In our social media-driven world, Kickstarter has become the mainstream way to get a new idea off the ground. Using the platform, you can gain thousands of backers who are willing to pledge their hard-earned cash to gain access to exciting “rewards” or “perks,” including the actual product once it’s developed, or related accessories.
Rather than voting with “likes” “retweets” or “reshares,” your supporters and people around the world can vote on the coolest projects with their wallet! This new financial tool has led to many rapidly funded projects, grossing hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Want to learn how you can get in the game? Follow the steps below!
Step 1: Create a Profile on Kickstarter
After visiting Kickstarter, you must click “Sign Up” and then proceed to fill in the necessary information. I recommend logging in with Facebook so that you can easily discover your Facebook friends that are already backing projects on the website.
Once you log in with Facebook or fill out the necessary profile information and log in, you will be taken to the home screen of the Kickstarter website. From here, you can browse projects on the platform, contribute to them, or start your own!
Step 2: Become Familiar With The Website
After you’ve logged in, you will be taken to the website’s homepage where you can view popular or trending Kickstarter projects in different categories, as I’ve shown in the two snapshots below.
I recommend checking out the category that you plan to launch a project in and browse through a few of these popular projects. How much money have they received? From how many backers? What kinds of comments are being left on the projects? Invest a few minutes in watching the projects’ videos and looking through the types of rewards they are offering to backers.
If you click the “Discover” tab, as shown below, you will be taken to some of the top projects on Kickstarter within specific categories.
For example, if I click on the “technology” category, I’ll be taken to a list of currently trending technology projects. The page will also contain “new and noteworthy” projects and projects from my local area. One important link on this page is the “refine search” button, which I’ve highlighted with a red arrow below.
You can use this added search functionality to browse Kickstarters based on category, location, and either “magic” (Kickstarter’s own algorithm for detecting interesting projects), “popularity,” “newest,” “end date,” and “most funded.”
Finally, if you click the “advanced” tab, you will be taken to a menu which will give you even deeper search ability.
With all of these search tools, there is no excuse not to do your homework leading up to the launch of your crowdfunding project!
You should know your category inside and out!
At this point in time, you might feel a little overwhelmed with all of the projects on Kickstarter and all the different types of sorting algorithms you can use to find interesting ones or successful campaigns to emulate.
If this is the case, I recommend getting started by looking at some of the projects that your friends have backed. You can do this by clicking the “find friends” link in your profile’s setting menu. This option works best if you used Facebook to create your Kickstarter profile.
Once you follow your friends, you will be able to check out the projects that your friends backed from the Kickstarter homepage, as I’ve shown below.
You can use this feature to get a better understanding of the types of projects that mainstream people in your social network consider compelling! After watching the videos of these projects, you will also come away with a better sense of what you need to do to create a pitch that resonates with the average backer.
Now that you have a basic understanding of how to discover projects on the website, I would go ahead and back a few, even if it’s only for a few dollars. It will give you an understanding of what your future backers will need to go through when backing your project. It will also show you how other creators manage communications with their backers.
You can check out some of the projects that I’ve backed by clicking the image below!
Step 3: Start a Kickstarter Project
Although a Kickstarter requires a lot of preparation and can’t just be thrown up on a week night, I think that going through the process of creating a project will give you an idea of what components you need to get together before actually launching. Get started by clicking the start button, as shown below.
Once you click “start,” you will be taken to a page with a lot of helpful links. If you scroll down, you will be able to check out Kickstarter’s FAQs and guidelines. Read through these now! You don’t want to end up violating one of their terms of service and having to re-submit or re-do your project later.
After you’ve read through the FAQs, click “start project”. For fun, I’m going to start a Technology project called “Test.”
Click “Start.”
There are now a few new action items that you’ve going to have to complete before you launch your project. I’ve provided a checklist below:
1. Project Image (Thumbnail – Will Appear on Your Video)
2. Project Title
3. Short blurb (description that should explain the project and pique interest)
4. Category/subcategory the project should be placed in.
5. Number of days the project will be raising funds for (max of 60).
6. Fundraising goal
You will also need to get your amazon payments account verified, which can sometimes take up 7 days.
After filling in this basic information, you will need to go about creating your rewards. These are items that backers will be able to claim when they pledge to your project. It gives them an incentive to back your initiative. Keep in mind, that there several prohibited rewards that can’t be used in your project.
When creating your rewards, you will also need to specify an estimated shipping date and fees depending on the location of the backer (US vs. International). You can also put a limit on the number of rewards that can be claimed at each tier.
If you’re having trouble thinking of reward ideas, check out these Kickstarter reward ideas, Indiegogo reward ideas, and GoFundMe reward ideas.
At this point, you now need to add the elements to your project’s story. These include:
– A Pitch Video. It’s highly recommended that you include a pitch video with your campaign. By some stats, campaigns with a video will raise 100%+ than those without. Your video should be 3-5 minutes long.
– A Project Description. This is the bread and butter of your Kickstarter project. While your video is what backers generally will look at first when they come to your project page, the campaign description will give them more insight into who you are, why you are doing this, and more specifics regarding the project. Using images, prototypes, and headers are a great way to help break up large blocks of text and keep backers interested in reading more.
– Risk and Challenges. Be hyper-transparent in this section! You don’t want angry backers on your hands when you fail to deliver on your rewards because of a manufacturing problem, or for some other reason, are unable to meet your obligations.
Following this step, you will be promoted to enter information about yourself like your name, biography, Facebook profile, and website link(s). This information will help give backers some assurances that you are competent and can complete the project. In addition, it lets them keep up to date with you on your social media profiles.
This is the last step in the process before submitting your project to Kickstarter for approval.
Step 4: Pre-Launch Preparation and Due Diligence
This is the most crucial part of launching a Kickstarter campaign. The more time you spend in this phase preparing for your actual launch, the better the odds that you will be successful in the long run!
In this phase, I recommend considering the following:
– Do you have a marketing and PR plan for the product throughout your fundraising duration? The most common complaint I will receive from creators is “I wish I had thought more about marketing and promotion before I launched.”
See: 10 Facts to Remember When Pitching a Reporter about your Kickstarter Campaign
– Have you studied industry examples? By researching popular and unpopular projects in your category, you can get an idea of what has and hasn’t worked on Kickstarter up until this point. This can save you a lot of headache when you are trying to figure out the best way to get the word out about your campaign.
– Are your reward fulfillment costs correct? The worst thing in the world is to finish a Kickstarter and then realize you made an error when calculating the amount needed to fulfill the rewards that you’ve promised backers. This kind of a mistake will eat up your margins and can put you in the red!
– Do you have your family and friends lined up to pledge within the first two days? The first week of your Kickstarter is crucial! Typically, projects will not raise 100% of their funding from strangers. They usually will raise the initial 20-30% of their goal from their social network, local community, and family/friends. Getting to this number quicker will make it more likely that strangers will stay to watch your video or check out some of your cool rewards when they land on your page.
– What kind of feedback have you gotten from friends and family? Do your friends like your rewards, or think they are too generic? At what point, when they are watching your video, do they begin to lose interest? Use this period to hone and perfect your page so that when real backers visit it, you won’t lose them for silly mistakes like having a spelling error in your campaign text. For more tips, check out How to Succeed on Kickstarter.
Step 5: Launch the project!
Huzzah! You did it! Now the real work begins.
As I discussed in my recent podcast, launching a Kickstarter project is not like launching a rocket. While there is some science and calculation involved, a large amount of the learning occurs while you’re in mid-air.
The process is far more like driving a car, where you must account for imperfections in the road surface and navigate traffic to reach your destination. You need to speed up, slow down, and constantly take in feedback from your surroundings.
Don’t be afraid that you don’t have all of the answers. Through trial and error, you will quickly figure out what is working and what isn’t!
I invite you to share your experience using Kickstarter in a comment below or on KickstarterForum.org, our companion website.
