When a Kickstarter campaign fails: 6 tips and lessons I learned the hard way

Not too long ago I launched a Kickstarter campaign for a web series I wrote called Bionique. We had one episode and a kick-ass trailer that everybody liked. Some people thought it looked like a regular TV show. But the campaign failed… miserably.

We were asking for $30,000.00 but only raised $926.

The biggest contribution was $520… from my mom.

It was devastating. At that point I had spent over two years on the project. From writing the whole thing, to shooting the first episode and the trailer. Not to mention the month and half we spent preparing for the actual Kickstarter.

Still, I’m glad I did it. Trust me, I learned some valuable lessons.

When we started to put it together I had a million questions about the nuts and bolts of the process. I knew how it works in the general sense, and from all my research I also knew a few strategies that had worked for several people. But I still had to guess a lot of the details and make a lot of assumptions.

Here they are in bullet points (click Read More to see more details)

Make sure you show it to the right audience. (Read more) This is the single most valuable lesson I learned. Having tons of followers on Facebook or Twitter is great, but it won’t make a difference if they’re the wrong audience.

Don’t worry too much about the platform. (Read more) If someone knows of Kickstarter he’ll probably know of IndieGoGo. Most people won’t know either.

If going with Flexible Funding: Make sure you can deliver the rewards even if you raise a ridiculously low amount.

If going with Fixed Funding or Kickstarter: Choose the absolute lowest amount you can finish the project. Getting greedy can be the difference between making it or falling short.

Get people excited before you launch: I wanted to make it a surprise for people. Well, the surprise was on me. Since nobody heard about the project before launching nobody was excited about supporting it when it came out.

Be careful with spammy techniques of marketing. (Read more) I thought I had a great marketing idea, until Kickstarter threatened to cancel my project altogether. Not worth it.