Goodbye Kickstarter

We managed to raise almost ￡2500 in ten days for our Kickstarter project, Stoopid Hoomans.

We know without a doubt that we could have hit our target of ￡5k before the deadline in 17 days' time. However, today, we decided to pull the plug. Time of death, 16:44PM.

And that's OK.

Less than seven days ago, I was spending nearly every waking minute on the campaign. Working on new content, thanking backers, preparing for Q+A's and podcasts at the business school, soliciting obscure bloggers for publicity and reading every article I could find on running successful Kickstarter campaigns.

Then, my mum had a heart attack.

I would say it was the straw that broke the camel's back, but it felt more like a tree trunk. Not some spindly malnourished bonsai tree. More like a sequoia. A collapsing global economy, looming project deadlines, the enormous demands of a first-time kickstarter campaign and then throw some literal heart break in the mix.

I'd never experienced true burnout before. If 100 of Ariana Huffington's articles in Thrive weren't enough to convince me that it was real, last week certainly did the trick.

Burned out, broken down, out of gas. I was a total wreck.

I want to take the chance to thank Mohammed, Marcel and Sandy, my partners in crime, for all of their support in trying to pick-up the slack last week. They were great. However, I was meant to be the lead on the project and the others all had a lot on their plates. Including a family member of their own in the hospital at the same time.

I'm sure it goes without saying in the Kickstarter handbooks, but grinding to a virtual halt midway through your campaign for a week is not a recommended strategy.

Thankfully, all family members, my mum included, are doing well and recovering at home. My mum with a brand new selection of pyjamas, courtesy of my Dad, to enjoy for the next couple of weeks of bed rest.

However, the emotional well is still feeling pretty dry.

Today was the first day I've allowed myself to do anything you could consider even remotely productive. First item on the agenda was to sit down with the team and have a think about what to do with Stoopid Hoomans.

In coming to the conclusion to shut down the project, I think we found some pretty good lessons.

One: It's OK Not to Be OK

Imperial College Business School, much to the university's credit, does a lot to remind us as students of the risks of burnout that can be common on such an intense course and provide us with the resources we need to cope with the pressure.

In the immediate aftermath of the news from Cape Town, where my parents live, I was facing a number of coursework deadlines and meetings with my supervisor. I was in a complete panic. There was 0 chance of me having the emotional or mental capacity to deal with any of it.

I just about managed to bring myself to send a short two-line email to the Programme Team to give them the headlines. Their response was immediate and unequivocal. Don't worry about work, take as much time as you need, we'll work together to sort everything out when you're ready.

I'm not quite ready to dive straight back into the MBA just yet, and that's fine. Sometimes you need to give yourself a little time to bounce back. I want to thank the team at Imperial College Business School for giving me that time. Their unwavering support has been a reminder for the importance of empathy and the power it has in both its deliverance and receipt. One I hope to carry forward and put to good use as a leader down the line.

Two: Pick Your Teams Wisely

It's a shame that we're having to put the project on the shelf for now as we have to focus on other things. However, I couldn't have asked for a better founder team.

We found it hard to drum up much enthusiasm for an online gaming idea amongst the female members of our MBA cohort, so we were four guys. However, we were four guys from four different continents, with very different personalities, an age gap of nearly a decade and different relationships with the industry - a very diverse mix in more ways than one.

We had totally different ideas, perspectives and experiences to bring to the table and shared them all easily and constructively. We never had a debate that escalated to an argument. Mistakes were always treated without resentment and we picked one another up when times got tough. We had the hard conversations, particularly those when we were incorporating, without any issue. We trusted one another and working together never felt like work. The hours we spent on this project will remain some of my happiest memories of the MBA.

If you ever find yourself looking for prospective co-founders: find people that you can have a relationship like the one I had with Sandy, Mohammed and Marcel. Even if the project goes South, like ours has, you won't regret investing your time into the people. I certainly don't.

Three: Pilot, Pilot, Pilot

Innovation has three constraints:

• The odds of success / failure
• The cost of experimentation
• The speed of experimentation

For all three constraints, the importance of designing good pilots cannot be understated. A good pilot has clear metrics for success and an even clearer link to how they'll be put to the test and evaluated. A good pilot holds the minimum cost to conduct such a test, so - if it fails - you have as much resource as possible to conduct more pilots. A good pilot is fast, so you can get feedback to iterate, improve or kill projects quickly and keep up with a changing world.

We're lucky that we were running a test that only cost us around $100 each and a few weeks. Calling it a day was an emotional issue, but, thankfully, not a financially devastating one.

Four: Timing is a Cruel, Cruel Mistress

Aside from the health calamities, there were a few other timing-related issues working against us.

Chief amongst them, COVID-19. We were getting a fantastic response from family and friends around the world and knew that, if it came to it, we could hit our goal just using that network alone.

But, that wasn't the point of the Kickstarter. We had a certain audience in mind and unless we could prove traction with them, then we wouldn't have a clearer picture of whether or not the IP was working or not. We knew breaking into the communities we were targeting would be tough. But, we didn't realise quite how tough.

Most of the events, conferences, publications and influencers that act as a platform for Kickstarter projects like ours are in a state of total chaos. We were getting a bit of a response from the fans of our artist, Yonson, but not much. And it was impossible to tell whether the low results were down to the fact that nobody cared about our products or that, as many in the Kickstarter world are telling us, people just aren't that keen to spend cash at the moment.

On top of all the other pressure we were facing in our respective personal lives - circumstances that would leave us with an experiment that we knew would give us dodgy results inevitably led us to the decision we came to.

Some things are simply out of your control. You can kick yourself for not anticipating them, or you can pick yourself up, dust yourself off and learn from what happened. We chose option B.

Five: It's OK to Fail

You must have guessed this one was coming.

It feels like a huge cliché, but it's true. Since it is a point lacking entirely in originality, it feels appropriate to give a quote instead of waxing lyrical about it in my own words. So here's a personal favourite from Phil Knight:

And those who urge entrepreneurs to never give up? Charlatans. Sometimes you have to give up. Sometimes knowing when to give up, when to try something else, is genius. Giving up doesn’t mean stopping. Don’t ever stop. Luck plays a big role. Yes, I’d like to publicly acknowledge the power of luck. Athletes get lucky, poets get lucky, businesses get lucky. Hard work is critical, a good team is essential, brains and determination are invaluable, but luck may decide the outcome. Some people might not call it luck. They might call it Tao, or Logos, or J?āna, or Dharma. Or Spirit. Or God.

I remain convinced that, though the solution and its timing might be wrong, the problem we were trying to tackle is a real one worth solving. With another hit breaking as I type, Fall Guys which wrapped up a hefty 1.5m players in its Beta test, the writing on the wall has never been clearer for the gaming industry. This is the Age of Wholesome. Casual players are moving over from mobile to console and cloud and they need games that reflect what they love: bright, fast and social. More accurately, categories need to be re-invented or created for them.

I'm not ashamed to have failed, I'm proud that we tried. Trying is the hardest part.

In Closing:

When I came to Imperial, I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do. But, I knew I wanted a creative, strategic role in a company in an industry on the precipice of disruption with the power to produce a lot of the good for the world. Three industries in particular came to mind.

Agriculture - I was lucky enough to explore working for a tech platform called Lima Links in Zambia on my Global Experience Week.

Mobility and Urban Development - I got to discover more about through meeting the Chief City Planner for Copenhagen on a class trip in February and working on my Future of Cities elective in June.

Gaming - I had a chance to dive into through this project which was the focus of my Entrepreneurial Journey Elective and the amazing leaders in the industry I was fortunate enough to meet throughout the year.

None of the experience has been wasted. Many of you reading this have been a big part of me getting to embark on this incredible adventure and I can't thank you enough for the amazing support, lessons and opportunities you've shared along the way.

I don't know what's next. But thanks to you and the other amazing people I've found myself surrounded by, I know it's going to be an exciting new chapter. Even if it takes a little while to get there.

To anyone who supported the campaign and now finds themselves with a bit of extra cash they weren't expecting - if you're looking for an even worthier cause to back than four business school students attempting to build a gaming empire, here's a link to the British Heart Foundation. I'm sure they could put it to good use.

https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/donate/donate-form

Thanks for being a part of the journey, it's been a blast.