I get your point. A lot of our customers have expressed surprise that we are delivering on time. I suppose they are the ones most experienced with KS and know that on-time delivery is unusual! Yes, for us KS has been great for marketing. We decided last year to expand our hobby to a tiny business. We have many tiny businesses we're running at the same time and think puzzles could become the largest. Sales is the hardest part. We sold puzzles at some local fairs, visited a few local shops, got our puzzles in 3 stores in the city, did a mailing of samples to 20 stores, two of them bought a few packs, and we started to plan a sales road trip around the country for fun when corona hit and killed our plans. Selling 2 puzzles a day from our webshop is definitely hobby-level, but that is 30x increase from before we did the kickstarter. We also picked up 3 stores, 2 in the UK and one in the US that want to sell our puzzles, so from a marketing perspective our KS has been a hit. 2 puzzles a day plus 6x $10k KS next year is over $100k in sales and that's no longer hobby but small business. And if we can increase sales 30x again next year then it's really good business. We got a new machine we'll order this month with large cutting bed and double heads that can make 50 puzzles/hour. With enough sales we can employ someone to assemble and avoid manufacturing overseas, which we've tried and quality is a problem. My wife's been enjoying posting updates on KS, which lots of personal touches and touches of Norwegian culture. Some have been loving the updates and many have signed up for a newsletter, so she's going to start a blog on our website and build this brand-loyalty by drawing our customers into a kind of friend group. Fun stuff.
Love KB's input, and your perspective on the whole thing, Mike. As an old Marketing Dude, I feel like I want to stick my oar in here, and make some suggestions... I think Kickstarter is where you find your core fans. Your initial customers who not only love the product, but also love you and your wife and your story. (Keep it up with the "Fjord Lyfe!" - "Fjord Ljfe"? - posts! They are enchanting and wonderful. AND they engage your audience with more than just the physical product... there's a story and real people they can have feelings for.) I think your second wave of KS projects won't be nearly as successful. People love KS because they like the idea of helping out a creative lunatic with a groovy idea. They connect with the person/story, and feel like a friend. When you issue a second KS project, it's like you are saying to those initial customers, "Hey thanks. But we are looking for OTHER people now. Have a nice day!" It can be off-putting to the original backers to see you going out and trying to make "new friends" rather than working with your existing ones again. So back up a bit... the first customers via Kickstarter are INVESTED in you. The number of people who express surprise that you are shipping on time is a perfect example; they bought in EXPECTING you to miss the ship date, and probably 50% of the projects they never receive at all... so shipping on time is a double-win. Delivering a quality product on time means these people are now your sales force. You need to give them a way for them to spread your message to others, and incentivize others to buy from you. For example... make a small, laser-engraved, thin wooden 'business card' that says "mail this back to us for a 50% discount on any puzzle!", and put a simple serial number on it, like "0001". Include three of these with each "valuable" item you ship, and tell the customer that if they like the product they bought from you, they should pass these "discount chips" on to friends, so they can buy from you too. ("Can only be used on your first purchase! So give them to friends to introduce them to our fun!") (Note: the specific numbers - size of discount, and minimum cost of the products that have chips included, and how many chips to include - are all variables that you need to calculate appropriately for your business.) This gives you several things: I see very few Kickstarter campaigns treat their initial backers as Special, once the product ships. But they ARE special... and they FEEL special... and they want to be recognized in some way. AND, psychologically speaking, everyone wants to prove they made the right decision, and they look for proof their decision was the right one to make. By embracing them with something unique and special - and empowering them to help spread your message - you are feeding that base psychological need, and further reinforcing that they made the right decision.... making them want to spread your message even more! Just some thoughts for ya.... 1. Enables your committed customers to help spread the word about you and your products (and how smart they were to back this successful Kickstarter) 2. Inspires others to buy into your mythos/culture/mission with an undeniably good deal/discount 3. Makes them work for the discount (send back something) 4. Helps you identify who your most influential customers are (all of their discount chips were returned to you, and introduced you to new customers) 5. Defines the relationships between your customers ("How did you find us?") 6. Enables you to continue to make your most valuable customers feel Special, by tracking not only their purchases, but their friend's purchases, and their friend's purchases, etc.) 7. Allows you to set up an "early access" plan, or other Special Customer benefit for those truly impactful/influencer types 8. Gives you content for social media: Every discount chip you get back gets affixed to a wall of your shop, and - over time - becomes a "trophy wall" where your customers can see their effect on your business. (Heck, mount them on an exterior wall, so they weather over time, giving them a feeling of longevity and history too...)