I get a couple of these every time I run a Kickstarter. This is the latest.
I genuinely feel for folks trying to figure out crowdfunding. It can be so discouraging when you don’t get any backers for something you really believe in. But I only have one answer for questions like this.
1) Labor in suffocating obscurity for years and years
2) Slowly, painfully build an audience, person by person
3) Make a thing to sell them
4) Does your audience buy the thing from you? If no, repeat 1) – 3). If yes, continue to 5).Â
5) You now have people you know will buy a thing from you. Launch a Kickstarter for a new thing! If you want. Or don’t? It’s cool, whatever.Â
Kickstarter, Indiegogo and other crowdfunding platforms aren’t where you go to find fans. They’re where you take your fans once you’ve already earned them.
Telling someone “Go put in your ten years” sounds and feels shitty, but honestly… that’s what I did.
I don’t have a trick. I just worked.
Most people only see you on step 5, completely unaware of how hard you worked at steps 1-4, and they think you’ve got a secret trick for instant success but the success was never instant. Nobody can say it isn’t fair that your kickstarter succeeded while theirs didn’t. You don’t deserve it just for showing up. You earn it, and the earning is hard.
This.
