Almost 2 days and half are passed since we launched our Kickstarter campaign, and I think it could be interesting to bring you for a while on the other side of the barricade.
After all, I strongly believe in the purest Kickstarter ideals and for this reason I consider you more like commercial partners/patrons than simply customers (...and the Academy award for the best ego stroking goes to...).
Ok, let's put apart for a moment naive marketing and let's try to talk with an open heart.
Thanks to Odin (I choose Odin so I'm sure that I wouldn't offend any of you), the campaign is going quite nicely and we claimed the funding goal a bunch of hours after the beginning of the crowdfunding, like real champs.
Of course, I was confident about the value of our project, but, you know: a Kickstarter campaign is always a kind of black hole full of unknowns (at least for little realities like us!). You never know what kind of trouble you'll encounter, once the green light turns on, maybe a dead calm of backers that drags your campaign into the abyss, or an invincible opponent that steal all your patrons, or, worse, realizing that Juventus has been eliminated again from UCL.
For this reason, having funded quickly the project has been a real relief for all of us, and I want to thank you all of you that believe in our ideas since the first minute of our campaign.
In this moment, our campaign has reached an interesting amount of funds, and let me show you the (indeed really poor...) Kickstarter button room:
Not bad, my friends, not bad.
However, I'm not here to boast about my result, especially when there are projects on KS that gain this figure in 2, 3 minutes of campaign. Instead, I think it would be interesting to share with you my thoughts about the progress of this journey and, above all, to receive some feedback about (I'm megalomaniac, but I'm still too young to be satisfied in speaking alone!).
As my ancient master used to say, there are opinions and facts.
A fact, for example, is that comparing this campaign to our previous one, we are going a bit slower: at day 3 of campaign, we collected about 15k€.
This, of course, has to be put in the right context: for example, the most requested reward of our Dwarf campaign (the Mighty Mega Box) costed 45€ more than the current Mighty Mega Box. For this reason, even if we have now more backers than before, we collected less funds.
Another fact is that, comparing the growth of pledges during this campaign and the previous one, we had more backers on day 1 in this new one, but less backers on the other days: we grew faster this time, gaining more patrons on the beginning, but the funding wave hasn't grown with the same strength yesterday and today.
These are facts: nothing to be worried about, but I think they are useful to learn more as a manufacturer and try to make better in the next future.
Now, let's start with my opinions.
If I analyze this campaign, at least from a technical point of view, I think we have improved a lot our professionalism: the campaign graphics and look are better than the Dwarf campaign, we have all the Stretch Goals planned 'till 40k € of funding and the quality of sculpts, if not better, is comparable. For this reason I'm happy about how the project is going and I think that we can reach the same funds collected with the previous campaign, that would be awesome considering that this time we have a smaller ranger (so, less production costs).
I think, however, that we have a kind of gap in promotion, comparing to the previous project, and even if I'm not a marketing genius, I don't think it's totally my fault (I always have at least a part of the blame, being the creator!): being a curious guy, I checked how I promoted the Iron Crows project, and basically I made the same steps that I've done with the Second Government project: almost no Facebook ads (or ads in general), promotion based mainly through our Facebook page. However, I think that during these 2 years something changed in that blue inferno called Facebook, cause it seems like we lost a lot of views, even if our page grew in numbers!
In the past, when I shared a pic or, above all, a link, I had a higher rate of views.
Nowadays, many of my friends and followers contacted me, asking why I stop to post: the contents were there, but apparently now if you are not a kind of bio-tech-adept, Facebook doesn't make your post visible to those who follow your page.
Baaaaad Zuccky. Baaaaad.
However, I'm aware of my technical limits so I'm not here to complain about how market goes. Instead, I think that we can overcome our mortal limits the old way, when things were easier and pizza margherita costed 4.000£ (approx 2,5€. Now the average cost of a Margherita is 5-6€).
V.V.V.V.V: the Virtual Vademecum for Virtuous Visibility and Views, or Protocollo De Carli.
De Carli, the famous professor that I hope you all know at this point, was firmly convinced that spamming advertises to potential customers is a vulgar low. We live in a world, in fact, that persecutes people with ads and marketing tricks, often trying to build success on greed ("share this post and you may win a Lamborghini!!").
This, in De Carli's opinion, generates only buyers, but not Virtue.
For this reason, he elaborated the Virtual Vademecum for Virtuous Visibility and Views (or, in brief, Protocollo De Carli), a way to ask people to share a project and make the difference.
Let's see if it works.
*clearing my throat, adjusting the camera*
For us, little oompa loompa of miniatures making, your attention means everything. We design our projects because we have great ambitions, and we are sure that our miniatures can make you happy. Or, at least, it's always better to cry while you paint an Iron Titan than cry while you watch your football team losing again a UCL match.
We can create almost everything, it's true, but our projects are nothing without eyes and hands that can see and paint them.
For this reason, we need that our projects are brought all around the world, to make more and more people happier than before, but we can't do it only by ourselves: we are not amazon.
If we were, for sure I would be able to make a whole legion of Iron Titans.
If you believe in what we are doing, and if you think that we are worthy of being introduced to your friends, let them know that we are here, and we are fighting to achieve something that only the bravest can aim for.
A penthouse in Shibuya.
We need your help, your genuine help. We know that you, just like us, were in front of your tv, the arms to the sky, to help Goku against Majin Bu.
We need you to share our project so we can get stronger and we can create more and more for your happiness, but I swear that at a certain point I will stop because I saw Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and I learned the lesson.
...
...it worked? Are you sharing our Kickstarter campaign?!
...damn.
PS: we are sculpting the Female Pilot for our Iron Titan and she's soooooo cool!
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