Wait, that isn’t electronics...

As a fan of Terry Pratchett’s works I’m always on the lookout for new books by the author which are coming out. Although Terry has a progressive illness he has still managed to produce at least one book year on year much to the amazement of everyone, possibly himself and his fans.

One year in searching for live action adaptations of his books I happened upon a fan project, it must’ve been in 2011 and it was called “Terry Pratchett’s Troll Bridge”. In his world of the Discworld there are many short stories which he has created for various publications and this was one of them.

A plucky group had decided to pull together, find the funding and bring a part animated and part live action version to peoples screens and to do that, they crowd-sourced on Kickstarter.

According to the Web Archive, Kickstarter actually began (with its website) in 2008 but became more developed and gaining traction in 2009/2010 onwards. Since then similar sites have cropped up with different approaches to solving the same problem: helping you to bring your product to the masses by raising the necessary capital.

We require; one MILLION dollars

To say that Kickstarter exploded is an understatement. With the right marketing (which tends to mean, any advertising), hook, graphic design and the promise to get the product into supporters hands before it ever intends to come to the general public or to market then it’s possible to reach seemingly ridiculous highs of money to support your project. There have been a few notable successful campaigns since the start of Kickstarter.

Oculus Rift

I think it would be short-sighted to not mention one of the biggest virtual reality headsets to grace recent popularity. Since the conclusion of its campaign which hit $2,437,429 the headset has since entered its second iteration and now has backing from some of the major companies in the world along with its most prolific developers such as John Carmack of ID Software fame and Valve Software whom created the Steam digital distribution platform and Half-Life. Not to mention the company, Oculus has now been purchased by Facebook.

3Doodler

If you've seen a 3D printer or know anything about one then the image that comes to mind is either a self enclosed box or a monstrosity of metal framework with motors and coils of plastic. The 3Doodler took the core parts of a 3D printer and put it in your hand, a pen with which you could draw in three dimensions using plastic. Over 10,000 people saw merit in backing this product, which puts a 190degC piece of metal in your hand and raised a value to the tune of $2,344,134

Double Fine Adventure

There are more than just media projects, hardware or crafts that can be funded successfully. It should come as a 'no brainer' that computer games are a popular medium and when it comes to persons such as Tim Schafer, contributor to major popular games released from (the now considered defunct but not really) LucasArts Games company. While managing to reach a record breaking $3,336,371 Double Fine promised to provide an adventure game likes those of old to the modern day platforms, and for it to be cross-platform.

Can I have that to go ?

I always have a worry when I'm backing a project on a site such as Kickstarter, or equivalent. Even though you pledge your money on Kickstarter.com and it's only taken if the goal is reached there is little guarantee that whoever started the Kickstarter will actually deliver on what they have promised. This is something that threatens every project; even big hitting ones.

The Double Fine Adventure almost suffered the fate of 'too big too soon', or at least thinking it had more than it knew what to do with. There are various articles on the internet including Engadget pointing out that although Double Fine accrued a significant total and in fact was higher than the amount they asked for, it still wasn't enough to support the game and the model had to change. What resulted was the game split into two parts. The first part was released to the public which helped to pay for the second part of the game (both of which should've been calculated to be subsidised by the entire Kickstarter according to the original advertising). This doesn't mean that the project as a whole was a failure; but it shows that it was enough to get started but to claim it'd cover the entire project was a bit over reaching.

Different problems can affect the delivery of projects on Kickstarter, in the case of the HackRF project having reached $602,960 of its $80,000 target; has gone past its scheduled deadlines to have the board in the hands of those who've backed it (backers). Ultimately this has been down to development problems with creating the board itself and bugs in the software/firmware.

When it boils down to it, managing realistic expectations and communicating this to those backing the project are paramount.

South for the Winter...Time to go Elsewhere?

Not every project that goes on Kickstarter works out, some go south, some don't get funded and others are actually outright scams. There are various reasons why these kickstarters are unsuccessful ranging from the product behind the request for funding just isn't a sensible item to poor planning, on some occasions though it may be the case that Kickstarter just isn't the right platform for it.

One such case is the Nidus Gaming Centre in Newcastle Upon Tyne, which is a very localised project that I don't think would have a wide international appeal but would benefit from more advertising in the town that the shop/café is actually situated in. To me the marketing felt off because its target audience wouldn't necessarily be able to fund it via Kickstarter or be aware of the website as a whole to support it. Market awareness is key I feel.

There are more websites out there than Kickstarter for starting your project, IndieGoGo allows for diversity in asking for backing from people. For example, if the main goal isn't achieved then it's still possible for you to gain money for your project. This wasn't definitely the case for the Ubuntu Edge phone which could have received a portion of the pledged $12,814,216 out of its $32,000,000 total goal (the largest known backed campaign in history so far); in this case the amount was refunded, but in the case of the Arduino shield to BeagleboneBlack cape, it was partly funded and it sent out the item to the backers that had supported it so far (I was one of them!)

What do I do?

If you need funding for your project and it doesn't speak for itself and you can't get hold of a graphics designer then talk about it in the social circles / demographic for your project. Word of mouth will eventually spread about it and make sure your communication about it is clear and clean. If the first time doesn't work; then think about doing it again differently. Also don't rely on the crowd funding as the sole income for the project; there's no harm in looking for investors and have them show interest by buying-out your kickstarter. With people seeing that the project is already completed/successful they may be more inclined to jump on board with supporting it!

There's no hard and fast rule of what works and it's entirely subjective and relative to whatever product you're selling. Suffice to say, pushing your project/product for crowd funding is definitely good market research for its viability and shouldn't be overlooked.