In November of 2010 the team at Custom SLR launched the C-Loop Camera Mount. Having never launched a project before they quickly realized that their friends and family would not be enough to fund their project.

They got to work making lists of blogs and websites they thought might be interested in their project. Starting with smaller sites they worked their way up to bigger blogs. Eventually it was picked up by Engadge and their project took off.

The post C-Loop Camera Mount: How to use blogs to build momentum for your campaign. appeared first on A Kickstarter's Guide.

Related posts:

1. Glif an iPhone Tripod Mount: The design project that started a revolution.
2. Creatively marketing your Kickstarter campaign with Susan Tinkham of Figments of a Father
3. How long your campaign runs depends on one thing, momentum

In October of 2011 Dan Provost & Tom Gerhardt launched a design project that would spark a revolution. Almost anyone who has done a project design project on Kickstarter has heard of the Glif. So, I had to sit down with Dan Provost to talk about what lead to their success.

Besides having what they thought was a solid product idea, Dan & Tom got a plug from a high profile blogger. Of course it wasn’t that simple. In this interview Dan talks about how his existing relationship with this blogger was the key to getting his project picked up.

The post Glif an iPhone Tripod Mount: The design project that started a revolution. appeared first on A Kickstarter's Guide.

Related posts:

1. Capture Camera Clip System: The perfect mix of product and passion.
2. Creatively marketing your Kickstarter campaign with Susan Tinkham of Figments of a Father
3. 24 Hours At The South Street Diner with Melissa Dowler

In May of 2011 Peter Dering launched a wildly successful design project to being production on his Capture Clip System. In this interview we talk about how a single tweet from someone on twitter sent his project skyrocketing.

More then just a cool product, Peter’s project shows us what happens when someone who loves what they are doing shares their idea with the world. He put in A LOT of up front work but it all paid off in the end.

The post Capture Camera Clip System: The perfect mix of product and passion. appeared first on A Kickstarter's Guide.

No related posts.

In July of 2011 David Greelish set out to revive an old computer history “zine” called Historically Brewed. I sat down with David to talk about his thoughts on Kickstarter, and why I thought he had the perfect project for first timers.

David had small but interested following, and hosted a podcast about historical computing. He pick a reasonable goal and project. All of these factors allowed him to easily hit his goal and almost triple it.

The post Historically Brewed Compilation Book: The prefect project for first time Kickstarters appeared first on A Kickstarter's Guide.

No related posts.

Questions? Email me dewittn@kickstarterguide.com.

The post How to guarantee the success of a Kickstarter project… appeared first on A Kickstarter's Guide.

Related posts:

1. Naming Your Kickstarter Project
2. Creating a compelling pitch for your Kickstarter project
3. Simplify your project for success

I had worked for months on my photography, the video, and getting the project page setup. I wrote and rewrote the script countless times. I shot the video at least three different times. I knew how important a great story would be to my project, so I poured everything I had into making the best video possible.

Excitedly I launched the project and then… nothing happened. No one bought the book, a few people shared the project, but it wasn’t enough to get any meaningful traction. It got picked by the Kickstarter staff, as a featured photography project, but that still did not help.

After a few days, and some negative feedback I realized the project was broken. I could have promoted the hell out of it, but in the end it wasn’t going to do what I wanted. So with a heavy heart I canceled the project I had spent months working on.

After you’ve done your best

For the next few days I beat myself up , thinking about how badly I had failed, and how all my work had been for nothing. Then I read this from Seth Godin:

Successful people analytically figure out what didn’t work and redefine what their best work will be in the future. And then they get back to work.

I realized that I needed to get back to work and see the project there, even if I wouldn’t be able to do my project as envisioned. With the help of Jerry Hirsch and Robert Ortiz I went to SXSW and got some amazing photos.

I’ve been sitting on the photos for a year because I wasn’t sure what to do with them. I thought about creating a video with the photos, I thought about prototyping my photo book, I even thought about tossing them all because they were a bitter reminder of my own stupidity. However, as I’ve reflected on the past year, and everything that happened because of my failure, I thought this might be an opportunity to remind people that failure isn’t that bad after all.

The Consequence Of Failure

The most interesting aspect about this project has been all of the stuff that has happened after it failed. As a result of preparing for the project, I was able to raise my photography to a new level. In August I wrote a post called Studying failure: What I learned from a Kickstarter project that failed… badly which talked about what I learned from the Kickstarter campaign. It has been viewed over 3,500 times and has helped people avoid the mistakes I made. The connections and the response I got because of sharing my failure so openly made the entire experience more than worth it.

All of this is great but in the days after I canceled the project, the only thing I could think about was how badly I had messed up. However, over the past year I came to realize one very important thing.

Our failures do not make us a failure.

Whenever a something doesn’t work out, or when we are scared it might not work out, we create all this anxiety and stress about being labeled as a failure. I think we need to give ourselves permission to let go of our negative feelings, and to realize that failure is not the end of the world.

So in celebration of my biggest entrepreneurial failure, here are the pictures I took last year at SXSW.

PS

I’m thinking of doing a project related to letting go of our fear of failure but only if there is enough interest. If this post spoke to you, or you know someone that is having a hard time dealing with failure, leave your name and email and I’ll contact you soon. http://eepurl.com/uL7AL

The post StreetXSW: My biggest entrepreneurial failure… appeared first on A Kickstarter's Guide.

Related posts:

1. Studying failure: What I learned from a Kickstarter project that failed… badly

In May of 2011 Tom and Melissa Dowler set out to make a documentary film about Boston’s only 24 hour restaurant The South Street Dinner. I recently sat down with Melissa to talk about her Kickstarter experience.

They were able to get the project covered by local media, but it wasn’t quite as effective as they thought. We also talked about how they made their project more interesting by shooting on location for 24 hours, and the importance of showing credibility.

The post 24 Hours At The South Street Diner with Melissa Dowler appeared first on A Kickstarter's Guide.

Related posts:

1. No one cares about you
2. Creatively marketing your Kickstarter campaign with Susan Tinkham of Figments of a Father
3. Raising 2.2M for charity with AJ Leon

In the summer of 2012 AJ Leon and his band of professional troublemakers helped the NGO Water Aid raise 2.2M£ to bring clean drinking water to remote villages in Malawi. This goes way beyond what most Kickstarter’s face when trying to raise funds for their creative projects. Thats exactly why I invited AJ on to talk about his experiences.

AJ talked about all the work they did before the campaign to make sure it would be successful out of the gate. He talked about doing things that are BLOD and how to deal with the down periods of your campaign. Over all AJ had some great insights that we can use on our own crowd-funding project.

The post Raising 2.2M for charity with AJ Leon appeared first on A Kickstarter's Guide.

Related posts:

1. Creatively marketing your Kickstarter campaign with Susan Tinkham of Figments of a Father

One of the best aspects about Kickstarter is that you risk very little when launching a project. So even if it fails, it’s not really that bad. You will probably be disappointed, but at least you didn’t spend a lot of time and money creating something, only to find it’s not what people want. You will have learned about yourself and have a better idea how to launch a project. All of that experience will be valuable the next time around.

What’s Left?

Courage.

Courage to do something meaningful. Courage to silence that voice in your head that makes you doubt yourself. Courage to launch your project into the world.

Overcoming our fears is never easy, but its part of the process. In a world filled with so much uncertainty, we need people who will stand up and make a difference. You may think your project isn’t that important, but you never know who you will inspire. Many of the people I talked with, said how the success of other projects got them to launch their own. So go out there and make something happen.

We are waiting for you.

A Kickstart’s Guide to Kickstarter TOC:

pssst…you can read all of this offline by downloading the e-book.

The post A Kickstarter’s Guide to Kickstarter: Conclusion appeared first on A Kickstarter's Guide.

Related posts:

1. A Kickstarter’s Guide to Kickstarter: Introduction
2. How to track the progress of your Kickstarter campaign
3. Naming Your Kickstarter Project

Somewhere deep down inside we know there is more to it than that. There must be some explanation as to why their idea took off. We’re just not sure what it is. We launch our own project, hoping the masses will show up, but they never do. We are left feeling disappointed and full of doubt. Why not me? Was my idea not good enough?

The truth is that there is a lot of work that goes into a project before it will take off. Simply posting an idea online is rarely enough to get meaningful traction. That’s the lesson I learned, the hard way.

In the fall of 2010 I posted my first Kickstarter project. It was for a documentary film that I wanted to make with a friend of mine. After our project got approved we naively rushed through setting up the project page and launched it. Confident in the fact that we had the best looking video on the site with a meaningful topic, we sat back and waited.

After a month we had only raised 10% of our goal. Slightly disheartened and running out of time, we rolled up our sleeves and began contacting everyone we knew. In three weeks we were able to raise an additional $5000. However, there was only one week to go, and we had over 50% of our funding goal left.

Faced with the reality that our project probably would not make it, I started to question myself and my idea. Then something amazing happened. Realizing the deadline was fast approaching, my friends started posting it, writing emails and sharing it with their friends. In the last six days we raised $9000 and got the project successfully funded!

If this sounds like another example of a viral Internet phenomena, I assure it’s not. My project never got picked up by any major media or high profile blogs. In fact, the ONLY reason that my campaign succeeded is because I have amazing friends and family who rallied to support me. Even with all their support, we limped to the finish line. I feel pretty lucky that we made it at all. But I’m ok with being lucky.

In the months after the Kickstarter campaign ended, I was able to reflect on my campaign. I thought about everything I could have done differently that could have made it even better. I started to looked at what other people did to fund their projects. I began to realize that it was not my idea that had been the problem, but my approach. I had made a lot of assumptions about how the idea would be spread and how Kickstarter worked. From those insights this guide was born.

In the world of Kickstarter there is a lot that happens behind the scenes to make a project successful. Just because an idea is great or worth doing doesn’t mean it’s going to get funded. Rather than trying to guess at what those factors are, this manifesto will look at what it takes to make a project successful.

In case you don’t have time to read this in entirety, this is what it says in a nutshell:

Great Kickstarter projects are successful because they connect and resonate with a specific audience. They use compelling storytelling combined with interesting or wacky ideas to attract backers. They are authentic while effectively communicating goals, passion, credibility and purpose. The more time spent thinking about these elements before the project is launched the easier the campaign becomes.

If you want to do a Kickstarter project because you think the Internet will find and love your project, stop right now. The Internet does not care about you. However, if you can reach out to the right people, in the right way, before time runs out, you just might get lucky.

How to Use This Guide

Read it, study it, memorize it and then IGNORE IT.

This e-book is a not a step by step manual on how to get your project funded. I don’t think there is any formula that can guarantee success. Instead, it is a collection of thoughts and ideas to help you create the best Kickstarter campaign possible. If the ideas in this book don’t fit your project or don’t resonate with you, then try something else.

At the end, of the day remember one thing: There is no map.

Who am I?

I’m an average person who started a project and was fortunate enough to reach my goal. I have a blog but it’s small. I don’t have a popular podcast or web show. My project never got promoted by TechCrunch or any major blogs. I’m not a world famous product designer making cool iPod watches.

I have used Kickstarter to launch two successful but very different projects. I will be referring to both throughout this book. The first one ran in the fall of 2010 and was called Identifying Nelson/Buscando a Roberto. The purpose of the campaign was to help raise some money so my co-producer and I could start working on a documentary film. The second project related to this book and was called A Kickstarter’s Guide to Kickstarter. That campaign took place during August of 2011, and was to help get the this e-book graphically designed and distributed.

A Kickstart’s Guide to Kickstarter TOC:

pssst…you can read all of this offline by downloading the e-book.

The post A Kickstarter’s Guide to Kickstarter: Introduction appeared first on A Kickstarter's Guide.

Related posts:

1. Perry Chan’s Six Principles on why Kickstarter projects are successful
2. The Basics of Kickstarter
3. Kickstarter is an updated version of the Parton Model