keep up (tho as problems go, that’s a good one to have). But in some ways that’s incredibly stressful. What if it didn’t pull out before I ran out of models to make?

Fortunately I had a plan.

With Low Poly Dinos people suggested I release one or two on Thingiverse, and I considered it. I never really had a need, or a quiet time when I could with that one. However, after 3 days of Chibimals seeing no pledges, it was time to try the Thingiverse bump. Octopuses have a long history with 3D printing, so I decided to make my own contribution with a Chibi Octopus. The result was immediate. 7 pledges the next day and constant progress after that. It wasn’t a huge change, but I think it could safely say Starkey pulled this out of the Doldrums.

Digital Delivery is even better with a Store

Since I had the models ready, I decided to deliver the rewards to backers Kickstarter had confirmed made payment. I’m pretty proud of the delivery time I can claim on this one.

And since I had a place where the Chibmials would be for sale later, I decided to use that platform to deliver the Chibimals reward. A 100% coupon for Kickstarter backers means they have access to the same repository as everyone else will.

What went wrong

Chibimals wasn’t a flawless campaign. Not by a long shot. I learned a lot that I’ll be applying in the future.

Mia Kay Showing the Way

Less than a week after I started my kickstarter, another shows up that was basically one of the ideas I passed on this time. Fantasy creatures for miniature 3D printing by Mia Kay. It did a lot of things that I would have never considered. First of all, there was no attempt to make models that didn’t rely on supports (tho it did make everything thick enough to print well at small scales). Also, she promised to give away all the models she created at the end of the kickstarter. In other words there was literally no reason to back this kickstarter, you’ll get them for free if you just wait a little.

And yet Mia Kay’s kickstarter was kicking Chibimal butt from day one. By the end, it had nearly tripped what Chibimals raised. Clearly Mia was doing something I wasn’t.

Of course the theme probably had something to do with it. There’s a lot of money in game minis. But what I think had an even greater effect was the “Get everything” reward tier only being $10. Even with the prospect of them being free later, $10 is a no brainer for exclusive early access and supporting a designer you like.

When I set the Low Poly Dinos “get everything” tier at $25, it was a conscious decision to buck the trend of 3D models being essentially value-less. I may have over compensated, but in the end it worked for Low Poly Dinos. At the end, $25 got you a set of models that was more than worth the price. When making the Chibimal Kickstarter, I just copied that number without thought, even tho I expected Chibimals not to do as well as Low Poly Dinos. Had I had my brain on, I would have set the Chibimals base for $10, maybe $15, and it might have done even better. Would it have done Fantasy Miniatures better? Maybe not. But I think a $25 base tier limited the success of Chibimals.

And by setting the defacto price for a kickstarter of questionable value at $25, I created another problem for myself…

The Struggle for Value

A kickstarter needs to prove to potential backers that it will have value at the end. By making a kickstarter who’s value is based on how much it raises means that a potential backer may look at the kickstarter and say “eh, maybe I’ll wait till the end and see if it’s worth it then.” This of course means that it doesn’t raise what it needs to to create that value, so when those hesitant backers show up at the end they decide not to back, withholding the very thing that would give it value.

Looking at it this way, I have no idea how Low Poly Dinos succeeded in the first place.

Of course there were a couple of things I could do, and some of them I did do, to help mitigate this. To begin with I started Chibimals with 6 base models as opposed to the 3 Low Poly Dinos, to give Chibimals a headstart. Also, I set the stretch goals lower. For as many Low Poly Dinos as I modeled, I was basically making a Low Poly dino for every $250 I raised, even though I said I would do it for every $500 raised. I did this by deciding, after the Low Poly Dino campaign started, to not count the $100 backers as bonus rewards, separate from the dinos added for reaching stretch goals. For Chibmials I decided to set the stretch goals every $300 and attempted to not count $100 backers as bonus. But it wasn’t until after I started the kickstarter that I actually put together a spreadsheet and realized that unless Chibimals raised as much as the Low Poly Dinos, which again, I didn’t necessarily expect it to do, I wouldn’t create the 25 models needed to make it worth it to my backers.

The good news is when I realized this I also realized I had a solution in an idea I was kicking around even before the kickstarter. Accessories. A free bonus that would pump up the value quickly.

I also kinda ignored the stretch goals at the end and just pumped out Chibimals until we had 25 models exclusive to the Kickstarter. 26 with Starkey.

What’s the Story?

Chibimals is the sort of setting that lends itself to a lore. Some sort of colorful world of adventure and whimsy, the sort of childlike fun that really drives the creation process and makes collecting and creating the models feel like filling out a world.

The only problem was I didn’t have story for Chibimals. There were a couple of loose ideas for a lore, but nothing that gelled in my head, which is unusual. Usually I have no problem coming up with something like this. The process of even sketching out these creatures usually turns into a story telling session in my head. But in this case, I just couldn’t decide what the right setting would be.

The ideas I have so far, and in order of my preference for them, are:

• The adventure of an antisocial bear who finds herself on and adventure while learning that everyone is imperfect, but worthy of friendship.
• A creation myth with a void world being filled and created a little at a time (kind of like Neverhood, if you’re old enough and geeky enough to remember that).
• A Pokemon like hunt, except without the fighting. 100% cooperation and friendship.
• A malevolent force has kidnapped the Chimbimals, forcing a small group of heroes to save them one at a time (like the Smurfs or Gummy Bears)

The problem with the first one is I’d like things to be a bit… magical, and the first one is just a life lesson told with cute animals. I’d also like the individual Chibimal bios to hint at each of them being flawed, like having mild Aspergers or gender identity or something. I don’t want to be too heavy handed with it, but I want it to be a message about love and acceptance of all. I just have no idea how to convey that.

It’s something I should have worked out before the kickstarter. It’s something I’m still working on after.

Awkward Voting System

I really want audience participation, but it is tough coordinating that. Thank heavens for Google Forms, and I feel like I came up with some kind of system, but I also feel like it could have been better and I’m generally frustrated with it. I’d love something like reddit where someone can post and idea and everyone can vote it up. That’ll probably end up with Chibi McChibiface, but that’s the internet for you.

Full Color Heard but not Seen

I knew I needed to be careful about how I presented the mutlicolor capabilities of the models. I didn’t want to make Chibimals look like something only for those with fancy 3D printers, like Davnici Colors and MMU Prusas and Palates. But I did design the Chibmials to be enhansable with these technologies and I wanted to show that off. However, I spent and infuriating amount of time trying to get the palate 2 to work with a cheap Chinese printer, and in the end I had nothing but wasted time. Without a print to show that they could be printed MMU, I didn’t want to just show the Davnici Color, so I had nothing to show.

Useful Uses Heard but not Seen

Chibimal are also potentially very useful prints, with large interiors, and I wanted to show that off as well with some large prints that I would make into a bank, a candy jar, and a light. However, since I spent all my time struggling with the palate, that left me no time to make the useful print video either.

Busy Month

I had wanted to do the kickstarter earlier and get these egg shaped models out before Easter, but I didn’t start the ramp up early enough and they weren’t ready until then. When they were ready, it just happened that so were a lot of other things I had been working on. It just seemed that all my roadblocks cleared up at the same time.

I don’t do this full time, so there were a lot of factors that ate up the time I could have been used modeling. I wish that I could quit my day job for a month and just work on this sort of project. Instead, work also chose this time to pile on the responsibility. (That responsibility being that I get to help make makerspaces, so I really can’t complain.)

However, there were probably things I could have done to clear my calendar a bit. For one, I somehow managed to have an increase in Youtube videos during the kickstarter, and not just in videos about Chibimals. These were videos that had been in production long before the Chibimals and somehow managed to just happen to get done during the campaign. However, I could have, and should have, done better to put aside my regular updates until after the kickstarter.

What could have gone better

There were a few things that, while not exactly wrong, or right for that matter, they were of questionable value in the end.

Accessories weren’t the boon I hoped for

While accessories did provide a much needed value boost, did it lead to more pledges? Apparently not. In fact the Accessories announcement seems to have proceeded the doldrums. While I don’t think they caused the slump, they didn’t prevent it either. And since the kickstarter, I haven’t seen many people using them to make custom Chibimals, even tho I’ve shown how easy it can be to do directly in the slicer.

I still think they’re a good idea, and I keep hearing other’s ideas for more of them, but I don’t know if they’re a valuable idea.

Where are the pictures?

With the Low Poly Dinos I made a point of releasing some of the files early to create buzz. Backers printed them out, showed them on social media, and that theoretically drove people to the kickstarter. (It’s hard to track these things for sure.) With Chibimals I also released some of them early, and then again with the accessories announcement I give myself an excuse to send a small pack to some of the backers. But despite this there were very few pictures that were circulated. There were some, but not the volume that was present with the Low Poly Dinos.

Did I release the wrong models? Did releasing them with a craft project come off as a chore? Does no one actually want to print these? Or is the sort of person who would be willing to print a Chibimal not the same sort of person who will excitedly show it off?

I can scratch my head about this all day long and still not have any clue what caused it. It just is.

Did I really reach the target demographic?

It’s hard to say whether Chibimals really reached the demographic I wanted it to. Anecdotally all the women and girls around me love these models, and that’s great. But did this move the needle on the demographics of this kickstarter vs Low Poly Dinos? Or vs any average kickstarter for that matter? It’s hard to say because Kickstarter doesn’t track that information. And for that reason I can’t really reach any conclusion either way. But I hope so.

Lessons Learned

And now for the bulleted list recap:

• Before the campaign
  • Register the domain and point it at the mailing list
  • Build the starters model
  • Start the buzz
  • Build the lore
  • Clear the calendar
  • Check the math
  • Prepare the content to release along the way
• During the campaign
  • Evaluate the value of the idea
  • $10-$15 Get-it-All reward tier
  • $250-$300 stretch goals
  • Frequent and regular livestreams
  • Have a freeby to release at the mid-way point
• After the campaign
  • Digital delivery as soon as possible with a store listing

I should probably also pick a campaign that will have broader appeal if I’m serious about doing this for a living, but we’ll see about that in the future.