How to do Kickstarter

https://gn.tl/DM1Lux

As I write this, the second kickstarter for an all metal wallet - that my friend designed while in grad school then we partnered on manufacturing and selling - is doing very well. $10,000 sold in 3 hrs, and now over $15k a few hours later. 

You can see the wallet in the photo above. Better yet click the link above.

This Kickstarter is the second one for this wallet. This is the Premium Materials version, and like the original Aluminum version last fall, we decided to do a #kickstarter for it. The original kickstarter was the first one either of us had done. After getting my buddy - the designer - excited about the possibility of actually 'selling' the wallet, not just making a few for his friends, he was still very pessimistic about the potential. I remember getting him to agree on a $5000 goal was like pulling teeth. He genuinely worried about selling less than 110 ($45x110) wallets on kickstarter. 

I knew this product was going to blow up, and after some debate and discussion the kickstarter kicked off with the very low $5000 goal.

Shortly after the kickstarter started he and I both wrote and sent some PR emails to websites that we thought would care about a minimalist wallet. We hit paydirt with Boing Boing. It must have been a slow 'tech' day because they 'copy and pasted' the 3 sentence intro into their stream of news verbatim from our email. We didn't know it yet, but our goal was in the rear view mirror from that point on.

We kept emailing friends, linkedIn, facebook, g+ and blogs that talked about tech like this, and we started seeing an increase in number of supporters (buyers) and in the number of total funds raised. By the evening of the first day we had passed the $5000 mark and were well on our way to $10k. At this point we both needed to take a breath, because although both of us we're no strangers to six figure salaries, neither of us was a 'product huckster' and seeing something we worked on sell at a speed of $10,000/day was amazing! 

All said and done we calculated that the single Boing Boing mention represented roughly $10,000 of sales. We had a few more mentions on various podcasts and news outlets, but no one came close the return on free PR from Boing Boing.

We noticed that getting lots of buyers quickly in the beginning also moved our campaign up on kickstarter to the top or the "what's popular" section, where people wanting to see what others are buying would end up seeing our campaign on the first page (in the top 16 spots). 

Our kickstarter was a long duration of 60 days, and we definitely saw a lul between 20 and 50 days which was very worrisome. We had started strong getting $30k in the first 15 days  - some 6 time more than my partner expected overall - and while we were taking the time during the kickstarter to work on getting orders manufactured, it was certainly was less exciting than the first week. 

Speaking of manufacturing., we came into the kickstarter with all designs finished, prototypes done, and even having found who will be our manufacturer. We did this because we wanted to SHIP the product shortly after the end of the kickstarter - once we got paid. Having supported many kickstarters ourselves and always being disappointed in how SLOWLY they seemed to make progress - some even giving up and not shipping - we wanted to do it RIGHT.

So we put in our own money to cover manufacturing costs, and hoped to God that the backers don't change their minds and pull out. Of course there is little change of that, so the risk was not huge. 

End result was a kickstarter with a final amount  raised of $92,000. Of course after fees that was more like $80k and change. But it was nice to finally get a check a few days after the campaign closed and immediately proceed to start shipping units. Here we found out that people are damn slow to answer the surveys about what colors/options they wanted. You would think someone would want to get their wallet right away, but no people are slow to get the information to you. So while we did ship over 80% of the total orders within one month - that number could have been higher, and for a shorter period, if people filled out their surveys faster.

Of course the point of a kickstarter is not to just sell a batch of products, but to also build a business. During the kickstarter we had reached out to several specialty stores. We shipped them early samples, and while only one decided to carry our product in the end, it was still great to have it for sale somewhere immediately after the kickstarter. This allowed us to continue manufacturing and selling products while figuring out our next steps. 

Of course our next steps were to put the wallet up on Amazon. This would cost us a significant piece of commission (about 25% at our price point) but it would sell the wallet 24x7 and allow us to to find other venues and outlets.

During the last 9 months we have sold well over $250k of wallets post kickstarter. Now we are back on kickstarter to launch the luxury version of the wallet like the Brilliant Nickel Plate, Tough Titanium, and Featherlight Carbon Fiber. 

Unlike the first kickstarter, we didn't get picked up by Boing Boing (yet) but we did hit $5000 in 2 hours, $10,000 in 3 hours, and $15,000 in 5 hours. I'm not suggesting that trend will continue for 60 days (this time we are only doing 45 days) but it's a damn nice start because many of the buyers on kickstarter are second time buyers who already own a wallet from the last one - and they love it so much they want a premium model now. This is the benefit of doing a related kickstarter. You can reach out to the tribe of purchasers from the first one and if you did your job, they will love you and reward you again the next time!

I carry the chrome wallet, although the other variants are also great! This kickstarter is for the Premium options. The standard aluminum is still for sale on Amazon (link below)

If you want to do a kickstarter and need some guidance - I am available to consult (free or paid depending on what you are wanting to do)

Gene Naftulyev

Kickstarter link -> https://gn.tl/DM1Lux

Amazon link -> https://www.amazon.com/Decadent-Minimalist-Aluminum-Wallet-Anodized/dp/B00TRP1T8Q