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Launching a kickstarter soon, I want your opinions and comments

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magicmike11

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Hey all,

My name is Mike, I am a student and a new entrepreneur. I have never launched a business before but decided to step out of my comfort zone and launch a product on Kickstarter. I had been working on it for the past two years. I would like to show it to you to see what you all think, what your comments, questions and criticism are. If you have any tips for me to help me grow it and reach more people, that would also be great as we are not enough to successfully fund the kickstarter.

The project is a "swiss-knife for parties". It is REAPER, the multi-functional lighter. Here is our instagram: Login • Instagram

Would love to hear from all the veterans, pros and newbies. All comments help! Thanks!!
 
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MJ DeMarco

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I clicked but don't understand what a "swiss knife for parties" is... perhaps I'm getting too old and am not your market.
 

mdot

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I googled "bottle opener lighters" and found a bunch of very low cost options. What makes you different from the competition? Have you found suppliers or gotten prototypes yet? Do you have a plan beyond the single product? Once you build your tight-knit community and sell them the lighter, what next?

Candy Compartment
LOL
 

Abrodos

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Hi! I ran a Kickstarter campaign a year ago. One of the things that surprised me the most is how half of my backers found my campaign through KS page. I was building my audience on FB and planning to lead it towards Kickstarter, and many backers came from browsing the "promoted by Kickstarter" section. So KS has its own ecosystem, one important part of it is the "superbackers", people that put money into a LOT of projects. Kind of like a shopping addiction maybe. So a good idea would be to try to do some marketing strategy towards this ecosystem.

Also, a second advice: Try and make the project funded in the first 24 hours (or 48? don't remember). That boosts significantly the visibility Kickstarter gives your project. So keep that in mind when establishing a funding goal (maybe you want way more than 3000 IG followers before launch.... or maybe not, not sure about how many will actually buy).

And finally, if you see people that cancel their pledges, don't worry; it happens ALWAYS. Actually, there are people that ALWAYS are the first to pledge and ALWAYS back out at the last moment, and do the same with all projects. So be prepared for that.

Another advice: Keep people updated after the campaign has ended. Regularly. Even if things go wrong and you're not able to deliver on time. Don't disappear for months, especially if you want that same people to back you in following projects. The best for that not to happen would be to have everything already produced, I know it's the opposite as what KS is (getting the necessary funds to create a product), but it will save you countless headaches.

And finally, if you are morally more ambiguous than me, keep in mind that KS terms don't "force you" to deliver. So technically you could promise a lot and allegate difficulties and cancel everything and keep the money.
I don't support that in any way (my morals are so strict that I've been 2 years working for free to deliver something I promised and wasn't able to do on time), but it is a strategy that might work for others.

If you want to read about my experience I'm leaving you my posts from last year here! There's also links to my KS and FB page.


Also here:

 
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woken

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mdot

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Is it immoral to fund 30% of your own project for greater exposure?
Be careful, the guy behind Pursuit Watches learned a lesson about self-funding the hard way.

 

woken

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Be careful, the guy behind Pursuit Watches learned a lesson about self-funding the hard way.

I read the story. It’s not what I meant.


What I meant was setting your funding goal to a larger amount (10-20% more) and then provide 20-30% yourself for more exposure. You still get the amount you exactly need, just making it look more popular.


What he did was quite the opposite. He needed $20k and only got $15k. He decided to fund himself the remaining $5k.
If the manufacturer required $20k for the watches, that’s $5k worth of watches out of his pocket he doesn’t have customers for. His fault.
 
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mdot

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I read the story. It’s not what I meant.


What I meant was setting your funding goal to a larger amount (10-20% more) and then provide 20-30% yourself for more exposure. You still get the amount you exactly need, just making it look more popular.


What he did was quite the opposite. He needed $20k and only got $15k. He decided to fund himself the remaining $5k.
If the manufacturer required $20k for the watches, that’s $5k worth of watches out of his pocket he doesn’t have customers for. His fault.
Thanks for clarifying! That makes sense.
 

MJ DeMarco

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Background info: User attempted to copy/paste the same post into a new thread.

There is no need to post another thread when you didn't even bother to answer the questions on the first thread. Stop using the forum as a marketing channel. We're your peers, not your potential customers.
 

Lyinx

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spelling.... kils ? should be kills
photo - there is a photo with what looks like blurred candies... get that fixed right away
product... I'm obviously not your target audience, I would prefer two containers... a pack of tic-tac, and a $20 lighter... no way I would want to pull out my lighter in front of the family/preacher/business meeting/etc..

also, lighters run out of fuel often enough - why would I want one that has half the amount of fuel?
 
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