How To Raise $100,000 On Kickstarter

hello my name is Thomas brush and I am the creator of pin stripe it's a video game about minister who goes to hell and also a game called once upon coma it's a game about a little boy who goes to this cool little coma world both of these games were kick-started there's around $100,000 and I want to share some secrets that I've figured out over the years learn through blood sweat and tears and I just want to give you a short video so you guys can hit the ground running and make $100,000 on your Kickstarter

campaign so the first secret to making a hundred thousand dollar Kickstarter campaign is just have a polished prototype I think a lot of people think of prototypes as like like if you're making a watch or something or like a shoe on Kickstarter you need this prototype made you need everything physically made and if you're making a video game you need a demo all these things are good but just remember Kickstarter you can just do graphics you can make some cool After Effects animations or maybe a cool 3d model as long as it looks pretty and

as long as you believe that you can get it done then just use just use graphics just use a cool little prototype image obviously you need to follow through right so and that can be scary right if you for me if I when I released the once upon a coma campaign for example I had like a 20 minute demo and I'm promising like a three to four hour game at least that's a scary thing but I guess I know that I can do it and especially now with the support from the Kickstarter backers I know

I can do it so really just make sure your polish is really high but your quantity and your size it can be really small think of your polished prototype is kind of like a diamond it's really small but it's really polished really pretty all right the second secret to having $100,000 Kickstarter campaign is guys you need to research like crazy now this sounds like an obvious thing it doesn't sound like a secret but I guess the part of this that's a secret is how long you should be research researching before the campaign believe it or

not I spent 2 to 3 months researching before I launched my Kickstarter campaign both for pinstripe and even though I thought I knew what I was doing after the Pinstripe campaign I spent 2 to 3 months before my once upon a coma campaign as well it was a lot of research and I was reading blogs and I was watching videos like this one I was reaching out to Kickstarter campaign creators who were successful in the past I was having Skype conversations with them you've really got to just spend the time to look into where you

might not fully understand or maybe you don't have the right expertise or knowledge in certain things and trust me you don't know everything about making a Kickstarter campaign you know that feeling when you're you know you should check your pink balance bank account balance or you know you should check your oil or you know you should step on the scale and to see how you're doing physically or how's your health or going to the doctor it sucks seeing where your flaws are but if you don't look at where you're flawed you're gonna fail and so

that's especially true with something like Kickstarter Kickstarter is a very vulnerable state when you click launch you better make sure you know exactly what you're doing and where your flaws are because your whole family's gonna see your friends gonna see they're all gonna see whether or not this campaign is successful so you certainly don't want to fail in front of the whole world right so research spend 2 to 3 months just researching if you got a full-time job or you're a full-time student I totally understand I was in the same position when I launched my

first campaign but what I did was I woke up early and I would study and look into exactly what makes a good Kickstarter campaign I did that through my lunch break I would come home and I was married and had two dogs and I was still asking you know do you mind if I go research and figure out how to make a successful Kickstarter campaign and we both knew that Kickstarter research was the priority here the third secret to making $100,000 Kickstarter campaign is cross promotion again this one doesn't really sound like a secret right

but I want to tell you my secret cross promotion technique and it was amazing when I first launched the Once Upon a coma campaign I was funded in a single day twenty eight thousand dollars raised in a single day because of this specific cross promotion strategy basically what you want to do is in the first 24 hours of your campaign incentivize other Kickstarter campaign backers so other campaign campaigns that are similar to yours incentivize those backers to come to your campaign within the first 24 hours so when incentive could be something free or it could

be a discount in the case of once upon a coma the incentive was if you support once upon a coma in the first 24 hours you get a free copy of my previous game pinstripe and believe it or not that just exploded on the first day so how do you get campaigns to post updates about your campaign what I did was I reached out to it was like 20 campaigns and maybe even 30 campaigns that were previously successful that were already done that were similar to my campaign this was prior to launch I met with

the creators over Skype and you know you kind of become friends with them you have a conversation for 30 minutes learn from them ask their advice about your campaign and at the very end of the conversation what I did was I simply asked if they would be willing to post an update about my campaign if they agreed I sent them some copy and a button that said check out the preview campaign so in this button it would send their backers maybe they have 300 back 3000 backers you know that was typically the amount that these

updates were being sent to about 3000 backers per campaign 3000 backers would read this update and maybe 1/2 percent of them would click that button and it would take them to the preview link of once upon a coma and in that preview link there was a little heart and you can click that heart and it would remind them on the launch date of once upon a coma to check out the campaign and support it so it was wild you know within the first 24 hours all these different campaigns came together and brought their backers in

droves to the once upon a coma campaign so that's the third secret cross promotion all right fourth secret your brand your brand it's everything guys make sure that your brand doesn't have to be cool or trendy or super polished but it needs to be consistent a lot of you probably really enjoy 5 guys I love Five Guys Burgers and Fries their brand I think it's an amazing brand it looks like garbage right it's just red text and a white background but it's consistent and that's what's really special about brand especially now people don't really care

especially Millennials I don't think they really care about high quality I think what they care about is a consistent brand that is unique so in the case of once upon a comb I spent two months just making sure my brand was consistent the fonts are all the same the colors are consistent my tone the personality of the campaign both the video and the page and also the game itself are all consistent across the consistency screams competency and I don't know why I think it just says that you are I guess you were intentional with your

project because when people know that you're intentional they know that you care and I think that that gives you some credibility and they want to trust you and support you it's a big thing to support a project on Kickstarter because you're giving money to an idea into someone you don't even know so you really got a communicate competency and I think the best way to do that is obviously with a good prototype but also with consistency in your brand so don't worry if you're not a graphic designer one as long as you understand what consistency

means and just a few graphic design principles I think you can get away with having a high quality campaign if you don't trust yourself to do design and the video you can always find people local to you friends family or even if you have a university that's close to you consider reaching out to the video department or if they have a video program is what I mean reach out to those students or the Dean there and ask if they'd be willing to as maybe a side project get some of their students involved in helping you

make this Kickstarter video hiring interns is another thing graphic design interns that will help with your campaign the fifth secret to creating a hundred thousand dollar Kickstarter campaign is keep it personal don't be afraid to keep it personal so before I recorded this video I had another video that I was going over the same topics and I was you know rigid I was following a script and I didn't really want to be myself because I felt kind of insecure a little bit now I feel good because I already went through that video and so I

started talking and I realized I'm not being myself so my point in saying that is it's really hard to be yourself especially when people are watching so just I guess practice being yourself don't think when you're making the campaign don't think about people watching it just think about having fun and being yourself not only do you need to be confident in who you are because that's the it really the only way that you could be personal is being confident another thing you can do is be strategically personal so when you're writing your script and you

should definitely write a script find nuggets of beauty in your story so what are some things about your story that can make your product more personal because in Kickstarter the backers are not supporting a product they're supporting a person and that's worth repeating in Kickstarter people are not supporting a product they are supporting a person okay you want to find pieces of your story that will resonate with backers the thing about me is I don't have a bad life I don't really have a hard life I'm pretty privileged and I'm thankful for that I've had

a great life but both of my Kickstarter videos I was able to find pieces of my story that were really tough that were hard for me and that were difficult emotional hurdles that I had to cross and I knew that those would resonate with my backers so in the case of pinstripe in the script I made sure to mention how long I had worked on pinch strike that was five years of development I think at the time actually was four years it in total after once I launched it was five and a half years so

by the time the Kickstarter campaign launched it was four years of working on a game and part of me thought do not mention this because that doesn't give you credibility why have you been working on this so long and I actually had a an agency who who helps advise Kickstarter campaigns they told me I sent them campaign they said do not mention this do not mention your weaknesses people want competency and I said now I'm gonna actually I'm gonna keep it personal so I told that part of my story and that's what resonated with people

that's why a hundred six thousand dollars was raised in the case of once upon a coma I really had a hard time knowing what I wanted to share with my backers because this is my second time around so the question is why do I need to launch another Kickstarter campaign wasn't a first the first campaign enough to start a studio so I thought what are some things that I've really struggled with this last year that I can share with my backers and the truth was is that I was burnt out I didn't want to make

games anymore and I kind of felt like I needed to be making more money for my family we had just found out we were pregnant me and my wife and so we had a baby girl on the way and I was really worried and I thought I need to abandon this whole video game story this is kind of silly I need to grow up and I need to to get a real job maybe with triple-a and I thought that's a really powerful message and I'm gonna make sure that I share that in my once upon

a co my Kickstarter video so that's how I kept it personal and it pays off guys you want to be honest I think I think it's true the truth sets you free and I think it sets other people free when they hear truth in your voice when they hear that you're being real I think it means something it means that you you're willing to open up and like here's the thing right if you're gonna open up your wallet to somebody you want them to open up their heart to you that's a good quote you need

to write that down if you want to open up if you want someone to open up their wallet to you you need to open up your heart to them Leanne that's a good quote is that not awesome I think I just made that up maybe if I'm famous one day I'll get a little poster made of that okay I think that's everything keep it personal that's the fifth secret guys my name is Thomas brush I really appreciate you watching this video there's a sixth secret and this is actually a really big one but I'm not

gonna give it to you for free for this video on the patreon link in the description I have a patreon page click that link and if you subscribe to my patreon one of the rewards will give you access to the bonus sections of my videos in these in these sections are different secrets that I've learned in the industry that I want to share with my patreon supporters but in the meantime guys please subscribe hit the like button and I love talking to you guys in the comments section so write in the comments maybe how much

you hate me or how ugly you think I am or questions and maybe some positive statements and I will interact with you in a hopefully a timely happy manner so thank you guys for watching take it easy see you later bye all right so some of you subscribe to patreon thank you so much for subscribing to patreon that means the world to me let's talk about this that that sixth secret to launching a hundred thousand dollar Kickstarter campaign