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In retrospect, I think the biggest mistake early kickstarter campaigns made was to promise merchandize unrelated to the primary thing being promised. Such thing
by scott_s 7y ago
In retrospect, I think the biggest mistake early kickstarter campaigns made was to promise merchandize unrelated to the primary thing being promised. Such things detract from the main mission, not add to it. Stretch goals should be more of the main thing (longer support for the webcomic, extra content in the videogame, extra episode of a series, etc), not tangential things (shirts, posters, stickers, just about any physical item).
The other thing is that the Patreon model did not exist in the early Kickstarter days, and a lot of things are better suited to the periodic small payments for an indefinite period of time than an up-front campaign.
- mcv 7y agoAlso, it seems many people didn't realise that the work from physical stretch goals grows quadratically, rather than linearly: the more stretch goals you meet, the more products you need to create, and the more people those products need to be sent to. Stretch goals always sound awesome, but people running a Kickstarter should be very conservative with them. The focus should be on the primary product, not the stretch goals, and stretch goals can get in the way of the primary product. Reaper Miniatures had a spectacular Kickstarter with their Bones line, that was famous for the amazing value brought by the enormous number of stretch goals they met, but it worked for them, because their stretch goals were more of the same: more miniatures; and because clearly they did the math: every stretch goal they met was spaced further apart, and about half the stretch goals were not free stuff, but extra options to buy. After this, everybody went nuts with the stretch goals, but many people messed up and ruined the main product with all the stretch goals.