Kickstarter Project Update! (or how failure led to success...)

You may remember a few weeks ago we tried our hand at our first Kickstarter Project to try and raise money for a badge maker machine. Sadly, despite some support (which we were super grateful for - thank you!!) we didn't hit our target (boo!)

BUT! the story didn't end there...

One of our lovely backers contacted us after the project ended, they had found a slightly used Badge Maker machine (the exact model we wanted!!) on a well known auction site and offered to give us the money to pay for it, in return for just a tiny favour - of course we said YES! and a week later we were the proud owners of a shiny new Badge Maker - yay!

It's taken a while for us to get used to it, but today the first perfect samples were made...

B has definitely mastered it now and is hard at work making up the new product ranges for release in the next week or two - we can't wait to share them with you!

We were super lucky and very thankful to have been given a second chance - we have since gone over our Kickstarter project to examine why we think it didn't work and came up with a whole list of things to improve upon for next time, here is our advice if you are thinking of trying your own Kickstarter project...

* Take some time to really craft your pitch, we rushed ours a little bit in all the excitement and didn't get over our whole message as we would have wanted - we should have waited a few days and added more information about what we wanted to do and why and really showed our excitement for the project

* Add lots of pictures! we had just a couple and none of them really showed the end result, we should have re-shot things and mocked up examples of what we wanted to create

* Make a video! we didn't add one and I think that was a big factor - a video will convey your brand, personality and message much clearer and if you have a cute dog / cat / bunny on hand to make a little appearance, I guess that couldn't hurt either ;o)

* Give it a go! yes, you might fail, your first one might not work, your second one might not work!, you might be sad for a bit BUT you will still be a step further on than you were before, you will have learned what does and doesn't work, you'll really look at the successful pitches running at the same time and you may even be lucky enough to meet some fab people through your backers as we did - Kickstarter is a brilliant platform for raising investment and getting involved and backing other projects too (it's a lovely feeling to have helped get something started, even in just a small way!)

I hope these little tips help you, we have our fingers crossed we will make it when we decide to give it another go - everything that doesn't work out quite how you would like it is a learning opportunity and although we were sad at the time, we've learnt a lot from the experience and, of course, achieved what we wanted in the end too!

Thank you for dropping by today!
Sarah x