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Kickstart:Give Your Crowdfunding

Project the BestChance for Success

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Preface

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No Pain, No Gain? It's hard to describe exactly what my experience with Kickstar-

ter was because it's still very much a blur in my own mind.

You see, my project (Pressgram), an iOS photo sharing app,

was NOT one of those incredible overnight-funding suc- 

cess stories. Instead, I had to claw my way to my $50,000 ob-

 jective every single step of the way.

In many ways this served to teach me a number of valuable les-

sons that I've been able to codify into practical steps that have

helped a number of other Kickstarter project owners - in fact, I

documented the story pretty well on my blog  

so people could

literally follow along in real-time - they saw the ups, the downs,

the side-to-sides that coalesced into a movement and a cam-

paign against all odds.

And at times it felt like the world wanted to crush me.

This Kickstarter experience literally kicked the living snot out of

me - I won't soften the blows or the edges for you as I felt like it

nearly killed me.

Take for instance the fact that I averaged less than 3 hours of

sleep for those 30 long and hellish days. Yes, my health rapidly

deteriorated and my relationships with those that I really love

and adore was put on serious hold as I battled my way through

720 grueling hours.

All-in-all I survived, I won the battle (barely), and I have ex-

tracted a number of serious learnings that I hope will provide

you with more than just one backer to pledge to your project - I

hope it swamps you with results and so you can wake up and

see something ridiculous like 200% funded or more.

Hopefully in the end you’ll be spared some of the agony that I

went through (and get a few more hours of sleep).

And that’s why I created this guide, an extremely helpful blend

of strategy and tactics to make your project and campaign a tad bit easier and much more profitable. Take this resource go kick

some serious ass. Be encouraged. Be informed!

Then ping me about it on Twitter (@Saddington) and it’ll make it

all feel gloriously purposeful.

Good luck and godspeed; you’re going to need it friend!

Preface

Nope. Sorry. No

Walk in the Park!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tentblogger/pressgram-an-image-sharing-app-built-for-an-indepe http://twitter.com/saddington http://twitter.com/saddington http://blog.pressgr.am/ http://blog.pressgr.am/ http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tentblogger/pressgram-an-image-sharing-app-built-for-an-indepe http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tentblogger/pressgram-an-image-sharing-app-built-for-an-indepe

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I had a lot of help from a lot of people via Kickstarter and

I’m so glad that every single one has helped in both

small and large ways.

But there’s one in particular that really went above and

beyond the “call of duty” and that’s Chris Lema.

A true fan, he quickly became a leader in our small and

growing community as well as being the largest financial

backer of the project.

A true gentleman and Pressgram evangelist!

Chris is a serial entrepreneur and you can find him

blogging daily over at ChrisLema.com.

He’s also supporting a new startup and app called

BLACK CARDS WHITE CARDS.

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Preface

Special Shoutout:

Chris Lema

http://blackcardswhitecards.com/ http://www.chrislema.com/ http://www.chrislema.com/ http://blackcardswhitecards.com/ http://blackcardswhitecards.com/ http://www.chrislema.com/ http://www.chrislema.com/

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The Core Chapters

1. The Art and Science of the Update

2. Measurement and Research Matters

3. Shameless Self-Promotion

4. Gamification & Community

5. Your Digital Toolkit

6. Attitude and Perspective 7. 20 Extra Tips

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How this eBook is Organized:  You have a lot of stuff to do for your campaign and your project

and so I have distilled 6-ish (+1 tip section at the end) core les-sons that are highly functional, effective, and pragmatic in such

a way so that you can read it through fast and go execute in-

stantly with results on the other end.

In other words... you honestly have more important stuff to be

working on than reading yet-another-ebook-on-how-to-do-

something-better.

Right? But I’ll make it worth your while.

My intention is to neither bore you nor provide some swooping

narrative about how my success is the end-all be-all model that

you must follow.

Instead, I’ve created applications that can be done without

much brain-power but that are absolutely critical to any  cam-

paign’s success.

I provide facts, figures, and tools that worked, even in the face

of apparent demise (okay, some narrative is at the end, but at

least I put it at the end, right?).

Rock it solid my friends. Be amazing. Go kill it.

Preface

Organization &

Chapters

8/20/2019 Kickstart eBook

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and art and a science as it

takes systematic resolve as well as classy engagement.

But don’t overlook this

since it’s pretty much your

weapon of choice.

Statistically-speaking, those that update more

have more success.

If that’s all you learned

from this section then

you’re good to go.

The Update

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The Almighty Update

This one is simple and yet at the same time very difficult.

Here's the skinny: I researched the Top 10

most successful Kickstarter projects of all

time (as of March, 2013) and the average

number of updates per campaign (most

were 30 days) was 1.78 updates.

I’ll repeat that for you: 1.78 updates.

Just think about that for a moment. That's

literally 2 updates per day!

I couldn't believe it. And yes, I thought ex-

actly what you are thinking:  

Wouldn't peo-

ple get annoyed with 2 updates a day?!

The answer is a resounding no. Sure, some people may unsubscribe from your updates via their settings and that's fine because they've already backed you but I can't tell you how many people said to me many times over how I was the  most engaged project

owner they have ever experienced  and how they felt super-tied into the process and experience.

In other words, they felt that I had done the best  job of involving my backers every single step of the way.

So that's what I did. I updated 54 times in 30 days which is 1.8 times per day. If the top 10 most successful KS projects did 1.78 then I

was going to do just that (see screenshot):

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That's the science-side of updating as

it's simply a matter of numbers - nothing

too calculated or difficult.

Add in a bit of strategy (like updating

once in the morning and once in the eve-

ning to capture a full 24-hour window of

backers world-wide) and you've got it

made, right?

Wrong (and we both know why).

It's tough as crap to update twice a day

when you've got other things to do, a

life to live, relationships to not com-

pletely tank, and perhaps a full-time job

that you're trying to keep just in case

your project fails miserably.

And that's where we get to the "Art" part

of updating which requires a bit of crea-

tivity and a whole lot of hard work.

Here are 10 Strategies / Tactics that you

should be able to execute against with fair ease:

1. I created a number of Update Tem-

plates that I could repeatedly use over

and over and over again.

For example, I had a template for an

"image-based" update, a video record-

ing, a backer/community notice, a devel-

opment question/answer, a general

community-centric question, as well as

one that was more of a "just for fun" tem-

plate.

By creating these I could command a

sequencing of content that helped me

shortcut the writing and publishing proc-

ess. All I needed to do was daily use

one of my templates and knock it out.

2. Schedule. Please do this.

Yes, this is also an art so you're going

to have to find a way to schedule in that

morning update and then do one just be-

fore you go to bed.

3. The more media the better. People

want to see pictures of the actual pro-

 ject or product that you're building.

With mine it was even more difficult be-

cause it was a piece of software so I

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had to come up with some clever ways of showing the progress

and work.

I bet you can think of tons of ways to showcase the going-ons

but first it requires th