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Problem #27: Crowdfunding Decisions
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This week, Tracy and Kristian deep dive into the seemingly endless decisions leading up to and during crowdfunding. Tracy discusses the Han Cluster BackerKit campaign in terms of everything from choosing the platform, to deciding on the offering, to setting funding goals, to creating pledge tiers, and much more. There's multiple reasons behind EVERY decision, and this is just an introduction to some of them.
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The Han Cluster® Role Playing Game Website: https://hancluster.com
Immaterial Plane: https://immaterialplane.com/
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Transcript
Introduction to Crowdfunding Decisions
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to the Designing Problems RPG Podcast, where we explore RPG development and all the intentional and unintentional problems we create along the way. I'm Christian Serrano. And I'm Tracy Sizemore. We're your hosts for this gauntlet of stress.
00:00:19
Speaker
And this week, we're going to talk about problem number 27, crowdfunding decisions.
Understanding Crowdfunding Dynamics
00:00:44
Speaker
I want to get to know all the ins and outs of how you made certain decisions regarding, well, just about everything regarding the crowdfunding. We talked a little bit about the crowdfunding project and the the pain of going through it and all that last episode.
00:01:03
Speaker
But what I really want to get to know from you, and I think what other people want to know when you're, first of all, like why, why do one, but then how do you decide on things like how much per tier, what do they get per tier? What are your stretch goals? What goal do you even set?
00:01:21
Speaker
You know, how do you decide what, which stretch goals are at which quantity, you know, things like that. Right. So yeah, I'm holding you to it. You're going to spill the beans. I'm playing the spill the beans card, the adventure card. yeah You're going to give me all the deets.
00:01:35
Speaker
Well, I mean, that was what last episode was about, is is telling you we're going to still spill the beans, right? yeah Yeah.
Is Crowdfunding Worth the Risk?
00:01:42
Speaker
And ah honestly, i didn't want to do this episode until after the Hutton Cluster crowdfunding was over, because I really had no idea um whether the decisions I was making were the right decisions. whether what and And I still, you know, i could have maybe I could have made better decisions, but I think I was successful.
00:02:01
Speaker
So I at least have some ah sense that I have some experience that's worthwhile, right? um So that's why I kind of waited. But um but yeah, i i think first is is why do it I think that might be the first and most important question. That was definitely going to be my first question. It's like, why why a Kickstarter versus other options? Like, you know, like we talked about like trickling out PDF products, for example, or, you know, just paying for a full print run.
00:02:35
Speaker
You know, why why do a crowdfunding approach
Alternatives to Crowdfunding: Digital Releases
00:02:39
Speaker
at all? Yeah. And so this piggybacks on the last episode a little bit because despite how hard this is, despite how stressful it is, crowdfunding is still the best game in town.
00:02:51
Speaker
And the only way to do this really, if you're going to take if you're going to go full on and take the risks that involve printing, especially, because... because Like you said, one of the alternatives is to sort of try to build your audience over time with digital releases, um ah you know, on DriveThru or Itch or wherever, and try to ah create a ah bunch of releases that you're that you're building and and that that people will engage with and maybe you're building an audience that way.
00:03:26
Speaker
Maybe that can work. Right? it it It depends on the structure of your product and what you're trying to do with it. Right? So, for example, our friend in the Discord survey,
Crowdfunding as a Risk Management Tool
00:03:40
Speaker
Jetty, he's got a whole like raft of City Guard Chronicles projects.
00:03:45
Speaker
Right. Products that he's put out on DriveThru digital only. Right. And he's got plans to make more and more. And he's got smaller type one sheet type ones. And she's got he's got longer ones. yeah And he's having people now help write with him. And um he's doing design for that and all that stuff.
00:04:07
Speaker
He's creating a brand. Right. That way. Right. It's a full on product line at this point. It is. yeah At this point it is. easy He's got a plan. He's got, he's making more.
00:04:18
Speaker
He's made a bunch already. He's doing a good job hyping them and to let people know when they reach certain milestones, like, oh, we reached silver or whatever. Right. He's doing all that. He's doing the work.
00:04:31
Speaker
That's one way to go. um Another way to go is to is what you had to do before crowdfunding existed, um which was, okay well, we want to make a product.
00:04:44
Speaker
We're a game company. So we've we've we've even if we've got our thing already, and let's assume you've got something out there already, you know, like you've got your core rule book or whatever, and now you want to make a setting for it.
00:04:57
Speaker
Now you have to gauge somehow the interest in that setting. You have to gauge the interest in that book and see if anybody really wants it. Yeah. Is this viable? right Yeah. Is it viable?
00:05:08
Speaker
So the worst case scenario... Is that, I mean, best case scenario, you re print a bunch of books, you put them up for sale and people buy them. Fantastic. you've put up You've put up a whole bunch of money up front and people are buying them. You make money on the back end.
00:05:23
Speaker
Fantastic. Yeah. Worst case scenario is you print a bunch of books. Nobody wants them. And now you have a whole bunch of books, like thousands yeah of them.
00:05:34
Speaker
And you can't do anything with them. Yeah. um I know that Shane has gone through this in in the deep dark of his past, and he's had quite a past with Pinnacle Entertainment.
00:05:46
Speaker
And he's had to landfill books. It's it's yeah's utterly heartbreaking. Something you've worked on for years, that you're excited about, that you put your all into, and nobody is interested for whatever reason.
00:06:04
Speaker
And there was nothing to do. And to be clear, this was how it was done, the way, before Kickstarter even existed. I mean, it's happened with video games. Remember, like, the landfilling of of thousands of of Atari cartridges and stuff? I mean, there's there's legends about this. Yes. Because they made games they thought people would like, and it turns out those games sucked, or people just didn't like them, and so they had to throw them all away.
00:06:30
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, there's even stories of things that they're it's good, technically. Yeah. It just... didn't market well or something, you know, or whatever. It just didn't get the, the, the audience, you know, the traction or whatever it needed. Right. It just didn't happen.
00:06:47
Speaker
Yeah. And now you're out that cost. You're, you're, that's a, it's a black hole yeah that you have to dig yourself out of. That's why you do crowdfunding.
00:06:59
Speaker
Right. Because you can gauge upfront the interest in your product. Right. And you can determine how much you need to order based on that interest. Yeah.
Predicting Success Through Pre-Launch Followers
00:07:10
Speaker
Now, there is a little bit of a dangerous game though, right? Because because like you can the goal you set might not necessarily be like the goal that you really... We talked a little bit about this with yours.
00:07:23
Speaker
It might not really be the the goal that you really, really, really want for this to be you know the fruitful thing that you know you really, really want it to be. Yes.
00:07:35
Speaker
So there's a chance that you put the Kickstarter out there. It's, you know, maybe it hits the goal. Maybe it goes past the goal, but it's not quite getting to where you really wanted it to be. Yeah.
00:07:48
Speaker
Right. And so then that's kind of a hard place to be in because you're like, okay, do I pull it? Even though technically it's successful. And how does that look? Right. Or do I just say, well, this is the level of interest it's getting and that's as far as I'm going to go with it.
00:08:03
Speaker
you know Yeah. Yeah. there There's there's multiple um indicators. when you start looking When you start looking at that kind of stuff. One is, and this is this is a very common one that ah that most you know crowdfunding platforms will tell you to look at, which is the number of followers you have before the project launches. so And the thing is, and I looked at it, I was like, I was i was crazy trying to get
00:08:36
Speaker
as much as As much as I could, as many followers as I could. i put the backer kit um follow page up super early. i you know i did all you're supposed to do. I put it up super early. I had sign up emails and i had I even put meta ads out like a year ago to drum up interest in the project to maybe get people to click the follow button. But um that's one metric. And so the the the general...
00:09:06
Speaker
i'm in on There's a lot of factors that go into this, but the general percentage of followers to backers is pretty consistent if there's no other mitigating circumstances.
00:09:21
Speaker
And that is, it's it's a good bet that about 5% of your followers will translate into backers. That feels so low.
00:09:32
Speaker
It does. does It does. if you need 200 backers, then you need whatever it is, 4,000 followers. or I mean, is that right?
00:09:44
Speaker
I don't know. i think I think that math is right. and but um But it's it's a lot. Right. And it's daunting. and But that's only true.
00:09:57
Speaker
If you're sort of, I think, if you're if you're carpet bombing audience, you know, that that is not necessarily already plugged into your oh yeah yeah yeah ecosystem. Right.
Targeting Niche Audiences on Kickstarter
00:10:11
Speaker
you're just You're just casting the wide net. You're casting the wide net and say if if if assuming that these are just rando tabletop gamers or yeah RPG gamers who aren't necessarily into the Savage World system or whatever Blades in the Dark or whatever you're doing.
00:10:29
Speaker
Yeah. That wide net is a pretty consistent, like, you're going to get 5%. That makes sense. Right? That really makes sense. Yeah. These are where the other factors come in.
00:10:40
Speaker
And for me, I was in an unusual position. Number one, i'm casting the net to a Savage Worlds audience. Savage Worlds audience is more plugged into the Kickstarter platform.
00:10:56
Speaker
Yeah. and they're used to it and they'll i mean there's there's a much higher percentage of people who are following the project who will back it that's true of pinnacle products That's it's been true ever since Pinnacle started putting up follow pages.
00:11:16
Speaker
Like they put up a follow page and they get whatever. And the percentage is like 50% or 60% that actually back the project. And so it's hard to gauge, you know, for for crowdfunding platforms to go, oh, well, wow, you you did really well there. That's 50%...
00:11:34
Speaker
of the followers. that's That's great, right? Obviously, there's something else going on besides just you casting a wide net to find the most people that you can. And I knew that was going to be a factor with Han Cluster, too.
00:11:47
Speaker
And the fact that i had a strategy of getting my name out there by making ah bunch of stuff for Pinnacle, And getting to know the pinnacle audience, right?
00:11:59
Speaker
So I knew I had a name. I didn't know how much name that that name was worth until I actually launched because I was terrified that I only had like 200 followers before I launched.
00:12:12
Speaker
But that's part five percent of the reason why- but thats But that's also a portion of that gauging interest. Yes.
Crowdfunding as a Marketing Strategy
00:12:19
Speaker
Right. Because it's not just gauging interest in the product, but gauging interest in what you, Tracy Sizemore, is offering. Yes. As a designer. There's that too. And and there's the, as you as you, you know, collect followers, you're starting to understand what what those people are interested in.
00:12:41
Speaker
right like you You get a sense. like the The more you put out there and the more art you put out there, the more people respond to it, the more games you play at cons, all that other stuff factors into the feedback you're getting.
00:12:55
Speaker
It indicates whether this is going to be a successful Crowdfunder or not. Right. Right. You know? Yeah. So what was the original question? Like, is is did that answer it? or yeah Yeah. Yeah. Like like why why why Kickstarter versus alternatives? Right. and And I was going to add to the the other component, um the other value, I should say, of of the of doing crowdfunding is that it is also a marketing tool.
00:13:20
Speaker
It's a way to drive up buzz and hype about it. Let's say you you actually already paid for it, right? It's still a way to to drive up hype so that you get sales on the product as well.
00:13:32
Speaker
And that's that's a lot of what how bigger companies use it. Yeah. The smaller creators are using it to actually do what it was intended to do, which is kickstart their project, you know, like to get people interested, to hopefully get people to, you know quote unquote, invest in it, to get rewards out of it. And then, and then, and then be able to make the project, to get funds to actually make the project.
00:13:57
Speaker
Yeah. You know, and I'm sort of in between because um i had the capital to put the money into it, to make money. Almost all of it.
00:14:08
Speaker
Yeah. Except for the print run before the crowdfunder hit go or launched. And so it was hype for me, but it was also like, please help me get this print run done.
00:14:21
Speaker
And help me reimburse value the money I invested. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So there's, there's, yeah, it's a dual purpose mechanism yeah to in any other way.
00:14:33
Speaker
It's iss not as good. right it it it this is the This is really the only game in town if you want to launch a product, especially a print product, in a way that hopefully gives it a chance to be successful over the long term.
00:14:48
Speaker
Right. and but and And by that you mean like it grows into something bigger than the product. Yes. Like you have aspirations of this potentially becoming some sort of product.
00:14:59
Speaker
Yeah. You know, in the future. And I have aspirations at at the very least. I want to give it a chance. Yes. Right. I've, I've made the moves to make sure that, that, that, that can happen.
00:15:11
Speaker
Right. Right. Even if it doesn't, it's okay if it doesn't, but I'm, I'm acting as if it will. Right. Right. So that answers that question. Yes.
00:15:22
Speaker
Yeah. That, that definitely answers that question. Um, All right, so let's let's let's start talking about some of the numbers, right? Like, you you know how much you've spent.
00:15:33
Speaker
um You know how much you still need to spend, right? Things you need to order. Because I have a quote. I've got a quote before the before the crowdfunding, before I set my tiers, and that we'll get into that, of what the printing is going to cost.
00:15:47
Speaker
for various numbers. Yeah. And there are still some unknowns. Like you don't know what shipping is going to cost yet. Well, I've got quote for the shipping, but it's not final. Well, I mean, shipping to... Oh, yeah. I've got a quote for the shipping from China to the Yes. Right, right, right. Which I will pay. And then the shipping for everybody else is... Right.
00:16:08
Speaker
At this point, who knows? Right. Exactly. Right. Because you don't know... Because, yeah. Because shipping orders out to the customers is such a huge variable. Yep. There's no way really to to account for that.
00:16:20
Speaker
um You can have an estimate, a ballpark, but it's just that. Right. Yeah. um And then, of course, you get wildcard things like tariffs. um So, okay. so So a certain amount of of cost, you know, you can calculate and you say, okay, this is how much I want to reach as a goal so that when it gains traction, um I know that I really need it to get to this much for it to be a viable product.
00:16:49
Speaker
And then what I really want to get it to is this much. Right. um I guess, how do you decide those, like, just looking at those three tiers alone, how do you decide those numbers?
00:17:02
Speaker
How do you decide minimum just to, know, for the traction, then the viability, and then the, this is what I really, really, really wanted to be?
Setting Goals and Tiers in Crowdfunding
00:17:12
Speaker
Yeah, that was a process. For me, it was a process. I mean, at first I was like, set a goal of 10,000, like 10,000 goal, And that time, when right and and for me at that time when Tariffs were not a thing yet at all.
00:17:27
Speaker
I was like, well, you know, it's not it won't pay for my art, but it will at least get me a good long way toward paying for the print run.
00:17:38
Speaker
Not all the way, but a good long way. So at that, at that stage, you, you were, you're, you're at you're still at a loss with the intent that you're going to have copies to sell in the future.
00:17:50
Speaker
Yes. Right. Exactly. And then i'm like, well, we, I know that, that, that 10,000 is, ah is, is, is a risky number as far as a printed written goal yeah ah for the project because we want momentum.
00:18:08
Speaker
We want want people to be excited about it. So I then lowered it to 5,000 and finally lowered it to 3,000. And that was based on advice I got and partly based on what the offering ended up being. is like At first I was going to do but And i talked I got talked out of that pretty easily. i was like, yeah, you're right. I shouldn't do that.
00:18:33
Speaker
why Talk a little bit about that if you don't mind. like Okay. Yeah. I wanted to do a box partly because I wanted to have a box on the Studio 2 shelf at Gen Con with this amazing art that I had ordered.
00:18:47
Speaker
Right. Right. I wanted to have that there. And the other financial, like, practical reasons for having a box is that in with the with the printer, I'm at least right now still planning to go with in China, ah depending on how things go.
00:19:05
Speaker
um They can do all everything there. So they'll print the books, they'll print the cards, they'll print the maps, they'll produce the box, and they'll put all of that stuff in the box and shrink wrap it at the printer.
00:19:20
Speaker
Right. So fulfilling this now becomes much easier. Yes. Now when people buy a box, I don't have to do pick and pack. I don't have to do any kind of weird. um And pick and pack is basically paying a distributor to take the component pieces, stick them in the box that they're sending to the individual Literally having the list of orders and going through them one by one of who gets what.
00:19:42
Speaker
Yes. and And what quantities of what. And there are fees associated with that. Right. If I do that all at the factory and put everything in the box, I don't have that fee. And it slows down distribution the customer. it slows down distribution, exactly. yeah And so that was another reason I wanted to do it. And originally, my crowd funder was created with that in mind. is okay is Okay. So there's going to be a couple tiers and i'm I'm structuring them in a way that makes it easy for Studio 2, if I decide to go with Studio 2, to distribute these to to the backers. Tears will be will will be my next question after this.
00:20:22
Speaker
After we get through these initial costs. But finally decided not to do the box. Yeah, why why not? Why not the Well, because it was going to be more expensive. And... um
00:20:36
Speaker
It was, i was really, i mean, advice told me not to and I was really iffy on it anyway because um the the financial aspects of it. So, yeah.
00:20:51
Speaker
I have to buy a certain number of the box to get a certain price. I see. Just like I have to buy a certain number of books to get a certain yeah price. Right. And the more you order, the lower the cost per unit. The more you order, the more per per unit is – the less per unit it is. Right. Right.
00:21:07
Speaker
Well, with the box, I would have had to have x number of boxes, say 500 is a minimum, and people, not everybody's going to buy the box. Right. So either i have to break into my own boxes to get the books out, or i have to have books on top of the box.
00:21:25
Speaker
So I have, I order the box with two books in it and cards and all that other stuff. And now I have to have 500 of each book for the people who don't want the box. Right. Right. and you're going to have leftover of both. Right.
00:21:36
Speaker
i' goingnna have leftover of both, a lot leftover both. Right. And um that's really expensive. that's a I was prepared to do it. Right. I was like, okay, I think I can do this. I'm glad I didn't. I was talked down off that fence more more by Simon than anybody else.
00:21:54
Speaker
And he was right. And thankfully I had him. But at the same time, i don't know that I would have tried it if I didn't have that confidence of having Simon and Shane in my corner.
00:22:05
Speaker
I probably would not have tried a box in the first place. So either way, it wouldn't have happened. Right. And I don't want to get, yeah i don't want to get too in the weeds with this, with this next sort of tangential question.
00:22:16
Speaker
We can, maybe this is something we talk about another episode, but yeah. Those boxes and those books, you're you're having Studio 2 distribute those? at this point, my plan is to have it all shipped to me.
00:22:29
Speaker
ah Oh, but i was that was the thing. But I'm still considering yeah having a distributor deal with it, at least if not for this fulfillment, then for later.
00:22:41
Speaker
Yeah. So tying it back to the box thing, that would have been, boxes are bigger. Boxes are bigger. They're heavier. That would have been a lot more space that you would have had to account for to store them.
00:22:52
Speaker
Yes. And a lot more in shipping. Yes. For individual backers. Right. Right. Or even for even for sale later. Yeah, even for sale later. Taking them to cons would have been a pain in the ass. and like yeah All of that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's all good reasons.
00:23:08
Speaker
There's good reasons on both sides to have it and not have it. But i I finally decided not to have it. yeah And I had to change my marketing. had to change my ads for Meta ah to take out in the box um before I launched. All this was before I launched. Yeah. Because you don't want to do that midstream. Yeah. There were some 11th hour decisions before I launched and changes before I launched that...
00:23:33
Speaker
that Okay. say I'm like, okay, we're, we're changing it. mean, it has to be this way. And my date is my date is my date. I am going on this date. If I, yeah I could have but delayed, but I really didn't want to because I had delayed so much already.
Choosing Between Backerkit and Kickstarter
00:23:50
Speaker
Right. Right. You know, by the way, how did you choose which platform to use? The platform decision, so there's there's lots of platforms out there. There's Game on Tabletop for for role-playing games. There's Backerkit. There's Kickstarter. I think Indiegogo does it.
00:24:07
Speaker
yeah um I chose Backerkit because, i mean, I would have ah would have initially chosen Kickstarter because, of course, that was the biggest game in town for a long time.
00:24:19
Speaker
I guess it still is, but even now, their weekly emails... they're less of an impact now than they used to be. is I feel like if like Kickstarter is like the new Band-Aid or Kleenex.
00:24:34
Speaker
Right. you know I mean, it it it is it's still, it's still big, but at the yeah at the same time, it's not as big as it used to be. And Mark and Backerkit is, is making inroads. And yeah the reason I went to Backerkit is it's cheaper. yeah Well, there's two reasons.
00:24:53
Speaker
One is it's cheaper. The other reason is that they're very much more hands-on with you. So if you have a question, they respond to you. there was if Christina was the person that I was dealing with there, and she would have video meetings with me.
00:25:11
Speaker
That's awesome. She did it a couple of times. So it's very one-on-one. was one-on-one. She answered my questions. She, she followed up on my emails to her. She was very helpful.
00:25:22
Speaker
Is that to say that Kickstarter is a little bit more hands-off or a lot more hands-off? Yes. Okay. Yes. It's just like, good luck. Anybody who yeah does their stuff on Kickstarter knows that it's a little, it's so yeah it's a fair amount ah more, you're on your own.
00:25:38
Speaker
Yeah. We just provide the platform. Good luck. Here's the fact. You're on your own. I mean, that's not totally true, but it definitely is not like we're going to have ah individual we're gonna have a couple individual video calls with you and- talk you through this process and answer all your questions. It's not that.
00:25:56
Speaker
And for some of the other options like Indiegogo and Game on Tabletop, are they comparable to Backerkit? Just different flavors? kind I don't know really. Because, i mean, Daryl knows a little bit more because he dealt with Game on Tabletop. I think that Simon Shane know a little more about Game on. Indiegogo, I don't know.
00:26:12
Speaker
But... um I had met a backer kit because I went to Gen Con. I went, I go to Gen Con every year. Yeah. And I went to backer kits booth and i had talked with them and i liked what they said. And I liked what Loke Battlematch said about doing their stuff on the backer kit platform because Loke Battlematch was right next to them.
00:26:33
Speaker
Nice. And so um I just, I liked them. Oh, cool. When it comes to me, I'm all for shh. choosing the more expensive option if it's easier for me. Yeah. This was a double whammy because it was the least less expensive option and it was easier. And it was easier. yes the that Yeah. that's It's a good vibe check, you know, where when, or not vibe check. Yeah.
00:27:01
Speaker
yeah When you, when you, when you get a good vibe from ah company that you're going to have to deal with and you're like, wow, there's this is, this feels personable or, you know and so on. Then yeah, that goes a long way, I think. Yeah, the the possible drawback was that maybe I wouldn't make as much money BeckerCat versus Kickstarter. Because it's not as big as Kickstarter. Because it's not big. And they don't have the big email that they send out yeah Wednesday whatever it is. I think, well, yeah, Kickstarter does the wide net thing that we talked about, right?
00:27:30
Speaker
But I think that in the game, this is my personal opinion, I have nothing no data on this, but it feels like to me that the other platforms in the gaming community have enough um familiarity or awareness among the gaming community, I should say, that I don't know that it matters.
00:27:53
Speaker
Yeah, i that that was the other factor. I didn't feel like it mattered. As long as they knew... that they needed to click on this link and it was one of the ones that they had seen. Right. there They didn't care whether it was Kickstarter or Backerkit.
00:28:05
Speaker
Right. And i was concerned that it wasn't, that I was just going to get nothing because i was, my followers were not very high and i was like, man, really, maybe I should have gone in with Kickstarter, but I stuck with it and it is cheaper. what the the The numbers involved are,
00:28:24
Speaker
Kickstarter, I think, is the same as back area. It's going to take 5% off the top of your campaign, right? So whatever you make, they're going to take 5%. But if you're doing Kickstarter, generally you're going to have to have some kind of pledge manager because there's logistics involved in fulfilling and having surveys with add-ons and all this stuff that Kickstarter doesn't do at all.
00:28:47
Speaker
Oh, I thought they added that. Well, maybe they did. Maybe not. yeah if it If they did, it's new. Right. Yeah. i could be I could be way wrong, but I thought I read something that they were adding that or had added that.
00:29:01
Speaker
i And it was like a threat to like Backerkit. And so that's one of the reasons why Backerkit did a- Backerkit was originally just a pledge manager. Right. Pledge manager and Backerkit. Right. the pledgeman That's another band-aid type of- Yeah, that's another one.
00:29:15
Speaker
That's another Yeah. So they stepped into the crowdfunding- campaign yeah business to compete with Kickstarter in that space, I thought. you know Yes, exactly. And part of the, the other part of the the benefit there is that it's an all-in-one thing. It's seamless.
00:29:31
Speaker
Backerkit is seamless. Like it will automatically transfer ah very all the crowdfunding over to the pledge manager. It's a, if there's a support issue, you contact Backerkit. You don't have to worry about which platform is the support problem. that The data transfer, right? The data transfer, exactly. The other thing that Backerkit does is how it gives you access to your backers and followers' emails.
00:29:53
Speaker
Yeah. Kickstarter does not do that. Oh, wow. And that's a big deal. you can direct market to... Yeah, that's a big deal. You can take those emails and they're yours now. You can put them in your newsletter. Yes. Whatever people can opt out. Yeah.
00:30:06
Speaker
So there's there's there's multiple reasons. And and so 5% off the top campaign, whatever your campaign total is. Backerkit, if you go with them... It's the 5% off the top, but there's no off the top for going to Pledge Manager then.
00:30:22
Speaker
Then it's just transaction fees. Right. Whereas if you went with Kickstarter, you'd pay 5% to Kickstarter. Then you'd pay 2% to Backerkit for the Pledge Manager. And then the transaction fees on top of that. Right.
00:30:33
Speaker
Right. So it's cheaper. Yeah. Nice. And more integrated. And they're trying to gain market share. And so, you know, I took advantage of that. Right. Right. Right. So there it is. okay That's why.
00:30:46
Speaker
have so many more questions. All right. ah You already touched on prepping beforehand, right? How complete, how ready do you get things? Oh, yeah. Did I? Well, a little bit. Not in depth. And that's what I was going to get to is like, how...
00:31:03
Speaker
Like what what what do what should somebody have completed before they start? Before they launch? I think that depends on who you are and what your project is.
00:31:15
Speaker
Okay. What did you have completed? i had 99% of it completed. Okay. The only thing that was not finished was the editing. Right. The art was finished before I launched.
00:31:29
Speaker
Like completely finished. Yeah. And... um The editing, I've got one more Savage Tale to finish, actually. So besides the editing, I've got maybe two pages.
00:31:40
Speaker
Which I think, I think editing, that's fine to me. That's like, yeah, it needs editing. Okay, it's done though. It's, you know, at this stage, there's not going to be anything that's like, oh my God, I got to rewrite this whole thing because this just doesn't work at all. You're beyond that.
00:31:54
Speaker
Oh yeah, I'm well beyond that. But that's my choice. It was my choice to do that. It was part of my strategy. yeah I think it's totally fair. Because this is what these platforms are for, is for you to have your idea and to have a good start on what on on the confidence that you can lay about that idea when you're trying to pitch it to backers and not have it completed yet.
00:32:20
Speaker
It's okay. But define not completed because it's like we haven't even started writing or we've only got like a portion of it written. i think it's okay depending on if you're up front with backers, all is well.
00:32:36
Speaker
Right. I really think that. And and if if if you're clarity,
Transparency and Communication in Campaigns
00:32:41
Speaker
clarity, clarity. Right. If you're up front with where you are in the process and what backers should expect in terms of timelines and how long this is going to take and, you know, your prospects of getting it done.
00:32:53
Speaker
As long as they know, i think you can be in any point in the process. So i I personally have some red flags that I look for. hmm. And, and, and, and these are, these are some of the main ones. One is, you know, how close to being done or is it done?
00:33:09
Speaker
Yeah. Is this like a, we just need the art paid for or whatever, or printing. And it's totally legit to pay for art with your crowdfunding. So let's say, let's say it's not done. Okay, fine. You're, you're still writing it. You, you know, you still need to pay for art to put into the layout as you're writing, whatever it might be.
00:33:24
Speaker
fine But then if I see that you're actually you've got other riders contributing, that's ah that's another red flag for me. Because those are forces beyond your control.
00:33:38
Speaker
right And now I'm like, well, i have you can't guarantee me that that person's going to complete their job and that you're going to have the product available. like They could get sick. they could have There could be a bad falling out. like i I have no idea.
00:33:51
Speaker
So that's another unknown for me. So if it's not done and you've got a team of, say, five writers, major red flag for me as as ah as a consumer.
00:34:03
Speaker
um If you had a team of writers and it's done, Awesome, I'm in, right? Like, I will, or, you know, yeah. Or you're not done, but it's just you. And, but you're, you know, okay, fine. that's That's a lot less variables I'm willing to put in for that, right?
00:34:19
Speaker
Right. And that's that's pack backer comfort, right? And I think right that's the whole point is, and what these crowdfunding platforms really emphasize is make sure you are upfront and honest and communicative, transparent with with your backers so that they know what they're getting into.
00:34:37
Speaker
Now, just to be clear, that's not to say if you are doing those things, if you're not done and you do have a team of writers, that's to say you're doing it wrong. That's just me personally. That's my... Sure. When I say red flag, I don't mean like this is wrong, bad.
00:34:50
Speaker
I just mean I'm reluctant to invest personally. Understood. Yeah. and But there are some other people that will, right? Yes. And and again, because this is this is the whole reason Kickstarter was launched in the first place is to give people a chance to do their projects who would otherwise not be able to afford them.
00:35:08
Speaker
Yes. Agreed. Right. And I don't want to take that away from them. no And the problem is that a lot of the big companies have already taken that away from them because they're using these platforms as marketing and pre-order rather than what they were really meant to be.
00:35:24
Speaker
Right. Right. Right. And I'm both. I'll admit it. But at the same time, I need it because I needed to gauge, again, like we've talked about, yeah what the interest is and to know how many I need to order. yeah How much you're going to invest. Yeah.
00:35:38
Speaker
And whether I can afford it. Right. Because I got to pay for the print run. I can't do that by um by myself. I can't take that risk by myself. Right. Okay. So, so we covered how much you wanted to raise.
00:35:50
Speaker
We covered, um what platform you're picking, right? When, when complete was complete for you. What about tiers? you We had conversations, I remember you were you were kind of running by me and you've run by Daryl and others. Like, you know, what do you think of these tiers? You know, and I'm thinking it's this for these reasons. And this is what I'd like to do when we get to here.
00:36:12
Speaker
yeah Kind of, I guess, talk through that a little bit. Like, what how did you even decide what things were going to be tiers and at what levels? And, you know, and then there were some, there were some, i don't know if you want to disclose some of the other ones that you were planning,
00:36:27
Speaker
Oh, sure. Maybe already did announce them all. Yeah, I think I did. Yeah. um Man, I... i i look You look at comparables, right? That's the first thing.
00:36:40
Speaker
You look at what other people are offering for what but money. Yeah. you know That's if somebody did something similar. Well, even then, I mean, you can say, okay, so Shatterdark's offering two books plus blah, blah, blah for X amount of money, right? Right, right.
00:36:54
Speaker
But for me, my most direct comparison is Pinnacle products, right? So Pinnacle did X for X amount of money. And and it it actually varies a little on what Pinnacle does. Okay, yeah.
00:37:07
Speaker
So one project versus another, you'll see that there's a little bit of a difference in how they handle a 264-page book in this project versus this project. Yes. Right? Right.
00:37:18
Speaker
Like it depends on whether it's a companion or holler. It depends on whether it's, you know, Rifts or Ghost Mountain. I mean, it – And it depends on the market forces at the time. It depends on the quote they get from the printer. It depends on all kinds of like whatever incentives, miniatures they might be offering.
00:37:37
Speaker
There's so many factors that go into that, that it's it's hard to apples to apples comparison. Right. And also, like, they have, like, their boosters versus their full-on. Yes, boosters versus full campaigns, whether they offer stretch goals or not. yeah. Pinnacle's sort of moving away from stretch goals, which I totally understand. Right.
00:37:54
Speaker
But at the same time, like, stretch goals, especially for a first project, I i thought they were important. I planned them very from the very beginning. And... um So yeah, that I looked at comparables and I said, okay, so Pinnacle's charging... Back in 2022, Pinnacle charged $40 for an X number of page book, right?
00:38:17
Speaker
My book's the same size. It's going to be comparable.
Pricing Strategies and Stretch Goals
00:38:21
Speaker
But now we have, you know... we're We're living in a world that it's kind of unsustainable for this price.
00:38:30
Speaker
I feel like it needs to be $5 more than that. So I finally, there are others out there who are charging $60 and $65 for a book. Pinnacle's still charging $40.
00:38:42
Speaker
And I'm like, $40's too low, $60's too high. yeah So I'm going to go with, I wrestled with it, but I was like $45. $45 is the number.
00:38:53
Speaker
And then you can do things like add, you know, archetype cards for as as a value added thing for that 45 as part of your crowdfunder that they won't get in retail later.
00:39:06
Speaker
Right. You know, these all start to like they start to go into place once you start deciding, OK, what do people want There's going to be people who just want a digital player book and that's it. our digital source book and that's it.
00:39:21
Speaker
There's going to be people who want a physical source book with archetypes, right? All archetypes are going to be included on everything. It was my decision because of course you want something you can play with without having to create a character.
00:39:34
Speaker
And then what's the GM going to want? yeah Is there a difference between what the GM might want and what a all-in character? GM might want. Right. Right. Right. And so I went through a couple of iterations on tiers, but I knew there were a couple of guidelines. One was I didn't want any more than like five or maybe six at most because simplicity is better, especially when it comes to fulfillment.
00:40:00
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. so I'm like, let's, let's make this as simple as we can. And then there's the there's a little bit of a game of enticement. There is. There absolutely is. Early on, some of these early tiers are there for the sole purpose of telling you how valuable the higher tiers are.
00:40:19
Speaker
Yeah. Right. That's a fact. Right. And then you also have some, you might have some stretch goals. They might be like print only. Yes. Where you're like, okay, yeah, you want to go digital, but if you want this thing up here, when this stretch goal unlocks, you're going to have to go up to the print and it's only going to cost you this much more.
00:40:39
Speaker
And this thing is valued at this much. So you're really kind of getting a deal Yeah. Oh, yeah. There's a lot of that. I mean, the more stretch goals you unlock, the more valuable the tiers become. Right. And generally, cleaved to this is it religiously, which was Unless it's a purely physical stretch goal, meaning like ribbons in the book or if we had reached it, the foil stamping or the additional map on the back of the on the back. so Those are pure physical. Pure physical, right. um Well, except for the math the map. The map's actually both digital and physical. Right. But if it's pure physical, then...
00:41:19
Speaker
only the physicals get it. Right. If it's, if it's otherwise, everybody gets it. Right. Like the cards, you're going have PDF and, you know, print. Yeah. But if, and and if any of the PDF cards that I added as stretch goals, everybody gets them. Even if you're but backing at 25. Did you did you do print cards?
00:41:39
Speaker
Oh yeah, we have, but the, the only add-ons, the only stretch goal printed cards were the archetype cards. Okay. That's right. Right. Okay. um The three extra architect cards with the printed.
00:41:50
Speaker
i And the rest of them were PDF. And every tier gets those stretch cards because you want them to feel like your pledge is becoming more valuable as the campaign goes Right, right. There's a reason to get And you start to go like, well, look at all this stuff. could go in for $100. If you help build up the hype, you help to get these things that you want Yes.
00:42:12
Speaker
yeah So, okay. So I'm glad, I'm glad we just mentioned PDF, you know, digital and print.
Digital vs Print: Cost and Demand
00:42:17
Speaker
um How did you decide which things to go print and which things to go digital only?
00:42:23
Speaker
That had to do with the printing quote. Okay, so that was a cost factor. And some advice I got. So I had planned to do initially, like along with the big box that I had, i was like, I'm going to do printed edge cards, power cards, right? And, and ah you know, the adversary cards and stuff.
00:42:43
Speaker
And I finally was talked down off that ledge because um Pinnacle kind of they kind of wish they didn't do the edge cards. Mm-hmm. Because there were just big blocks of cards. yeah There were so many of them. And and you can only have one each.
00:43:00
Speaker
So if you had a character with with the same edge or whatever, like there was multiple problems with that. So I'm like, yeah, sense. was having that problem. I was like, what do I what do i store these? And how do i yeah what if I have three people with you know alertness or whatever? you know Yeah, they're cool.
00:43:14
Speaker
But at the same time, they're not as useful as they seem. Right. Right. And um so that was part of the decision. is like, well, if I'm going to do power cards, if I'm going to do edge cards, if even if I'm going to do adversary cards, yeah um let's just do PDFs.
00:43:33
Speaker
because that way you can print out as many as you need. Right. And um we're not adding weight to the box or making people buy things that aren't as valuable physically, right, as say the archetype cards or the ally cards will be.
00:43:48
Speaker
Like I was, I pared it down to what I would want as the GM. Like I want shift intensity cards. I want the ally cards because they are critical to the campaign. yeah I want these campaign asset cards. there's only three of them. So why not?
00:44:02
Speaker
And then I want archetype cards. Yeah. You know, convention play. want, want physically along with the maps. Yeah. And so right part of that decision was paring down to what I absolutely wanted.
00:44:15
Speaker
then there was an advantage, in fact, for doing the others in just PDF because you can print multiple of them. Yes. You know. Right.
00:44:26
Speaker
Which I think is smart. Right. Like I need three copies of Boo Straight, you know, whatever. Yeah. But ultimately adding, I mean, it could have been, I could have printed 144 cards, but i decided not to.
00:44:40
Speaker
yeah Because it would have added a lot of weight to the box. You'd have a big block of cards. for Why? You know, but let's not do that. Let's not do that. So I decided to make them digital only, and that solved a lot of problems. Yeah.
00:44:54
Speaker
So for the print, books, cards, and everything. Mm-hmm. how I know different people have different reasons for doing pod versus print run, like having a full print run.
00:45:09
Speaker
Pod meaning print on demand. Yes. Sorry. Yes. Pod, print on demand. Right. and And, you know, even drive-through, they do print on demand for cards as well. Yeah. You know, things like that. So that's that's also a choice, right? why what was your rationale for going with a print run?
Pros and Cons of Print-on-Demand
00:45:26
Speaker
Well, number one it's still higher quality, even though POD products have gone up in quality lately. Yeah, they've also gone up in price. They've also gone up in price, and that's the second reason. But the the first reason is still offset print run from a quality print manufacturer is still going to be higher quality than a POD book is.
00:45:45
Speaker
You also get more options. And you get more options. Because you can do the UV spot if you want. You can do all that. The sizing. yeah Like I wanted to make a graphic novel format the same size as Pinnacle. Can't get that in P&P. Can't get that.
00:45:57
Speaker
Nope. And so that was part of the decision. The other the other thing is finance finances. Because as a creator... as a as a producer,
00:46:09
Speaker
um going print on demand basically says, okay, I'm going to unload the risk of having to do a print run myself in exchange for that risk going to DriveThruRPG or whoever their print partner is. They're going to make the money that I might make If I had printed it myself.
00:46:37
Speaker
So I lose out on a fair amount of money because the print on demand is expensive. yeah And I can only charge if I do print on demand and I'm doing just digital only, I can only so charge so much for the digital.
00:46:51
Speaker
I mean, people will only pay so much for it. Drive-through is going to take 30% of that. 10% is going to go to Pinnacle from a drive-through sale. And then, so I'll get maybe, I'll get, ah it's it's actually more than 60% because ah Pinnacle's 10% comes up before that, or after that 30% of drive-throughs percentage.
00:47:15
Speaker
So I'll get 60 some odd percent of the price of the digital product. Yeah. And drive-thru gets all the rest of it. Yeah. Because the consumer's paying for print-on-demand and the shipping of it.
00:47:28
Speaker
And DriveThru going to get the money that they would that that the yeah consumers might give me for a a printed book.
00:47:39
Speaker
Right, right. So there's no wiggle room for me. I'm going to make 64% on the digital part of that product. And all the rest of that money is going somewhere else. Yeah.
00:47:50
Speaker
And that's that's regardless sort of of whether you're doing... Well, because because there's also like the print voucher thing, right, that we've seen. Yeah. Where it's like, okay, you know, well, you pay this much.
00:48:01
Speaker
We give you a voucher to get the book at cost, even though you're not really get, I don't know. have Yeah. But the voucher is basically saying you don't have to pay for the digital portion of the book.
00:48:14
Speaker
Right. You don't have to pay for the PDF part. Right. You only have to pay for the at-cost, quote-unquote, printing part. Right. Right. And it's all going to somebody else, not to me.
00:48:24
Speaker
Right. Whereas if I did an offset print run and my price per book is way lower than a print-on-demand price is, at least I get something back. Yes.
00:48:35
Speaker
You know, like I've got, ah i've there's a lot of things, there's ah there's there's expenses I have because of that. I have to have a marketplace. I have to you so warehouse this stuff somewhere. I have to store it somewhere.
00:48:46
Speaker
have to do all the things that drive-thru has to do, kind of. But... Ultimately, I'm going to have a better quality book. I'm going to pay less per book than much less per book than a print-on-demand product is.
00:49:01
Speaker
And I'm going to get a little bit more money out of it. And it's better for the consumer because the consumer is not paying as much. i mean, if they're paying print-on-demand prices... I have to lower my digital price to a certain level to get it to the point where they would pay me for the physical book if I did an offset print run.
00:49:19
Speaker
Yeah. If that makes sense. I mean, I've seen books um print on demand $75. Yeah. And this is like just, ah you know... Yeah. And it's just like, ouch.
00:49:30
Speaker
it's It's crazy. it's it It hurts. I'm not going to say it's gouging because it it probably is the way the economics has to work. They're doing it in the US. Right. it's It's a one-off. It's not being able to be tooled for you know a thousand copies. Print on demand is expensive. It it just is.
00:49:50
Speaker
And that's why didn't want to do it. Really, really didn't want to do it. really really didn't want to do it
00:49:58
Speaker
Yeah. All right. But it has its place. It has its place. And I don't want to discount it. like no and that's not to say if... people have that. That's the only choice that they have. like if somebody's doing that, that's it's legit.
00:50:10
Speaker
And it's not really... it's not really um It doesn't really hurt the customer that much. I mean, it does in terms of like, know, shipping costs can get high, right?
00:50:23
Speaker
or Or the cost of the print can be, can go up, you know, between the time that you backed and then the time that you actually can submit the order. That's fair. So there's that. but um But it's really more of a decision for the for the person running the campaign, the publisher.
00:50:38
Speaker
Yeah. Right. <unk> more It's more, I mean, as far as the consumer goes, there i think it's I think it's a um diminished experience for the consumer.
00:50:49
Speaker
Yeah. But it's a really diminished experience for the creator. Right. To be clear, no creator actually really wants to do print on demand. Yeah. Everybody would love to do print runs.
00:51:01
Speaker
Well. Print on demand is just a way, you know, to to make it um feasible, I guess. Feasible and less risky. Yeah. So I think people do want to do print on demand because it's less risky.
00:51:15
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When I say wants, I mean like in our hearts, if there were no risk involved, we would just have print runs and have high quality stock of, you know, these books that we know we're going to confidently sell. Yeah.
00:51:28
Speaker
But that's not the case. Right. Yeah. No. I mean, there's, there's a lot of factors go into it but that's, that's my thought is, is this the reason the choices I made. Yeah. Print on demand is fine. There's nothing wrong with it. It's just, I think creators, know,
00:51:45
Speaker
it's It's not really viable for a creator who wants to to launch a product and make it sustainable. Right.
Effective Communication with Backers
00:51:54
Speaker
so um and So I guess that that really does kind of go back to, too, like the the sort of transparency, like being honest with the with the backers, you know, where these costs are and and so on. Right. Yeah.
00:52:07
Speaker
um What were some of the things that you were super careful about being clear on? Like the clarity and the and the, you know. Oh, there were so many. Like what were the highest, the things that were like, I absolutely have to be, you know, clear and transparent about this.
00:52:22
Speaker
ah Printing fulfillment and how it was going to get done. How much, how long the wait would be. Right. You know, like that's an important one.
00:52:33
Speaker
The other thing that I was super careful on and had to revise many, many, many times and in multiple places, because these these crowdfunding platforms, they have them in multiple places, is the tiers, what you get, what you don't get, what's digital, what's physical, like to know exactly. Because in the all-end print industry,
00:52:55
Speaker
tier, for example, for Hun cluster, the figure flats are still going to be PDF only. Right. There are, there's ways to, to express that. Like I've, ah but I, I did all the ways that I could, because what I don't want is people having to ask me and having to think one way and then they get it in their hands and they realize, oh man, this is not what I expected. Right. They had the wrong impression or whatever. Which is,
00:53:23
Speaker
Sometimes not my fault, but at least then they can go back to the crowdfunding page and see it was that way all along and go, oh, yeah, this is my fault. I didn't see that. Right. I've that. But want to make it clear. Yeah. Right? So not just put figure flats, parentheses, PDF, but put a picture of the figure flats on there with a little PDF symbol below them. Right.
00:53:43
Speaker
Right. And then a little print plus PDF symbol for everything else. Just hit them over the head with it yeah So that it's it's really clear. So that when you go back and have to look at it again, and and and if you didn't see that at first, then you can see it later and say, oh yeah, it was always that. Making it as obvious as possible is the best option. And that was true of the add-ons. It was true of the tiers, like all those things. I had to make sure that I was depicting them correctly in in what I was expecting to get, what they were expecting to get. Like, is this artwork final or not? And if it wasn't, I put a little artwork not final yet.
00:54:28
Speaker
And when it was, I took that off. Yeah. I've backed um projects. I don't remember which one it was, but I remember there was one where they actually had like a whole like matrix.
00:54:40
Speaker
of like what you get at which tier and blah, blah, blah, whether it's, you know, this or that, or this combo. And I was just like, this is a hot mess. Like they had way too many tiers, way too many options. And then they had add-ons and you're like, wait, do I get this as a, as a stretch goal or do i have to buy this as an add-on? Is it available to me because I'm at this tier or it was so confusing. And, and it felt frustrating because I, in the end, I remember thinking,
00:55:07
Speaker
Do I know what I'm getting? And that felt disconcerting. Yeah, that that was part of part of the decisions about tears and all that yeah is to because you want to make it appear simple.
00:55:19
Speaker
Yes. So that backers know what they're going to get. And I think you did a great job of that, by the way. It was very, very clear and obvious. Very, very hard. Well, you simplified it too. it was It was like, there weren't, there weren't like a ton of tiers. It was like, what, four? Yeah, it was like four.
00:55:33
Speaker
Yeah. Player digital, um player print. Yeah. All in digital, GM, yeah all in print. So five five plus the $1 tier for retailers and Right, right, right.
00:55:45
Speaker
Yeah. So I thought you did a great job with that. I tried. I knew what I was getting. I knew was getting. Because even even with that, even with that simple, yeah it's really complicated when you start looking at Pledge Manager and trying to get the add-ons built and making sure that the surveys make sense and you know that you're offering the right add-ons to the right tiers. And it gets crazy.
00:56:10
Speaker
Yeah. Well, that's the other thing. You have to through it and again to get it right. As a backer, even when I'm going through and they're like, oh, there's add-ons. Like, wait, am I already getting this? yeah Do I need to add this on?
00:56:20
Speaker
like Right, right. And you know it tells you what you're getting with your pledge. Yeah, it does. But you want to be able to add add-ons because if you want an extra set of extra setups this or that. Right, right, right.
00:56:31
Speaker
Exactly. Cool. um So I feel like there's... there's There's so much more. There is. So much more. But we'll revisit it, I imagine. know But I think those are the key kind of decision points.
Maintaining Campaign Momentum with Stretch Goals
00:56:47
Speaker
You know, as far as when when you're planning it out and you're you know you're trying to figure out like what are the tiers? What are the stretch goals? How do you spread them out? Oh, man, that was also – you and I had that conversation. Right. remember that. Because I had no idea how well it was going to do. I had no idea.
00:57:03
Speaker
and I was like, well, $3,000, we'll start with a stretch goal at $3,500, maybe $4,000, and maybe forough and then we'll we'll go from there. And what – it turns out amazingly – That you what you and I talked about with where stretch goals would end up is where they actually ended up.
00:57:21
Speaker
Yeah. Even though i I waited and wanted to see how the campaign was going before I started putting more stretch goals out there. Right, right. So that I knew what to, you know, at what level to put it at so that it would be close enough that it's it's exciting and far enough that we're moving forward. Yeah, that yeah, yeah, yeah. There's reasons to go there. There's reasons to, yeah. Yeah.
00:57:43
Speaker
But it turns out that 20,000 was exactly where it ended up in our in our discussions before launch, which was pretty amazing ah because I was like, I have no idea where this is. We'll see.
00:57:55
Speaker
We'll see where we are. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And I – but one, I'm happy that it got as far as it did – um But i I think one last thing is that um planning out those stretch goals before launch, I think, was kind of crucial.
00:58:11
Speaker
And that was something I got to see firsthand when you and I were talking about it. was like, oh, yeah, you got to have this lined up, like ready to go, you know, as things happen. so. You might make some changes. Yeah, I did make some changes. Like the map, the shock battle map, that was not even thought before I launched.
00:58:30
Speaker
And then later I'm like, oh man, there's an opportunity here because there's an empty page on that on the side of the Baham cluster map. And if I feel like paying Jason to do another map, which is not cheap, I could just have another map. It would be an easy stretch goal for whatever I pay Jason to do the art. So that was worth it.
00:58:50
Speaker
Because the print cost was the same, right? For that map, regardless of whether there's one side or two. Yeah, it was basically, I'd already quoted it for the double-sided, so I might as well have a map to go with it. Right, right.
00:59:02
Speaker
So, of cool yeah, that was something that was added later as an opportunity. And then ah John Doom was the one who kind of suggested the foil stamping for $20,000, which isn't probably going to happen now, but yeah um it was a cool idea.
00:59:15
Speaker
what were the ribbons at? Ribbons, ah you mean and where they were in the stretch goals? Yeah, yeah. I don't remember. 12,000 maybe? Somewhere in there. Yeah, okay.
00:59:26
Speaker
Because that was another nice little add-on for, yeah. Yep. But I had plans. I had made a bunch of stuff that I was going to put in the box, but then decided, no, let's make up stretch goals instead and lower the offering so that it's easier for people to get in. And I'm not asking so much of people.
00:59:46
Speaker
And, you know, yeah I have stretch goals now. Right. Nice. Well, I think that answers all of my questions that i had. for this conversation. um And we got some more topics, crowdfunding related that we do now that we've covered, you know, last week's episode and this episode and, and, you know, the crowdfunding stuff.
01:00:08
Speaker
And I'm sure I, other people will disagree. i mean, other, I know that a lot of our listeners have done crowdfunding before. Yeah. so And well, and different people have different needs and different goals and different outlooks and even just different resources at their disposal. So yeah there is no one size fits all. This is strictly your experience and yeah your rationale for your decisions that you made yeah for your product.
01:00:31
Speaker
Yeah. So nobody, please don't take this as like, this is the only way. This is the only true way. True way. Right. I think I was successful. I'm happy with what happened.
Reflecting on Crowdfunding Success
01:00:43
Speaker
Yeah. And um so I don't have any regrets of what, and it went smoothly. And that was really the important part to me. I didn't have a whole lot of questions about stuff Yeah.
01:00:54
Speaker
I was, I was very clear with everything that I did and tried to be. And so I had very few questions to answer during the campaign, which is what was very important to me. Ideal.
01:01:06
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Getting there was a chore. I mean, you wouldn't believe how many decisions you have to make. God, yeah. And how many places you have to make sure the changes track and all that stuff.
01:01:19
Speaker
Well, and just how much time and energy each and every single one of those decisions takes. Mm-hmm. Like, it's exhausting, I bet. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was a mess. I was a wreck before it launched.
01:01:31
Speaker
Yeah. But it went smoothly, so. Yep. It did. It did. Cool. All right, then. Well, thank you for listening to the Designing Problems podcast. We want this to be more than a podcast. We want it to be a community.
01:01:44
Speaker
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01:01:56
Speaker
Until next time, keep designing your problems because you're bound to solve a few along the way.