I have a rock and roll band. It's called Black Hi-Lighter. Right now, we're halfway through a rite of passage: the Kickstarter campaign.
The first rule of how not to fail at Kickstarter is: Please pledge your support!
Or, in other words, start shameless.
Ours is a simple goal: $3500 to put our new record on vinyl, today's platinum standard of musical credibility and relevance. (Plus, it's just prettier to look at and use.) But Kickstarter, of course, lets you set a fundraising goal much, much higher than that. The second rule of how not to fail at Kickstarter is: Learn from the winners.
That's why I've asked two musicians and two filmmakers -- all of whom launched and completed successful, substantial Kickstarter campaigns -- to share their lessons learned. For extra infotainment value, I've broken out their comments into the categories that imbue me with the most dread.
I've Overshared And I Can't Get Up
"Most of your funding will come from your existing crowd," says Kim Boekbinder. That's why, straight out of the gate, you're at automatic risk of oversharing. "It doesn't matter how noble, worthy, or amazing your project is," she says. "It probably won't go viral and no amount of nagging celebrities to tweet about it will help. Use your crowd, even if that's just 50 of your friends for now."
You'll need to keep them amused, and not in a grim way. "The balancing act between going unnoticed and flooding feeds is a tough one," Brendan MacLean cautions, "especially on launch day."
The trick is in the pitch, so finding legitimate reasons to post is vital: celebrate daily milestones, alert people to individual rewards or publicly thank a backer for a donation. Of course the best way to avoid becoming a social media eye-sore is by having others post on your behalf -- get pledgers in the habit of sharing your updates and take the time to personally thank them for that too. Crowdfunding projects run very much like any advertising campaign: too much exposure and people detest you, too little and you're invisible.
According to Braxton Pope, the issue is simple: you have to "try to artfully conceal your flagrant narcissism." In a culture as "self-promotional" as ours," the "true difficulty" is "how you can differentiate your self promotion from everyone else’s and make people actually care. The best way to do this," he says, "is to devise a project that has creative merit and to inject some levity into the proceedings."
I'm Panicking Over My Trendline
Because the internet is awesome, it's awesome at telling you what you know you don't want to know. At sites like Kicktraq.com, your Kickstarter fate is plotted out in real time, complete with nerve-wracking trendlines you can use to freak out over how awful your friends are, how nobody understands your genius, and how little access you really have to rich, famous benefactors. "It is very strenuous to reach out to people and hear no most of the time," admits Luciana Faulhaber, "but the one yes makes up for it." The trick is not to lose your cool when your drip feed of yeses momentarily dries up.
"All crowd funding projects run on a "U" shaped graph," Brendan says. "It starts with a bang as your family and friends excitedly pitch in" -- and "as it ends, procrastinators dive in at the last minute to lend a hand." That means you should expect to hit Peak Panic in your campaign's "midsection." Some days," says Brendan, you're "lucky to make $50 and sometimes nothing at all." To cope, he released a halfway mark reward in the form of a new single. "I was able to refresh the message of my campaign," to "prove my project was still buzzing and worth getting behind."
Of course, for those of you with a low enough risk tolerance -- or who have taken on a high enough level of risk -- the waves of panic may be more or less constant. For Braxton, "the stress kicks in once you go live and doesn’t really relent until you are basically assured you are going to get to the finish line.' His preferred coping mechanism: "a fully stocked liquor shelf and adequate mixers."
One thing to keep in mind, Kim suggests, is that "there's nothing like the rush of a successful Kickstarter campaign. It feels like winning the lottery, but a lottery you worked for." Channeled into the discipline of engaging your supporters and would-be supporters like the important humans they are, that frantic Kickstarter energy can turn into something constructive. "Make all emails, messages, and phone calls personal," Luciana says; "people are more likely to engage and help when they feel personally accountable." Likewise, make yourself accountable for commensurate gratitude. "You really can't get your project of the ground without their help. Make sure they know that." Locking into a routine encourages a positive feedback loop -- especially for your own benefit, when that mid-stretch lag does arrive:
Be persistent. We are all busy and most people genuinely forget to check the kickstarter page or when you remind them they might not be home so remind them again. But also be mindful of those who choose not to partake. It hurts, specially when you have supported their work buying tickets to their shows, taking your friends to do the same. But in the end people are who they will be all you can do is not hold a grudge and know when your project is funded you'll be happy they are not part of it.
I Failed Before I Even Started
Here's a horrible thought: What if you baked failure into your Kickstarter cake, and no matter how well you execute, you're doomed from the start for some unnoticed reason? It turns out there are some fatal Kickstarter mistakes. And though some might be project-specific, the biggest nonstarter is the simplest of all: presentation.
Give your audience "an inept, dull or shoddy introductory video," Braxton says, and you might as well stop before you start hitting them up for cash. "People underestimate the power of a short entertaining pitch video," Brendan warns. "A long overly earnest speech about how you're 'passionate about music' really puts the audience to sleep. The other thing that will really run your project into the ground is complaining. It's worth remembering how lucky you are to get any money whatsoever. I've seen artists whinge that their fans aren't giving more early in a campaign. That's a real turnoff."
Naturally, the wrong attitude will fail you before you begin -- even if you succeeded once before. "I know people who had successful campaigns," Kim recalls, "who vowed never to crowdfund again because they promised too much, didn't budget costs well, and resented becoming a mail order business rather than an artist."
The Morning After
Post-partum depression? Only, says Braxton, "if you don't make your goal." But what about total exhaustion? That scary morning-after feeling? It's all possible. "Shipping costs way more than you think it does," Kim continues. "Did you budget for shipping supplies? Envelopes? Printer ink? An assistant to help you?" When the fog of fundraising lifts, you don't want to find yourself underequipped on the battlefield.
If you do, you're likely to find yourself too wiped out to compensate. Says Brendan: "the day my campaign ended I feel like I'd passed a kidney stone. After making myself sick worrying about how I was running the campaign I was pretty relieved to see the clock run down to 0:00." A moment's rest is well-earned, but your supporters aren't expecting you to take the first flight to St. Maarten. Post-Kickstarter, Brendan says, "my only concern now is making sure people are confident their money is being well spent." Yep -- more work. Congratulations, you got what you asked for.
And for the musicians out there, the morning after can turn into the rest of your life -- not in a bad way, either. Two years ago, Kim started pre-selling shows on Kickstarter. "There are now several websites that offer that service," she explains, "but at the time I was the first artist to do it." Kim's favorite way to crowdfund is with her monthly subscription service, which delivers the goods to fans who sign up for monthly payments. By monetizing "exclusive access to my creative process," Kim has figured out how to "eat, pay rent," and not "go crazy" -- hooking up her audience with "new songs, demoes, live recordings, webcasts, journals," and more.
"Suddenly having a stable income was life changing," she says. And the whole idea that Kickstarter can supply musicians and other creatives with a stable income? That's pretty life-changing too.
