Kickstarter frustration...a community conundrum

[GSO]

I launched my kickstarter on Saturday...no pledges. what did you do with your kickstarter that made it so popular? or is it just that I launched my kickstarter around the holidays that's the problem?

[Newt]

That you can't figure out what the problem is likely has a lot to do with your problem.

Most of the people I know with successful kickstarters spent months planning everything out ahead of time.

[timaeus222]

How aware are people that you are doing a kickstarter in the first place? I feel like you've been just here, gone for a long time, and back here again. I don't really know you that well, for instance.

Didn't you just start it yesterday?

Edited December 15, 2014 by timaeus222

[Flexstyle]

How much do people want to buy what you're selling? More importantly, how much do they want to buy it from you?

[A-RoN]

Also, how prepared would one be to give over 70% of his/her earned funds to rewarding their backers? Just sayin'

[k-wix]

http://zirconmusic.com/ultimate-kickstarter-guidebook/

Zircon wrote a book about a good year-ish? ago on Kickstarter campaigns and how to run them, I picked it up because I was thinking of doing one awhile back on a whim.

The information within completely changed my mentality about kickstarter and caused me to wait a few years to better prepare myself. The most important thing I took away from the book was that you absolutely *must* have a large group of people willing to donate to and spread the word about your kickstarter when it launches, otherwise its dead in the water and once that happens its almost impossible to get funded, because even if anyone DOES hit up your page and is interested, they'll see that no one has donated, and.. this completely stops them from donating for a large number of reasons.

There's a lot more in the book, but yea. I'd guess that's your problem - the actual product is not quite as important is you think.

[Rexy]

The kickstarter page itself also looked badly organised - no information on what it's about and why you want to do it? Unclear shipping? Not only are there too many tiers but also a lot of irrelevant giveaways to the cause (i.e. What kind of final fantasy fan would be interested in owning a copy of the Nutcracker suite anyway?). You should have spent more time planning it out and figured out the hows and whys of doing so.

[Frederic Petitpas]

Seemed to me like someone who wanted to make a cash pass.

[GSO]

The kickstarter page itself also looked badly organised - no information on what it's about and why you want to do it? Unclear shipping? Not only are there too many tiers but also a lot of irrelevant giveaways to the cause (i.e. What kind of final fantasy fan would be interested in owning a copy of the Nutcracker suite anyway?). You should have spent more time planning it out and figured out the hows and whys of doing so.

I was doing this in the first place so I could attract people that love classical music as well as people that love ff9.

[Newt]

I was doing this in the first place so I could attract people that love classical music as well as people that love ff9.

There's the (a) problem. You don't get the union, you get the intersection.

Final Fantasy 9 was also one of the poorer performing games in the market.

http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Final_Fantasy (I am unsure the validity of these numbers, but they look reasonable)

[Brandon Strader]

That's an easy mistake a lot of people make. If you don't have a following, you're not going to get a lot of backers -- even if what you make is amazing; that's kind of irrelevant.

[Argle]

I dunno where else you advertised it, but your only explanation here was a terse post in the Kickstarter thread that people are prolly kinda burned out on, and some a couple of threads in the Workshop that aren't known for a lot of comments. Like Brandon said, if you don't have a following you can't really expect people to show up out of nowhere to back you.

[Rexy]

I still stress that you should've thought about your Kickstarter rewards as well. Some of the most successful Kickstarters actually offer tier rewards that are relevant to the person / organisation behind it; could be other albums from the artist / group's back catalog, highly-coveted requests for those too-lazy / without-the-tools to do it themselves, or maybe even contribute to the final product in a way beyond just having their name written in small black lettering on the back of some sleeve.

You're not meant to go into a KS to attract a "specific" audience - no FF fan would pledge to a KS to end up with some classical music album NOT done by the person that started the KS in the first place; instead, they're looking for something unique and exciting that's either related to the person (hence building up a following) or the wider FF series in general.

You want those funds? You got to open lots of doors to get them!

Does that make sense? o_O

[Nabeel Ansari]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/37294293/rebirth-of-the-crystal-a-final-fantasy-ix-oratorio?ref=discovery

Rexy hit the rewards point, so I won't go into that.

It's very clear why it didn't succeed. You displayed no amount of professional effort or planning into this, and as such, even though I doubt anyone even saw this (since you didn't market it), anyone who did see it and ALSO happened to be interested was probably thinking that you were unreliable.

• Your video font is in Comic Sans without any regard for proper spelling and grammar. 99% of your words are in lower case.
  
• No one knows what it is. The first thing in the "About This Project" section is... a Bach performance?! How about you explain what you're doing? All you did was throw miscellaneous music release related expenses at people. What does Bach have to do with anything?
  
• The mechanical organization and aesthetic of the kickstarter page is pretty messy. You've got some bolded stuff, some bullet points, lots of numbers, none of it is organized in the slightest. There's no description, just random facts and figures. Where are the pictures? The paragraphs? I need WOW and SUCH PRETTY and I CARE TOO NOW, not i wanna do this thing gimme money.
  

You need to give people a reason to give you money. I wouldn't donate money to something that is so poorly organized and marketed, because what is my guarantee that you'd actually have the ability to pull through on something like this if you give no clear indication that you know what you're doing?

You should really look at successful Kickstarters and compare them to yours, and you'll plainly see what the difference is between a good kickstarter page and a poor one.

The actual page aside, did you market this at all? Spread it on social media? Get friends to spread the word?

I understand that perhaps you aren't familiar with the professional world, but here's the truth of it: if you want people to get on board with what you're doing, your campaign has to be flawless. Answer every possible question before people can ask them. There can be no errors, no room for confusion, nothing. Not a single misspelled word, not a single unclear sentence. Explain everything, show why it matters not just to you but for people in general. Give it aesthetic. Make it pretty, elegant, professional. What makes you different, and what makes me think that you have the ability not only to deliver but to do it well? Also, show some passion. Explain why you care, maybe give some background. As it stands, this Kickstarter page doesn't look like it made by someone who cared at all, and the reaction was likewise.

I mean no offense by any of this, but you asked why it failed, and even labeled it as a "conundrum" of sorts, so I plainly laid this out for you instead of beating around the bush or giving generalized answers like other people did. If you feel discouraged, swallow that feeling and instead, go down this post I made and fix *every flaw* I pointed out. I guarantee your page would improve its effectiveness tenfold, and be something worth promoting. When you do that and succeed, come back, and we can help you learn how marketing and promotion works. Even with a niche audience, you can still manage a successful crowdfund. You have to do it right. If you don't care enough to fix all of these things, then it's a good thing no one gave you any money; you need a lot of willpower to bring something like this to life, and if you don't have enough to fix a campaign, you don't have enough for the project itself.

Edited December 16, 2014 by Neblix

[GSO]

Kickstarter...take two!(preview only)

Edited December 19, 2014 by GSO

[JJT]

for what it's worth, i started planning my campaign in May and launched it in October (2013). i had 45 minutes of good video content queued up and ready to go before the campaign started, and a modest but not insignificant social media footprint (800+ on instragram and twitter).

hit my goal with two weeks to spare.

[Brandon Strader]

Try lowering your goal to $5,000 or $6,000 tops.

You could only justify asking for 30k if you're hiring the London Philharmonic

[GSO]

maybe I dream a little too big...

[Nabeel Ansari]

Already looking much better!

Biggest issue right now is your rewards. They have nothing to do with your project. Why is someone wanting to fund your FFIX project any interested in your Zelda Suite and your Medley? Why A Night on Bald Mountain & Stella Splendensm, and why An Irish Patriot?

These things have nothing to do with the FFIX project, and as such, people will have no reason to pay so much for something irrelevant. This isn't like an eBay store, where you're selling random things to get money for your project. This is a crowdfunding donation campaign, where people donating to this glorious FFIX project of yours will receive some sort of reward that enhances their enjoyment of it.

For example, Kickstarter rewards for Zircon's album were:

"

• A digital, lossless + MP3 copy of a previously released zircon album (your choice!)
  
• Advance digital copy of Identity Sequence with PDF cover + liner notes, plus one digital copy of any other album of your choice.
  
• A physical copy of Identity Sequence, plus digital downloads of any TWO albums of your choice.
  
• SIGNED physical copy of Identity Sequence, plus digital downloads of any FOUR albums of your choice!
  
• Gorgeous signed 11x18 Identity Sequence poster PLUS a signed copy of the album and digital copies of any FIVE albums of your choice!

"

Zircon can pull off the other albums bit because this Kickstarter is about HIM and HIS MUSIC. People who like zircon's music donated, and as such they received more of this music.

However, you're not like Zircon, and you don't have much of a following or a discography. This Kickstarter is *not* about Catherine Stay, but rather, it is about this FFIX Classical concept project you have. So your rewards shouldn't pertain to stuff you make and stuff you're interested in, but stuff that has to do with your FFIX project.

It could go like

• $10 - Download Code
  
• $15 - Download Code, Special Thanks
  
• $25 - Physical Copy, Special Thanks
  
• $35 - Signed Physical Copy, Special Thanks
  
• $50 - 2 Signed Physical Copies
  
• $75 - 2 Signed Physical Copies, Gorgeous Art Poster
  
• $100 - 2 Signed Physical Copies, Gorgeous Art Poster, and Copy of the Orchestral Manuscript
  
• $200 - 2 Signed Physical Copies, 2 Gorgeous Art Posters, and 2 Signed Copies of the Orchestral Manuscript
  

I'm no expert on money value and such, so these are only suggestions. But these rewards are relevant, they have something to do with your project, and thus, they are immediate reward to doners that the project they supported came to fruition, and give people exciting reasons to pump money in. I want to be like "OH SHIT! Final Fantasy 9 orchestrated *AND* I can read the manuscript? Score! Here's $100."

Edited December 17, 2014 by Neblix

[Newt]

More to the point, you spent less than a day thinking about the second set. It's clearly better than the original because you're taking some of the feedback, but I don't think you've internalized the amount of planning needed to successfully launch a project on kickstarter.

Unless your goal is to take the money and run. Then just pretty everything up a bit more and lower the funding goal.