Over the last 10 years, I’ve written over 1000 articles on this blog to share my thoughts, observations, mistakes, and insights with my fellow creators. That’s a lot of content to go back and read for someone who is navigating the crowdfunding process for the first time, so in this series I continue to revisit my Kickstarter Lesson posts in chronological order, highlighting the core elements of each.
Visioning (#121): In this blog post, I reflect on the successful first visioning session held by Stonemaier Games. The session brought together participants to engage in structured brainstorming, resulting in numerous impactful ideas that surpassed my expectations. I highlight the importance of conducting intentional visioning sessions for Kickstarter creators and provide a step-by-step guide, emphasizing the value of structure in generating, prioritizing, and pursuing ideas effectively.
The 5 Love Languages of Crowdfunding (#122): The concept of love languages, which focuses on improving relationships, can be applied to Kickstarter and crowdfunding. I explain the five love languages (words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time, and physical touch) and provide examples of how project creators can engage and connect with their backers by understanding and catering to their individual love languages. I also highlight the importance of recognizing our own love languages and being aware of their adverse effects.
How to Give and Take Tough-Love Feedback (#123): As someone who both gives and receives advice on a frequent basis, I’ve seen a broad range of positive and negative situations arise from the feedback process. This is a huge topic, but in brief, being prepared to receive and act on feedback is key. And if you’re the one giving advice, the first question to ask is, “Did this person request feedback?” Check out my 8 tips for receiving feedback and my 7 tips for giving feedback in the full article!
If You Manufacture in China, Account for Chinese Holidays (#124): I live in the US. We have exactly 10 national holidays, and they’re spread out throughout the year. Also, many US businesses still operate on national holidays. Compare that to China, which has up to 52 different holidays. They’re not all national holidays, and it’s tough to tell from that list when industry actually shuts down, but I know from experience that it’s a significant number of them. How does this affect Kickstarter creators who manufacture in China? For most of the year, it doesn’t impact us at all. But if you have a deadline or are planning a production schedule, you need to account for those dates, particularly early February and early October.
Risks and Challenges (#125): One of the clever additions Kickstarter has added to their platform over the years is the mandatory “Risks and Challenges” section at the bottom of the project page. This is the only predetermined portion of the project page–you must have it, and you can’t change the title. Our semi-frequent guest writer and legal specialist Zachary Strebeck is here to talk about the Risks and Challenges section in detail, addressing whether or not that section of a project page can be presented as a “contract” (spoiler: it’s complicated!).
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If you have any questions or thoughts about these topics, feel free to share in the comments!
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2 Comments on “Quick Kickstarter Lesson Recaps: #121-125”
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Great idea for a series- is there a single URL that links to all your “KS Lesson Recap” articles (where KS Lessons 1-120 are recapped)?
Currently there isn’t, but a search should find most of them.