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I designed a healthier men's dress shoe and was able to gain close to $100K in preorders in a Kickstarter this past September; https://www.kickstarter.com/proje

I designed a healthier men's dress shoe and was able to gain close to $100K in preorders in a Kickstarter this past September; https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/oaka/oaka-the-worlds-healthiest-dress-shoes https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/oaka/oaka-the-worlds-he.... Hopefully it doesn't stay a side project for too much longer, fingers crossed.

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serjester 5y ago
Any takeaways from such a successful Kickstarter? Or helpful resources?
- gnicholas 5y ago
  I launched a successful Kickstarter a few years ago. Getting press coverage is critical, but it's difficult to get press to cover something that isn't yet available. To overcome this catch-22, you can (1) have a product that is somehow attached to a current trend in the news, or (2) have enough progress that you can convince journalists that it's not vaporware. It also helps to have an existing network that would be interested, for example from a related product. There are companies that you can pay to do marketing. I didn't use one of those, since it seems like many of them probably suck out all the profit from any Kickstarter that actually succeeds. But I imagine some of them could be good partners, depending on what you're making.
  - AussieWog93 5y ago
    >have enough progress that you can convince journalists that it's not vaporware. I second this. I launched my first and only campaign back in 2016, but even then media outlets were wary. Back when crowdfunding was new and exciting, many of them featured products that turned out to never launch. Once bitten, twice shy.
  - sersi 5y ago
    Those marketing companies can also be a good way to give you the initial market reach with kickstarter so that later on, when you make your product available outside of kickstarter, you have an established customer base. It can be worth losing the profit of the initial run for this.
hooloovoo_zoo 5y ago
I wish I had seen this when the kickstarter was still open. Looking forward to being able to buy these.
asdev 5y ago
how did you market this and get backers on your kickstarter?
makstaks 5y ago
This is great! I messed up my ankle when I began taking transit and walking to the office in a pair of terrible dress hoes.
RedBeetDeadpool 5y ago
I always wanted to create/design my own physical product. Where can I go to learn how to get a product manufactured?
dansult 5y ago
As someone who wears vivo's all day everyday these fill that gap when I have to wear a dress shoe. They look amazing.

deleted 5y ago

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serjester 5y ago

Any takeaways from such a successful Kickstarter? Or helpful resources?

gnicholas 5y ago
I launched a successful Kickstarter a few years ago. Getting press coverage is critical, but it's difficult to get press to cover something that isn't yet available. To overcome this catch-22, you can (1) have a product that is somehow attached to a current trend in the news, or (2) have enough progress that you can convince journalists that it's not vaporware. It also helps to have an existing network that would be interested, for example from a related product. There are companies that you can pay to do marketing. I didn't use one of those, since it seems like many of them probably suck out all the profit from any Kickstarter that actually succeeds. But I imagine some of them could be good partners, depending on what you're making.
- AussieWog93 5y ago
  >have enough progress that you can convince journalists that it's not vaporware. I second this. I launched my first and only campaign back in 2016, but even then media outlets were wary. Back when crowdfunding was new and exciting, many of them featured products that turned out to never launch. Once bitten, twice shy.
- sersi 5y ago
  Those marketing companies can also be a good way to give you the initial market reach with kickstarter so that later on, when you make your product available outside of kickstarter, you have an established customer base. It can be worth losing the profit of the initial run for this.

hooloovoo_zoo 5y ago

I wish I had seen this when the kickstarter was still open. Looking forward to being able to buy these.

asdev 5y ago

how did you market this and get backers on your kickstarter?

makstaks 5y ago

This is great! I messed up my ankle when I began taking transit and walking to the office in a pair of terrible dress hoes.

RedBeetDeadpool 5y ago

I always wanted to create/design my own physical product. Where can I go to learn how to get a product manufactured?

dansult 5y ago

As someone who wears vivo's all day everyday these fill that gap when I have to wear a dress shoe. They look amazing.