Lessons to Learn from Fully Funded Innovative Kickstarter Campaigns
Evan Joyce Nov 28 2023
To help you achieve a fully funded Kickstarter campaign, we have researched what the most successful software Kickstarter projects have in common and condensed those similarities into bite sized lessons for you to learn.
What is Kickstarter?
Kickstarter is a crowdfunding platform that many entrepreneurs use as a tool to fund their creative business goals. With almost 250,000 successful projects receiving funding, it seems like a no brainer to take your project to Kickstarter. However, software focused projects can struggle with only 20% of the campaigns within the technology category being successful. So, I have decided to take a deep dive into the most successful software based Kickstarter campaigns to see how their common structure has led to their success.
When creating a campaign the goal should be to have backers fully understand your project and why it needs to be funded. If your page doesn’t have a strong foundation this may not happen. Each of the top 10 fully funded campaigns have these things in common: a strong introduction, heavy use of imagery, transparency and communication. Here’s a detailed description of what each of these aspects involve
A Strong Introduction is Key
First impressions are key. The introduction of your campaign should provide readers with a full idea of your project and why it’s worth being funded within 1-2 short engaging sentences. Of all the campaigns I’ve looked at, every one had this in common: Short concise titles using less than 10 words, an image with the project logo and most importantly a video that is less than 10 minutes showcasing the highlights of your project. This could be, explaining innovative project features or customers using the software and how they feel about it.
Visually Represent Your Project
A majority of successful campaigns find a nice balance between images and text. With nearly a 50/50 split. Never underestimate the use of images and video to enhance understanding of your project. A full wall of text may put people off from getting to fully understand your project. Images can help reinforce information provided in text and help backers to visualize the features of your software.
Using Risks to Reassure the Backers
Other than the introduction the only other section that every campaign includes is the risks. The risks section is not a place for you to explain what could go wrong within your project but a place to detail the complexity behind the project and to showcase the competency of the team involved.
Transparency and Communication
Backers should get to know the team they are putting money behind. A short section introducing each member of the team allows people to put a face behind who is working on the project allowing them to connect more with the campaign
The majority of successful software campaigns have a fleshed out FAQ consisting of 5-20 questions that have been answered. This allows people to have a quick way to receive valuable information on your project. Some baseline questions that could be used for any project include:
- What is the project?
- What are the features of the project?
- Why do you need Kickstarter?
- When will the project be released?
- Where is the best place to receive updates?
Updates are key to keeping backers involved and in the know with the project. Every single successful project provided regular updates.
Have a new project idea?
Want to empower your existing project with AI?
Our professional team is here to support you at any stage through your research, software development and project creation. Talk to us today and start our journey together!