SHIPPED | 7 THINGS WE LEARNED FROM DOING A KICKSTARTER

FIRST, THANK YOU! THIS KICKSTARTER TOOK US TO A WHOLE NEW LEVEL!

We are now renting a little space at our local makerspace, the Make It Zone, brought together a few team members, and figured out our first run of Light Wand production ever! Things we learned:

1. You can plan and plan and plan. Then when you start doing the plan may or may not work. Start doing earlier! 🛠️

2. Timelines for promotion take a long time, and most go nowhere. Get in touch with friendly media, influencers, etc. way earlier than you think. At least 3 months out! 📺

3. Give yourself more time than you think for production - things WILL go wrong so when you’re setting up your timeline, don’t be mean to your future self. Plan to take breaks, for things TO break, and for at least one wrong part to come through. 🙅‍♀️

4. Running a Kickstarter is EXTREMELY STRESSFUL! 😞 If you are doing it on your own or with minimal help, you may feel constantly overwhelmed, especially if you are working another job. If you can, plan to work half days so that you can continue to promote your campaign, answer questions, and keep everything running smoothly.

5. Break it down into weekly goals. When there is so much to do, having one goal a week is a great way to know for sure you are making progress and on track. This was especially helpful after the Kickstarter. As soon as the funds were deposited, it was GO time. 🏁 6. HOPEFULLY, if you’re lucky and work very hard, you will feel so supported by the very real people who have supported your campaign! Maybe some amazing opportunity came out of it. There were definitely some magic moments that happened during the Kickstarter that made all the effort worth it. ✨ And once the campaign is over the real work begins!

7. Take more process photos - as you can see from above, I mainly took photos at the end, and it would have been awesome to show more of the build!🏗️ BONUS THING:

8. Doing Reddit AMA’s is really fun 😝