So I'm very pleased to be here with Stephanie Pereira, who is the Director of Learning and Engagement at Kickstarter and has helped thousands of projects. And she'll share some of her wisdom about what makes crowdfunding successful with us. Thank you for coming. >> Yeah, thanks so much for having me. It's exciting. >> So one question I've been asking people from lots of different platforms is when you're trying to choose between approaches to crowdfunding sort of why reward-based, right, and when should you choose Kickstarter? >> Yeah, so a couple things. Kickstarter is unique in that it is exclusively for creative projects, which means that if you are creating something, whether it is a product, or a new food thing, or an artwork, you're in good company. You're sort of surrounded by other people with creative ideas who just have a vision for something that they want to see in the world. It also means it's a place that people actually come to browse. So we do have a significant number of people who come to our Explore section of our site. Maybe they hit the same category like particularly in games, in comics, this is the case, and they just come to see what's new. And that's unique to us because someone is always offering something, which is the other side of this, of course, too, is that it is rewards-based. So it's not just people coming to say, hey, I have this great idea. But they're offering something significant and meaningful in exchange. And because people are supporting the idea before it even exists, there's all sorts of creative and exciting opportunities to get involved in the creative experience. Or to have a say, or a part in how the thing is made. So Kickstarter is unique in that it is this experience-driven platform as much as it is a rewards-driven platform. >> Great, now if somebody's considering launching a project on Kickstarter, for example, what should they be doing before the product launches? >> Yes, this is my favorite question. [LAUGH] Thanks, it's super important. Most people, and I've been doing this for five-and-a-half years, so I know for a fact, most people are like, I have to make a great video. Which is true, you do need to make a video, that's important. But what people don't spend enough time thinking about is their promotion plan. So I would go one step further and say it's not just promotion but thinking about the creative community that's going to be excited about what you're making. And making sure that you're building and engaging that audience before you're even thinking about your Kickstarter project page. So a great example I have of this is, happens to be a friend of mine, actually, a guy named Tim Fite, he's an artist and musician. He came to me about a year before he was going to do his Kickstarter campaign. He wanted to raise, I think, like $15,000, and he was terrified. He didn't know what to do. He didn't know where to start. He felt very nervous about asking people for money. He also felt like he didn't have that kind of relationship with his fans. So step one for him was getting online. So he had never managed his own, as typical in the music world, you don't necessarily manage your own online presence. He had never done that before. So he started actively posting both on Facebook and on Instagram, as well, and just started trying things out. He started posting drawings. He started posting videos and just testing people's interest in what he was posting. Of course, he found out people loved cat drawings. I mean, [LAUGH] of course. But he also found out that people loved participating in videos so we started making videos featuring his fans. So when it came time to start working on his Kickstarter campaign, he actually reached out to his fans and asked them to participate in a video that he then used to launch the campaign. It was usually successful, and it also meant that when that video went live, all those people who were in that video then shared it, of course, because they were in it, and they were excited. So they were helping launch his project in a way that I think was very powerful and led to a huge success. >> Excellent. >> Yeah. >> So making sure you do your marketing in advance, engage your community. And we shared a slide earlier in some of the video lectures about how a lot of the money comes from your family, your friends, and then your virtual community you're a part of, so that's surprising. >> Yeah, yeah. >> So energizing that fan base matters a lot. What about during a campaign? What should we be doing? >> Yeah, and so during a campaign, if you've done all that prework and really learned who your community is. And a lot of people come to us and say, I want to reach beyond friends and family. And so that prework will help you figure out, okay, well, what is that mean? Who will be excited about this? Who do you want to connect with, and what are they going to be excited about? So it's a lot about developing, whether it's videos or just a series of project updates or experiences to engage with people while your campaign is live. So we actually rolled out something called Kickstarter Live in the past few months, which is live streaming on Kickstarter that you do through your project page. A great example of how you can use that during your campaign is obviously doing Q&A with your backers. This is very popular in the games community. The games backers always have a zillion questions about game play and what people are thinking about for artwork and mechanics. There's a project right now that's live. It's in partnership with Lisa Frank, that they're doing some really fun stuff. It's for a new makeup line, but it's using all Lisa Frank artwork and design. And they're using Kickstarter Live in this fun way in where someone from the Lisa Frank team is boxing up a mystery box of stuff from the Lisa Frank archive, sending it over to the people running the campaign. And then on Kickstarter Live they're opening up that box and going through the archive, like these stickers or this binder. I mean, all the Lisa Frank stuff. And then they're adding that as a reward tier on the project. So after they do this sort of a unboxing, and talk through things, and be excited, anyone who's a fan who's watching can then back for that box of stuff. So it's a really fun way to engage people. We've seen time and time again that this sort of creative engagement of your community while your campaign is live not only drives more pledges. But also drives more sharing of your campaign, makes it more of a story. And again, it transforms it from a fundraiser to an experience, and that's what you really want. You want to offer an experience. >> What about things like stretch goals and other kinds of reveals like that? >> Yeah, so stretch goals can be really powerful. Actually, I learned form a game creator. He's a 29 project creator, I think, 28 or 29. He does a thing called stretch goal zero, which is something that he introduces before he even launches his campaign. Where he says to past backers and then anyone who follows him on Facebook or on his email list, I'm going to launch my campaign tomorrow at 9 AM. And for anyone who pledges within the first 24 hours or before the campaign is funded you'll get something extra. And this is the way he drives a really strong launch. We've seen that a strong launch is really highly correlated with success on Kickstarter, so having a plan for that. And then while your campaign is live, of course, continuing to use those stretch goals to reward your community for helping you to share the project and achieve new funding goals by making the project better. So if it's a book, it means that maybe you now have a foil inlay on the cover. Or maybe you're going to have an artist you wouldn't have otherwise been able to include in the project. Maybe it means 30 more pages in the book, you can make a longer book. If it's a film, it might mean, actually, one of our favorite stretch goals was in Veronica Mars. When they launched their project, I think, I can't remember what their goal was. But they said if we surpass it by 50% we won't kill of this character. [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] >> And it was one of the favorite characters from the TV show. So people were very excited to keep this character alive throughout the movie, and so they did reach that stretch goal. >> That's excellent. >> Yeah. >> You were talking about, sort of, that there's timing issues. So how should you think about when the money comes into a campaign? And when should you get nervous? And when should you try and relax, and when do you push harder? >> Yeah, so the nice thing is, is since we've been around for a while we know that there's a pretty regular formula to this. So launch day is really big. The first 24 to 72 hours typically tend to be when you see the most sort of energy around a launch, and you should plan for that. You should make that happen and you should expect that. And then you should also expect a quieting down. So after the first three or four days things are going to chill out a little bit. This is a moment for you to catch your breath. Maybe you didn't have the launch you expected, and maybe you're going to now pivot to a different kind of strategy. I worked with a creator who had a lamp project. When they first launched, they thought designers would be excited about it. They had a very lousy first three days, and they were like, god, we made a huge mistake. And then they realized that the crafting community was excited. So they used that few days following that launch window to then pivot their strategy and reach out to a different community. People should absolutely expect a very quiet middle period. Sometimes, people refer to it as the trough which is really sad, but it feels that way. And that is, again, that's a time to regroup. That's maybe a time to offer some new stretch goals, introduce new rewards, or stage some of those live experiences. Or maybe go to a con, or something like that, and start to engage with people in real life. And then you're going to see that uptick at the end the last few days, where just sort of the procrastinators. Or we have on Kickstarter, we have a Remind Me feature. So if someone clicks that star, they get an email 48 hours before the end. So we see that drives a lot of pledges. So there´s usually a lot of nail biting in the last week. My god, we´re only 60% funded, are we going to make it? And we see that the will of the community as well as the creator, just that all-or-nothing funding model really comes into play in that moment. No one wants to let that money go. >> So just through trying to tie to the campaign as it's going on with the early stage. What kinds of preparation besides getting the community together are going to be important to making sure that you execute well while the campaign is running? >> Yeah, so having a community together, having a clear communication plan. I mean, people talk about how much work it is to run a Kickstarter campaign. Typically, they run for about 30 days, you can certainly do less. But more is not recommended. You can do up to 60, we don't recommend it. But having a plan for who you're going to talk to, what kind of information you're going to share. We've also heard with product design folk, understanding if you do hit your goal or if you sell out of, like, we know we can make 500 units. And then suddenly, those 500 units have all been pledged for. Can we actually go beyond that? So having a plan in place, sort of understanding the cost structures. because we've seen people get into trouble where they suddenly introduce stretch goals like, wow, we hit our goal on day three, so now we're going to do embossing on the cover. And then later on down the road when they're trying to create and fulfill their product, they realize that embossing costs a lot of more money. Or shipping that extra 500 units was actually not possible. So really understanding, what does it mean to reach your funding goal? What can you do, and what does it mean to go beyond that? Is it possible for you to fulfill that? >> Right, so then let's say you've successfully raised your money, what do you do now? [LAUGH] Well, you pat yourself on the back. >> Right. >> You say good job to yourself. You also say thank you to your community, of course. But yeah, the hard work begins. I mean, realizing a creative project is tough work. So whether you're making a mini comic or a feature length film, I mean, there's a lot of work to be done. So ideally, if you've planned well, you know exactly what you need to do. You sort of have your prototype. You've gone sort of through the process of creating your thing. You've already gone to the post office and figured out what it costs to ship all this stuff. But if you haven't, a lot of people do tend to do this work after the funding. So on Kickstarter, when your funding ends it takes about two weeks for money to collect. During that time, maybe there's some erred pledges to things going on. So you might be following up with backers and helping them figure out how to fix all those things. And then when the money hits your bank account, that's when you want to start really figuring out, okay, I'm going to make this thing. How am I going to get it to everyone? This is a tough question to answer because it's so broad with a broad community. But it kind of depends on what you're doing. But yeah, it's time to get to work. I mean, the number one thing that every single person needs to do is plan to stay in touch with their backer community. We recommend maximum every six weeks or so, just dropping a note whether things are going well or not going not well. We've seen that backers can be incredibly forgiving as long people stay transparent and keep people in the loop. >> Great, and what happens if things start to go badly, what should you do? >> Keep in touch, [LAUGH] yeah. >> And then another question is when you're budgeting for a Kickstarter project, or any other kind of project, should you leave slack in the system? Should you budget for more than you need? What do you recommend when you're kind of setting those numbers? >> Yeah, it kind of depends on who you are and what the goal of your Kickstarter campaign is. Some people truly are trying to raise their entire budget on Kickstarter. Some people are, it's more common with product or film to just raise a piece of the budget. It's important to know that, obviously, creative projects, always unexpected challenges in the road. There might be unforeseen costs, things like that. So people are tempted to leave slack. They want to set a higher goal than maybe what they need. That said, not everyone can actually raise more than what they need. So I usually tell people to, sort of, when they're budgeting, figuring out all the costs. Literally, just doing the exhaustive list of all the costs and then figuring out how much you can actually raise, and likely those two things don't match up. And then you have to do some balancing out, and figure out, okay, what is my goal on Kickstarter? What am I actually trying to realize through this Kickstarter campaign? How much money do I think I can raise? What does that mean for realizing my project? That might mean finding money elsewhere, which is very common. A lot of people use, whether it's out of pocket or raising money from other sources. But really, just having a very clear plan about how those two things line up is really important. >> And what about rewards? How do you decide what rewards to offer, what reward levels to offer? >> Yeah, so with rewards the number of one thing is, I mean, some people believe that you only need one reward tier. So if you are making a deck of cards, all you need is that deck of cards. If you have a more expensive product, people tend to offer sort of lower priced options. So the most common pledge on Kickstarter is $25. So if your thing is more than $25, it's nice to offer something significant at a lower level. There's a different sort of orthodoxies of thought around this. For instance, in games, very experienced games creators say that they actually make a lot of their money on the sort of swag and promotional items. So whether it's dice or t-shirts or whatever that they make. They make a lot of that stuff because it's a fixed cost. You know what the margins are. It's very easy to calculate how much money you can make on those things. Whereas if you're making a board game, this is where things get more expensive. And my God, shipping is much more than I thought it would be. So if you look at any games project, you see they usually have like 25 reward tiers. because they're really trying to maximize the amount of money they're making on all those swag items, promotional opportunities, or creative experiences. But if you look at, for instance, a performance, it's tickets to the show, right? [LAUGH] It's a pretty straightforward thing. We, of course, recommend adding some sort of VIP or exclusive experience on top of that. We've seen that the $100 tier can be quite powerful. People are very willing to pledge a $100 if there is something exciting to pledge for. So when working with theater creators or people in the creative communities, we recommend thinking about what sort of special. Does it mean that they come to your art opening an hour early and get a tour with you and get some champagne to drink while they're getting the tour, something like that? >> Great, this has been awesome. Is there any last piece of advice you'd like to give people, or last story you want to share? >> I think last piece of advice, I mean, I've been doing this for awhile, and I always am curious. How did you learn all this? How did you figure this out? And I'm like, what did you read? I actually have a post in our Campus, it's our Q&A space for creators. It's like, what's on your Kickstarter reading list? And 100% of people are like, I just looked at other projects, which is great. I think you can learn so much just from backing other projects and looking at other projects. The downside of that is people tend to repeat each other's mistakes. So whether that's offering the $5, and I'll give you a social media shout out. I don't even know what that is. I don't know why people do it. I'm sad that it's perpetuated. So if you are going to look at other people's projects, my number one piece of advice,is don't just blindly copy people. And when you're looking at rewards for ideas about how to price or what to offer, make sure to also pay attention to what was popular, what did a lot a people back for. And then also, take some time to look through people's updates, because they might say, man, I really regret offering that T-shirt reward. [LAUGH] So just see if you can figure out not just blindly copy what people did, but get some more depth and insight as you're doing that. >> Excellent, thank you so much. This is terrific. >> Yeah, thank you. >> Appreciate it. >> Yeah, great.
