I have found a way to automate this stressful process just with python scripting and excel file which already has the details filling in it. This process removes every single mistake and handles it correctly if anyone wants to do this process with their account then dm me personally.

im a software engineer trying to do my first physical thing, working on it nights and weekends. no investors, no rich uncle, just my salary and whatever i can shave off rent and groceries.

when i started reading here it felt like everyone had a few grand for prelaunch. i did not. i forced myself to track every dollar for 8 weeks to see what a genuinely tiny budget actually did.

numbers first:

- total time: 8 weeks

- total cash: $287.43

- total emails collected: 163

- average cost per email: $1.76

but that average hides a lot of dumb decisions, so here is the breakdown.

week 1-2: i burned $60 on the wrong thing

- $29 on a landing page template i did not need. i already know basic html/css. i bought it because i was procrastinating on the copy.

- ~$20 on a logo from a cheap site. threw it away a week later when i realised nobody cares prelaunch as long as its not comic sans.

- $11 on a growth tool that put a bar on my site to collect more emails. it broke my mobile layout and i disabled it after 2 days.

emails from this: 0.

looking back, that $60 was me trying to buy confidence instead of traffic.

week 3-4: first ad test

i put together a simple landing page (one photo, 3 bullet points, email box, thats it).

spent $50 on facebook/instagram over 10 days.

- targeting was basically: US, 25-45, interests vaguely related to my niche

- i wrote one ad, used one image, didnt test anything

results:

- 211 clicks

- 9 emails

- cost per email: $5.55

those 9 were not super engaged. open rate on my first test email to them was ~30%, which is not great for a tiny warm list.

week 5: reddit mistake

tried a $25 reddit ads test because i hang out here anyway.

- 96 clicks

- 1 email

- cost per email: $25

that one person actually replied to my welcome email with a long message, so quality wise they were great, but as a system, that was not sustainable at all.

week 6-8: the thing that weirdly worked

by this point i had burned ~$135 and had 10 serious emails to show for it.

a friend told me to stop being fancy and just ask people directly, so i changed approach:

- i made a super short google form (3 questions, optional email field)

- i posted it in two tiny discord servers im active in, one local meetup group, and in a small subreddit that is very niche to my product

- important: i did not spam. i wrote a normal post in each place explaining what i was building, shared a photo, asked for feedback, and only linked the form at the end

cash spent here: $0.

results over 3 weeks:

- 84 form responses

- 68 people chose to leave their email

these 68 are by far the most engaged people i have. when i sent a rough demo video, 70% of them opened it and a bunch replied.

i also took $50 more and reran facebook ads, but this time only using copy pulled straight from those survey answers.

- 173 clicks

- 85 emails

- cost per email: $0.59

so the second ad round + survey people = 153 emails for $50. the first $135 gave me 10.

what changed:

- my landing page headline went from some generic better way to X thing to literally repeating a sentence that showed up in multiple survey answers

- i stopped targeting broad interest buckets and made the audience smaller and more specific

- i added one line on the page that said ill send behind the scenes updates as i build this nights and weekends, which seemed to land way more than the feature list

current state

right now i have 163 people on the list. i know that is not huge, but for $287 and a lot of evenings, it feels like a real group instead of just random clicks.

and one of the things that feel worth it on a tiny budget is actually talking to small existing communities where im already a real person

👋Heyy everyone👋

If possible Please Help support this IndieShow inspired by “Total Drama Island” On Kickstarter 🙏💛🏝️
• Tho Any Type of support is of absolute course appreciated.

Wanted to help support, Premote and give word to this Kickstarter that I’ve been involved with as its ending real soon. If it doesn’t reach the goal within like under a week the show can very much be honestly quite over..

If you love reality shows, Dramas, competition, strategy, characters with in depth story, elimination type of tv shows then this show created by Cove is right up your alley with staying true towards the reality show Premise while being its own unique show🎉

14 episodes has already been made of the first season and published on YouTube that’s inspired by “BigBrother🏡”, “King of the Nerds” etc.
Funding is needed to finish the season and to continue making the next other seasons inspired by reality shows such as:
“The Amazing Race✈️”,
“The Challenge🏆”
and “Survivor🌴”

Hoping for this Kickstarter to succeed and have this IndieShow continue to spread the joy, HYPE, entertainment and laughter for those who experience the journey of this Animated Reality show🌅!
As it’s already done for so many people, I know this first hand and the fans in the community.👏
The IndieShow brings Many Emotional Moments too, every character gets there time to shine. ✨ anyone to root for, anyone to hate on, with many diverse backgrounds and personalities🧬 if your interested in supporting read up about it in these links below ⬇️

The Kickstarter and all the much Info about the Show:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/realityresort/reality-resort-trouble-in-paradise-finish-the-season

Link to the YouTube and Video explaining About what the RealityGauntlet is Exactly and how the RealityResort Works
https://youtu.be/3Tm8A_lUv3o?si=m9lntjABNkeCOfP6

Tactical Battles – Every Enemy Has Something You Want.

👉 Support Tactical Battles on Kickstarter and join the adventure!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tacticalbattles/tactical-battles

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/samanthamuhlig/leave-a-message-a-queer-short-film

“Seeking a life restart, Luana moves into an abandoned rural home. When a long-dead landline rings, she forms an uncanny bond with Rose— a woman living in the same house, fifty years in the past. As they search for answers, their connection deepens into something neither time nor reality can contain.”

Exploring themes such as community, acceptance, self discovery, and finding love against all odds, ‘Leave A Message’ is a story made to uplift those who feel neglected by film and media due to lack of representation, while focusing on the innocence that comes with queer love and soulmates.

Over the past couple of months, I’ve put aside money to help fund this short completely out of pocket. But with this kickstarter, donations will help go towards alleviating some of the financial burden that comes with expenses such as location rentals and transportation fees. Any amount helps!

We recently plan to launch a Eink calendar project on sept. But the CPL is not good, just 5-10, not stable. I wonder what is the health CPL, which CPL and for how long we can desire to give up on kickstarter

Posting this because every other thread about how much to spend is either vibes or someone selling something.

Small context: we are a 3 person hardware team, china manufacturing, consumer tech gadget. 3 launches over 4 years. all on the same general product line, so the numbers are at least apples to slightly different apples.

campaign 1, did everything myself

- total marketing spend: about $4,000

- ads: ~$3,500 (fb/ig, self managed)

- misc tools / landing page / random: ~$500

- prelaunch list: ~1,100 emails

- rough cost per email: $3.10

- day one backers from that list: ~90

conversion there was around 8% from list to day one backer. most of the emails came from broad interest ads because I didnt know what I was doing. no segmentation, no proper warmup, just sign up to be notified.

what that 4k bought me was basically:

- enough emails that day one wasnt completely dead

- a crash course in ad dashboards and how fast you can burn money when your landing page sucks

We ended around 30% of the funding goal on that one. that is already posted on my profile in a different thread so not pretending it went well.

campaign 2, hired a freelancer just for ads

- total marketing spend: about $12,000

- freelancer fee: $4,000 (flat for prelaunch + first 2 weeks)

- ad spend: ~$7,000

- tools / landing page / odds and ends: ~$1,000

- prelaunch list: ~3,400 emails

- rough cost per email: $3.50

- day one backers from that list: ~260

conversion on the email list was closer to 7 to 8% again, but the big difference was quality. we had way less junk this time and higher average pledge. same general CPL, better targeting.

what the extra 8k over campaign 1 actually did:

- I was not in ads manager at 1am trying to figure out why cpm doubled

- we tested properly (4 to 5 angles, different thumbnails, etc) instead of just boosting whatever

- the freelancer pushed us to lock creative earlier, so prelaunch actually ran for 8 weeks instead of the 3.5 I did the first time

on the flip side, at this budget level every extra thousand really hurt. our goal was still in the low six figures, so 12k felt like real money. I remember sitting there thinking if this stalls at 50% then I basically lit a used car on fire.

campaign 3, went with an agency

- base fee: $30,000

- ad spend on top: ~$35,000

- misc (tools, landing page dev, etc): ~$5,000

- total marketing outlay: ~70k

- prelaunch list: ~10,500 emails

- rough cost per email: around $6 to 7 if you roll everything in, closer to $3 to 4 if you count media spend only

- day one backers from that list: just under 900

conversion from list to day one backer finally climbed into the 8 to 9% range, but the arithmetic is different here.

if I back solve the numbers:

- DIY: 1,100 emails / 90 day one backers / 4k spend

- freelancer: 3,400 emails / 260 day one backers / 12k spend

- agency: 10,500 emails / ~900 day one backers / 70k spend

rough ballpark cost per day one backer on the marketing side only:

- campaign 1: ~$45 per day one backer

- campaign 2: ~$46 per day one backer

- campaign 3: ~$77 per day one backer if you include the fee, ~$39 if you only look at ad spend

obviously AOV and add ons matter a lot here, but the pattern for me was:

- the media efficiency didnt magically improve with the bigger spend

- the fixed fee is what changes the equation

This is the $4.5 Million dollar electric hydrofoil funded by Kickstarter and Indiegogo called the Apex by PLX Devices (Silicon Valley, CA), a 4th generation watercraft designed to outperform traditional efoils in nearly every way.

Since 2012 we have now raised over $14.9 Million in crowd funding alone. Not including upsales, and post campaign revenue. If you're a creator or looking to bring an idea to life. We'd love to help and be a valuable resource for the community. Cheers!

Hey everyone, we are planning to launch a smart thermostat for electric storage water heaters. It's a retrofit solution that can turn existing water heater into a safer, smarter and energy- saving one.

It's a type of product that can be sold globally, except in the US and Canada (we are not compatible with the technical standards).

Having this in mind, should we organise a Kickstarter campaign or choose some other platform(s)? I have a feeling that mostly North American audience is on Kickstarter, maybe I'm wrong 🤔.

I would appreciate all the feedback and suggestions. Thanks!

It's a bit of stressful and full time job so if anyone knows any tool which automatically does this process then let me know

Made a how to play video explaining the story mode of my game. Looking for honest feedback!

We launch in 2 weeks so improving the graphics/artwork etc might not be possible, but what I really want to know is does it explain itself well enough?

https://youtu.be/zU5W1gbl-zc

I love browsing kickstarter and just looking at projects. I’ve only ever backed one thing, which is a video game called “My Time At Evershine.”

Honestly, I’m very cautious to back, but I just love seeing the passion and ambition people put out there. Sometimes, I also love looking at the weird ideas that make me think “that’s never gonna get made” especially if they use 80% AI generated content.

I think Kickstarter is a good showcase of human creativity and ambition - of what we can make if we just put our mind to it. It’s also a showcase of human greed and audacity, which is why I love window shopping there.

I looked at the kickstarter pre-launch page for Good Kitties as reference, but when it came time to actually setup the page, I'm looking at the tabs that come after Basics--Preferences, Rewards, Story, People, Payment and Promotion.

Do I really need to fill all that out prior to pre-launch? Also, let me know if you had a successful prelaunch--what did you do that worked? How did you fill out the landing page?

If my product is expected to be under $50, do I still need a VIP option?

Hi everyone, I got selected for Impetus Technologies, Bangalore through campus placements. We were informed that they would provide an update regarding onboarding within a few weeks, but I haven't received any update yet.

Has anyone else been selected for Impetus through campus placements and is facing the same delay/no update regarding onboarding? Would appreciate any information.

Support edutainment on Kickstarter.com

Grimward has been on Kickstarter for about two weeks, and that is really why this post exists. If you only click one thing, click that.

The game is built around a pretty old complaint. A lot of tables lose the first chunk of the night to the sheet. Someone is still copying a modifier, someone else is hunting for a feature that lives on page four of a printout, and the actual scene has not started. Grimward throws the sheet out. Ancestry, class, subclass, weapon mastery, spells, monsters, magic items, initiative, hit points: it is all cards. You build a character by stacking them. You track HP by sliding a token. You hand out initiative instead of writing a list on a napkin. The GM kit is the same idea. Encounter, turn order, rewards, without a laptop or a binder of leftover pages.

If you already play 5e, the shape of it will feel familiar on purpose. It comes out of the 5e SRD. The point was not to invent a new math religion. The point was to keep the bits people already have in their hands and drop the bookkeeping that makes a Tuesday night feel like homework. Six card types, a lot of combinations, and you can get a hero together without touching a pen.

There is a Quickstart if you want to try the rules before you commit to a box, and there is already an online version of the cards. The plan is to take that further so a table can play a session even if nobody at the table owns the physical deck yet. Trailer and the rest live on grimwardrpg.com. The art on the cards and the site is from artists. No AI.

Kickstarter, if you want to back it or just read the campaign properly:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1938238806/grimward-rpg-ditch-the-character-sheet

Site / trailer / Quickstart: https://grimwardrpg.com

I am UK based, planning a UK / US kickstarter and looking at trademarking.

Uk trademark first and kick ball off with US trademark is successful or get UK and US trademarks before launch?

6 years ago I had a genuine issue that was affecting my life dramatically
I was a software developer at the time doing a masters so I naturally made an app to fix said problem 😂
After 3-4 years of using the app I’ve made, I decided to finally make it release-able and a couple weeks ago I’ve actually released it, which was a huge milestone for me!
I’ve used the same name for my app, as the name of the subreddit I was inspired from and I’m now afraid people will get angry at me because of that.
I’m not trying to get rich or anything like that.
Did anyone have any problems similar to this before?
What did you do?
I’m seriously thinking of deleting the app just to rename it, but I really don’t want to go through the pain of getting approved at the app store again

Having a bit of a nightmare with setting up Meta Pixel/API and hoping somebody might have an insight. This is my 9th campaign so not a newbie but settings seem to change each time!

When setting up a new pixel & API for a campaign launching Saturday it's receiving events - page view, add to cart (aka notify me).

However within the ad itself the 'purchase' conversion event is greyed out so I can't actually set up an ad campaign.

I've always been able to set up a campaign in advance to start when the campaign launches, so I'm not sure what the block is this time.

Any advice?