In today’s flashback post, we’ll look at articles about cease and desist letters, rewarding repeat backers, hiring someone to run your campaign, relying on Kickstarter too much, and the benefits of being a Kickstarter Staff Pick.
What to Do If You Receive a Cease & Desist Letter Concerning Your Kickstarter (#136): The Board Game Lawyer, Zachary Strebeck, is back with an insightful post. The first step, of course, is to get some professional legal advice of your own. From there, you and your lawyer will evaluate the merits of the cease & desist. You may choose to do nothing. Or you may choose to take actions ranging from: writing a letter of your own, negotiating a coexistence agreement, or simply giving in. Strebeck brings up a good point. If your game or company name is so close to another’s that they are sending a cease and desist letter, maybe the public would also be confused. Check out more specifics in the article!
Should Repeat Creators Include a Reward Tier Specifically for Previous Backers? (#137): With Euphoria, I tried a few different options to reward previous backers. That was before I got some great advice from Michael Mindes of TMG. He pointed out I had already rewarded the Viticulture backers by sending them Viticulture and by communicating with them throughout the production process. Now, it was time to create something new, and those previous backers could decide if they wanted to return for a new reward.
Should You Hire Someone Else to Run Your Crowdfunding Project for You? (#138): The answer is usually–but not always–no. It’s not a matter of ethics or my personal philosophy or anything like that. Rather, I believe that crowdfunding projects have the greatest chance of success if the crowdfunder is the same person as the creator. You, the creator, are the most passionate person about your creation. Because of that, you are the best prospect to share that passion through crowdfunding. You can, however, hire help if you need it, especially if your project exceeds your wildest expectations. You can also form partnerships so all the pressure isn’t on you. And you can seek volunteers among your biggest fans to represent you in times and places you cannot appear.
Mitigating Kickstarter’s Frailty (#139): In the middle of our Between Two Cities Kickstarter launch, everything seemed to be going well. Then Kickstarter crashed. At the time, that got me thinking. You might already see where the following lesson led Stonemaier Games. Namely this: don’t rely solely on Kickstarter to keep your business afloat (or any one website or revenue Stream). It can also be good to consider staggering your social media announcements to keep a steady stream of people seeing your project in its early moments. That’s a good idea, even if Kickstarter doesn’t crash!
The Kickstarter Staff Pick (#140): When one of my campaigns got the “Kickstarter Staff Pick” seal of approval, I was very skeptical of the effect this could have on my campaign. However, when I expressed this to my backers, they presented a different side to the story. Even if the badge meant nothing to me, it meant something to them. They felt good knowing that Kickstarter picked the same project they picked. It reinforced their decision. And it made the project more appealing to potential backers–the more backers, the more stretch goals are met, and everyone wins.
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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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