Should you delay your kickstarter?
When I woke up today and read my inbox, there was a message from my manufacturer with a new quote attached. The cost of the game went way up. I’m still trying to understand the reason for this. After a few hours, I decided to push out the Thrive Kickstarter by one week. This got me thinking… how do you know if you’re ready? Well there are tons of resources and checklists available. But readiness comes down to confidence. Instead of using checklists, you should use your objective logic and answer these five questions.
If you answer no to any of these questions, I would advise you to reschedule you KS launch date.
- Am I 100% confident that what I have on my KS page is what I can make?
- Do I trust my manufacturing quote?
- Have I reminded my reviewers / previewers of the latest launch date?
- Did I spread the word enough?
- Am I confident in my product, enough to withstand strangers poking holes in my work?
I answered no to two of the above five questions… so we pushed the date out a week. External and Internal forces were at play here. With Thrive, new information was presented to me just today Feb 21st. The project was supposed to be live Feb 26th. It’s bad timing, but honestly better now than during a live project. Quotes came back from our go-to manufacturer and they were wildly different from the initial game quotes. This news was a red flag and it came just 5 days before the intended launch date. It caused me to answer no.
What is the risk?
Anytime you change your schedule there are risks. I announced this publicly with friends and the press awaiting content publication. There is a risk that some press misses rescheduling their content. There is a risk that people excited about the game show up and it’s not there so I will send a newsletter to keep people updated. But I need to be 100% sure that I can pull off the components that the game requires before going live and making promises. It’s not the end of the world, and I would rather be confident going in that pulling my hair out because of a rush job.
The new tentative date is March 5th. If my confidence is not at 100% then that date will push out as well. Aside from the hard truths above, there are some line items I would consider grey areas and it’s much more normal if there is still some change during your project.
Okay to to have some flux:
- Stretch goals – If you’re doing stretch goals, do you have at least 3-5 of these planned at the start? Do you have one “pie in the sky” idea just in case?
- Community Feedback – Hopefully your game design is complete, but it’s always cool to ask the crowd for inspiration or feedback with your choices. Be prepared to create at least one more quote to quantify the cost of the ideas or feedback.
- Events – Is you calendar slammed or open for invitations? You might find some local backers excited to meet up at a FLGS and check out the game.
- Media – Do you have any more prototypes to send? There might be a key influencer or media person looking to try out your game once they find you live.
- Marketing / Ads – Do you have some FB / BGG ads up? It’s smart to check on them during the campaign to optimize your spend for the highest ROI. Notice I did not say lowest price per click.
Delaying the date was a big relief. These crowdfunding events eat up a lot of brain space and can cause a lot of stress. So for today, we won’t let that get the best of us. But we will be prepared when we launch. Until then!
If you’re interested in learning more about the game Thrive, see the games page on the menu!
Have you felt like your stomach was in a knot and this decision was tough? Did you delay or not? Did you regret it or not?