The mordor of Kickstarter

That is what all of us imagine when we first hear Kickstarter.
-So I just tell everyone about my bathroom idea on a website and people throw thousands of dollars at me?
No, throwing Lego at the wall and hoping it will stick will not work. ;)

As soon as we started digging in into what Kickstarter is, we started to feel the challenge of it. You have that great idea that is sometimes hard to explain to your friends, imagine doing it to a bunch of strangers with an attention span of a squirrel?

Kickstarter:

1. No, it's not free money, you actually have to provide something in return for a "pledge."
2. Just throwing a few sentences out there will not work. Paragraphs and bullet points and numbers all need to be present in a good campaign.
3. Doodles as graphics will not work either (for a very few exceptions), you will need to either learn how to work with photoshop or outsource the work to platforms like www.Odesk.com
4. Video filmed with a webcam on your 10 year old laptop is yet another thing that for 99.99% of us would not work.

So what Kickstarter ended being thus far? Investment, investment, work, work, review, investment, work, review, work. Hopefully I got the point across.

The Launch
And there it is, the golden anticipated moment which happened three days ago for us. Time to kick back and watch all the people appreciate months of work that has been put into this. Should I say it? Yet wrong again. Many people will try to sell you their secrets of how to make your Kickstarter explode but at the end of the day it all comes down to traffic.

Even if you invented the cure for cancer, and nobody sees and/or shares your project, you would be out of luck. One of the biggest Kickstarters that has ever existed, it's still being funded right now, "The Exploding Kittens," was so extremely successful mainly due to the founders having a huge social influence. On day one of their project they have received thousands of organic social media engagement.

Smaller mom and pop shops, or in my case "two best friends with a toy shop", have to reach out to people who have the social following to drive the necessary traffic in order to expose our idea to more potential backers.

P.R.
Public Relations, the most crucial aspect to growing one's Kickstarter. Such a fancy term it is, PR, in the very essence of it PR is a process of nagging e-celebrities enough to the point when they block you or give in and spread the word of your awesome and innovative product.

The Happy Conclusion
At the end of the day Kickstarter is a wonderful place with a wonderful community of people who would love to see you bring your idea to life. What I'm trying to accomplish in this article is to tell you what our expectations were and how did they actually turn out to be.

Hopefully this gave an insight into Kickstarter for those of you who are not in the loop and also gave a little behind the scenes of Pinblock Kickstarter as well.

Cheers,
Jun & Vlad