So You Want To Run A Kickstarter?

Earlier this year, [Anthony Clay] wanted to test the waters of Kickstarter with a low-risk project. The idea he came up with was a series of EE reference posters we featured in a Hackaday links post. Now that [Anthony]’s project is over, he decided to write about the whole ordeal of putting together a Kickstarter, giving all the gory details of putting on your own crowd-sourced project.

We’ve got to give [Anthony] credit for doing his homework. Even before he designed his first poster, he looked over unsuccessful Kickstarter campaigns to see what they did wrong. Once he knew what he was going to offer, [Anthony] put on his project manager hat and made sure he knew exactly what everything was going to cost, had contingency plans in place, and knew what his Kickstarter was before he spread the word.

The best laid schemes of mice and men ‘oft go awry, so of course [Anthony] hit a few snags in his Kickstarter. In his microcontroller quicknotes poster, a few weird underlines made it into the final draft of the voltage characteristics section. Everyone he showed this to thought it was no big deal, but this is something that should have been caught in proofing. Keeping in mind that [Anthony] was only doing a poster and not an electronics project, we think this is a valuable lesson for future Kickstartees.

If you’re wondering what the one thing that [Anthony] credits for the success of his Kickstarter, it’s actually the small blurb we featured in a links post. Once that happened, word started to spread and the funding picked up. To be honest, we’re impressed by that fact, and we’ll try to wield our powers carefully in the future.

11 thoughts on “So You Want To Run A Kickstarter?

  1. tbh a successfully funded kickstarter doesn’t require detailed costings or planning. It is all about razamatazz. You don’t need to have any clue how to pull it off, you just need to give people a hope about something great for cheap – eg. Ouya. Whether it is possible doesn’t actually matter because you arn’t bound to successfully pull off the idea.

    1. No, that’s how you pull off a successful scam.

      A successful Kickstarter requires that you actually meet the goals that were set and don’t end up with a bunch of angry people calling for your head.

      Although he’s not done a post-mortem on it yet, I’d check out the OpenBeam Kickstarter for anyone who wants to know how to run a hardware KS. Incredibly well handled and about 50x more complex than posters. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ttstam/openbeam-an-open-source-miniature-construction-sys

  2. I was mentioned in the Postmortem article, I was the $25 backer that never responded. I would be proud if I wasn’t so stupid and never checked kickstarter or my email that I have tied to the account. :p

  3. I want to run a kickstarter but I don’t live in USA. Funny how the real world is light years behind internet community when it comes to international collaboration.

    1. I would imagine that, because of the extra legal stipulations that wouldn’t have to be dealt with when running a simple online store, an entity such as Kickstarter would need to operate only in the legal jurisdiction in which it exists(eg: the US). It seems like the logical solution would be to open an equivalent operation in the jurisdiction that other overseas patrons might enjoy…

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