BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

9 Tips on Running a Successful Kickstarter Campaign from 3 Women Who Have Done It

Following
This article is more than 10 years old.

I love small business stories. I find the purpose, the passion, and the suspense intoxicating. It’s no wonder then that the site Kickstarter has become a (not so) guilty pleasure for me. For those that don’t know, Kickstarter is a popular online funding platform that allows people to offer incentives and rewards in exchange for monetary contributions that are to be used to help create or further a creative project – often a business. It is like a mini-investment but the creators don’t need to sacrifice their equity.

Recently I talked with 3 entrepreneurs who have run successful and compelling Kickstarter campaigns. I was interested to hear about what they learn and find out more about their own impressions of the experience.

You can see their campaigns here:

Angela Broyles of Winifred Bean – stylish, affordable, and customizable wedding dresses. She raised $15,235.

Ashley Rankin of Shredly – high-performance, high-fashion mountain bike apparel for women. She raised $25,897.

Sarah Oliver of Sarah Oliver Handbags – beautiful hand knit hand bags made by a group of seniors called the “purlettes plus one” in California. She raised $29,273.

All three said that not only was Kickstarter the best (and possibly only) way for them to raise the necessary funds, but also that the experience of their campaign was critical to the overall success of their business. This is due, in large part, to the strong community of fans they built in the process. Fans that would continue supporting and cheering the business on far after the campaign was over. Each was able to reach people that they didn’t already know, but their campaigns also helped to galvanize a lasting collective of people they already had relationships with. I’m a long-time champion of communities so this really got me excited.

Aside from the creation of communities however, another theme came up that I believe to be extremely important. Each woman spoke of the value of being able to witness and learn from other campaigns on the site. Kickstarter, and other crowd-funding sites like it, allow for a kind of transparency that is absent in almost all other fund-raising and business growth processes. This speaks to something that I think is critical for business success and business growth: peer modeling. My experience has shown that when people are able to see for themselves how something works and what success and failure looks like, they are far more likely to try it themselves. This, I believe, is the true beauty of Kickstarter.

In the spirit of entrepreneurial camaraderie, these women agreed to share their lessons learned and tips for running a successful campaign. I’m sharing them here in hopes that more of you are encouraged to give Kickstarter or another similar platform a try.

1.    Get Ready to Live and Breathe Kickstarter

Be prepared to do nearly nothing else but Kickstarter, not only for the duration of your campaign but also during the vital research and preparation phase too. While it’s tempting to think that the campaign will have legs of its own, Ashley Rankin cautions that the initial buzz will never be enough to carry the campaign through. She says, “It takes many tireless hours to keep the energy alive and additional backers coming in.” Good thing campaigns are limited to 60 days or less!

2.    Give Yourself Enough Time to Prepare

Ashley also recommends that you give yourself the time you need to do your campaign right. It’s easy to be motivated by Kickstarters energy and the projects you find there, but it’s important to make sure that things are the way you want them to be before you launch. Not only can it impact your ability to communicate your message and meet your goals, but Ashley also reminds us that “your Kickstarter image will follow you far beyond the conclusion of your project”.

3.    Let Your Personality Shine Through

One of the beauties of the Kickstarter platform is that there is a lot of latitude with regard to creative expression and story telling. In fact it was this “freedom to communicate the business goals and its unique personality in my own voice” that drew Sarah Oliver to Kickstarter in the first place. Most campaigns have a video and rely on compelling visual elements. She was able to use these mediums to emphasize not only what is special about her products but her passion and enthusiasm as well. Specifically, Sarah decided that her video should feature the “purlettes” (the seniors who knit her bags) and her unique socially-responsible business model in addition to her bags. Similarly, Angela’s video introduces you to her infant daughter Julianne and talks about her role in the life of the business in addition to showing you her gorgeous gowns.

4.    Know When You Need Funds in Hand

Sarah thinks it’s important to realize that the funds won’t be immediately available at the conclusion of the campaign. Kickstarter carefully vets the campaigns to make sure that they are compliant and appropriate, which is undoubtedly a good thing as long as you’ve budgeted your time well. If they have questions, it may slow the start date. Also once your campaign has successfully concluded it can take a few weeks for all the funds to clear and be transferred. So Sarah recommends that you consider when you need the funds available and work backwards adding in a couple weeks as a cushion.

5.    Consider the impact of major holidays and other slow times

Sarah also recommends that you carefully analyze the calendar during your proposed campaign and plan your promotion accordingly. She had no choice but to overlap with Thanksgiving and since she had learned that there is a natural lull midway in most campaigns she decided it would be best if Thanksgiving fell during that time. Then, days before the scheduled launch Hurricane Sandy hit and Sarah decided to hold for a few extra days as a result. But tradeshow deadlines prevented her from delaying too long.

6.    Select a Successful ‘Angle’

During her research Ashley noticed that most successful campaigns either elicited a strong emotional response or communicated a very specific unmet need for a specific audience. It’s not the place to peddle just another t-shirt or candy bar with no story, meaning or context. Angela concurred, adding that another successful strategy seemed to be pre-selling a product that was very close to being ready to ship – much like Sarah was able to do with her handbags. These insights allowed them to craft campaigns that not only emphasized their own personal story but also the very unique benefits of the product they were creating.

7.    Save Some Incentives for the Slump

No matter how much you put into your campaign it seems that they all suffer from a natural dip in enthusiasm midway. Both Ashley and Angela suggested offering new and different incentives part way through as a way to give your campaign a shot in the arm. For example, Angela added two incentives: handmade letterpress coasters and a handmade silk flower pin that can be worn in your hair.

8.    Factor in How Kickstarter’s Audience Might be Different from Your Own

Sarah encourages all businesses, but especially those targeting women, to consider how Kickstarter’s natural audience might be different from your own. To her it seemed that much of the Kickstarter community was young urban males while her audience and network was comprised of mostly women. She thinks that had she been more thoughtful about that and added an incentive specifically designed for that audience then perhaps she would have been able to draw even more of those folks in.

9.    Go Beyond Digital - with In Person Events

Everyone knows that a successful campaign requires you to be relentless on both social media and email. However in addition to their digital efforts both Angela and Ashley held in person events to build awareness and support for their campaigns. Both say they were immensely helpful and surprisingly lucrative. In fact Angela wishes that she had spent even more time and effort into the planning of those. It was a great way to really involve people in her vision and let them see the product and story firsthand.

 

Have you tried or considered a crowd-funding site like Kickstarter? What was your experience? What did you learn?

Adelaide Lancaster is an entrepreneur, consultant, speaker and co-author of The Big Enough Company: How women can build great businesses and happier lives (Portfolio/Penguin). She is also the co-founder of In Good Company Workplaces, a first-of-its-kind community, learning center and co-workingspace for women entrepreneurs in New York City. She is also a contributor toThe Huffington Post and a columnist for The Daily Muse. She lives in St. Louis, MO with her husband, daughter and son. You can follow her on twitter here and here and on Facebook too.