Can you briefly describe Simon Stålenhag's “Tales from the Loop” & "Swedish Machines, Lonely Places"?

Simon Stålenhag’s digital paintings of Sweden in the 80’s and 90’s mixes science fiction with realistic landscape scenery. His work has been very popular on the Internet and he has been featured and interviewed by Wired, The Guardian and The Verge among others.

I run a small publishing company called Free League Publishing (or Fria Ligan in Swedish) together with some friends and when we first saw Simon’s paintings we fell in love with the mix of sci-fi and the “Swedishness” of the paintings. A friend came up with the idea that we should work together which we thought was a brilliant idea. So we approached him about making an art book together and had a few drinks when we discoverad that we all liked the same John Carpenter movies from the 80’s. Done deal!

The art book “Ur varselklotet” was published last autumn in Sweden and got an overwhelmingly good response. Two print runs later, and a lot of orders from across the world we realized that we had to do an English version as well. As Simon was well ahead with paintings for a second book, we decided it was just as well to crowdfund two books at the same time!

Why did you feel that the crowdfunding model was the best way to promote the books?

It was a natural fit. In part because we knew that Simon already had an enthusiastic fanbase (his Tumblr page has a lot of followers), and partly because we already had done two very succesfull crowdfunding campaigns for our games in Sweden. Also, we knew there was a demand for art books with his paintings as we had received loads of requests from all parts of the world.

Why and how did you choose Kickstarter over other crowdfunding options available?

It was an easy decision. We have previously run two campaigns using the Swedish Fundedbyme for the first and Indiegogo for the second. We really liked Indiegogo and it has a large following in Europe, however when it comes to the US, Kickstarter really is king. So it was natural to choose Kickstarter for this project, and I think the campaigns progress really shows the strength of the platform.

How far along was your project before you felt ready to launch a crowdfunding campaign? In hindsight, would you have preferred to be farther along, or to have crowdfunded earlier?

We are kickstarting two books, the first one was already translated and ready to go more or less. The second one is still in development and as Simon produces maybe one painting a week we are looking at publishing it during 2016. From the perspective of the crowdfunding campaign it would obviously be better if we could deliver both books at the same time, to save shipping costs if nothing more. However, I think it’s really good to be able to deliver something rather quickly, and the first book will be that something!

Can you explain how you prepared for and managed your campaign?

We did have some experience as we had run crowdfunding campaigns in Sweden previously so we the basics covered. However Kickstarter was unknown territory for us so we did do quite a bit of research beforehand. We read articles, looked at some successful campaigns and tried to find common denominators and so on. For instance I learned that having a very low first pledge level (a single dollar or so) is important to get the campaign moving as Kickstarters metrics considers every pledge, big or small. Also early bird pledges was something we picked up during this phase.

Managing the campaign is more about providing good customer service by responding to backer questions promptly and posting regular updates of the progress of the campaign. Also I think it’s very important to listen to the feedback that you inevitable will get from the backers.

What tools did you use to market your campaign? Do you feel like you did so successfully, and if not, what could you have done differently?

We used our own Facebook and twitter accounts to spread the world, but really what made the difference was that Simon himself used his twitter, web page and especially his Tumblr page to market the campaign. We also had a list of international media that we contacted after the launch of the campaign, but initially this met with mixed success as I guess our press release drowned in the mix. However, we got lucky when The Verge featured our project on the first day of the project and word of mouth started to get going, especially through twitter. Since then it has just been snowballing along!

In retrospect what were your best assets for running this successful campaign? On the other hand, what would you do differently?

To be honest our biggest asset was Simon’s paintings. Having beautiful and eye-catching imagery in the campaign cannot be underestimated I think.

The biggest mistake we did was that we did not realize that as a backer you can only choose one pledge level. As we kickstarted two books and had a lot of different levels with just one of the books this proved to be a challenge to handle. It did work out great in the end as we helped backers as much as possible so that they could get both books in the edition they wanted but this one one area where our research did not prove enough.

What was your biggest challenge during your campaign?

To be honest we were taken by surprise the initial success and struggled a bit to provide enough stretch goals to the campaign, so I would definitely say that was our biggest challenge.

What’s the most valuable advice you could share with aspiring crowdfunders?

Do your homework, prepare for success and plan for – if not failure but an uphill struggle. Make sure you got a good set of stretch goals planned and at least an idea of another set if you need to add ones quickly. Also: communicate all the time!

This post is part of the #CrowdfundingCrashCourse series. You can find the entire series of interviews and summary posts here.

Relic Expedition is a jungle adventure game where players act as Indiana Jones like explorers trying to find a set of ancient relics hidden in the jungle. The board starts small, with only a few of the tiles revealed. As players explore the jungle, new tiles are revealed and the board grows in unpredictable ways. For 2-4 players, it plays in about an hour.

Lanterns: The Harvest Festival is a tile-placement game set in imperial China. Players act as artisans decorating the palace lake with floating lanterns. On your turn, you place a tile, which gives every player (even your opponents!) a lantern card based on the orientation of the tile. Players dedicate these lantern cards in various sets to become the most honored artisan before the festival begins. Also for 2-4 players, this plays in about 30 minutes.

Why did you feel that the crowdfunding model was the best way to promote tabletop games?

When we finished designing and developing Relic Expedition, we had a really fun game on our hands that we knew a lot of people would love. We could have submitted it to other publishers, but I think there were two main reasons that we did not. (1) We wanted full creative control over the final product, and (2) we wanted to gain the experience of crowdfunding a physical product. I think crowdfunding made sense for us because we didn't have the upfront cash or the audience, and Kickstarter gave us a way to find a bit of both.

Crowdfunding isn't right for every tabletop game, and it's not a magic bullet: it turned out to be a lot more work than I would have expected. We plan to continue to use crowdfunding for our projects for the foreseeable future, but I suspect that at some point — or at least for some projects — it won't make sense.

You’ve used Kickstarter for both campaigns; why and how did you choose it over other crowdfunding options available?

There is such a strong board game community on Kickstarter. A few people I know have tried other platforms, and they just haven't had anywhere near the success they've had on Kickstarter. If you want to use crowdfunding to raise money for a tabletop game, I don't think there is any other good option right now.

How big was your budget before you launched each campaign?

With each game, we have spent about $4,000 on artwork, review copies, video work, and marketing before the campaign began. We started Foxtrot Games with $10,000 set aside to develop Relic Expedition. We thought the extra $6,000 would give us enough of a buffer in case things didn't go exactly as planned. But as first-time creators, there was a lot about production and fulfillment that we didn't really understand or appreciate until we went through it.

A lot of little things happened along the way (a miscommunication here, a mistake we didn't catch there, a few inaccurate estimates everywhere) that all added up to the project costing more than we had planned. We ended up needing about $15,000 more than we had raised, our initial seed money plus $5,000 or so more. We did have almost 1000 extra copies of the game, and we were fortunate enough to sell a good portion of those in retail to earn back some of our initial seed money.

After Relic Expedition, we had a much better idea of what we needed to do to make a board game that could be profitable. That project had almost twice as many backers, and we are on track to make back a lot of the money we lost with Relic Expedition. On top of that, we have inventory to sell and a much better plan for selling it than we did the first time. We haven't mailed rewards to backers yet, so there is definitely still room for unexpected costs ... but we are in much better shape than we were at this same point in our first project.

How far along were your projects before you felt ready to launch the crowdfunding campaigns? In hindsight, would you have preferred to be farther along, or to have crowdfunded earlier?

The game mechanics were complete for both games before we launched; I think that's essential. With board games on Kickstarter, people aren't backing an idea: they are backing the manufacturing of a game that is finished. This isn't true for every category on Kickstarter, but it's definitely true for board games.

When we launched Relic Expedition, we were not as far along as we should have been. We should have had the box cover done, and we did that with Lanterns: that's a really important piece to sell the game and to set the tone of the project. We should have had more game artwork done so that we could have sent prototypes to reviewers earlier and recorded a game play video earlier: we did both of those things with Lanterns, and they helped quite a bit.

It's interesting now to look back (two years later) at the game play video we recorded during the first week of the Relic Expedition campaign: I only showed three colors of relics because that's all we had done! We finished the first version of all the artwork for the base game during the campaign, but we still had a lot to work to do after the campaign. We had to design the rulebook and the box. We also had to rework some of the pieces: we went through four different versions of the backpack trays before they worked like we wanted, and we changed the colors of the relics once after getting a color proof. We really should have had a lot of that done earlier.

It's not bad to have work to do after the campaign. With Lanterns, we intentionally left some things until after the campaign, things like creating the production files and designing the back of the box. If you don't reach your goal, you would hate to have wasted money on files that you don't need.

How did running the two campaigns differ from one another? Did you learn anything from crowdfunding Relic Expedition that you successfully applied to the Lanterns campaign?

The Relic Expedition campaign funded on Day 30 of 35. After the initial rush, we had a lot of agony trying to figure out how to improve the campaign page and how to get the word out. We spent a lot of time and money on the game itself, but we should also have done so much more to prepare the campaign and promote it in advance.

It's hard as a first-time creator to know what you need to do. For example, we didn't have a video teaching people how to play the game when we launched. We scrambled to make one during the first week; that and everything else we did under the gun during that first campaign took quite a toll on us. We did a much better job preparing and promoting our second campaign in advance, and we funded on Day 6 of 30. That made the campaign so much more enjoyable. I often jokingly tell people asking for advice, "Reach your goal as quickly as you can." It really makes a lot of difference in the trajectory of the campaign — and on you emotionally as a project creator.

What sorts of tools did you use to market your campaigns? Do you feel like you did so successfully, and if not, what could you have done differently?

We did a much better job with marketing and promotion for Lanterns, and we did most of that work before the campaign started. We had started to gather a mailing list when we released Relic Expedition, and we announced to that list that Lanterns would be our next project about three months before the campaign. We shared different pieces of artwork on Twitter and Facebook as they were completed. I also wrote some blog posts about the preparation work I was doing, and a couple of them got shared quite a bit before the campaign. I attended Gen Con and ran some playtests and demos.

Those events went incredibly well: I met some people who became very avid fans of the game and our company, and I also got the confirmation I needed that the game was ready. I mailed about 25 prototype copies to reviewers about 6 weeks before the campaign, and many of them published positive reviews. Those reviews helped promote the campaign to their audience, yes, but more importantly they gave people who found the campaign through other means an idea of whether or not the game was right for them.

During both campaigns, we advertised on BoardGameGeek (BGG). With Lanterns, I waited until we had reached our goal to run those ads. I felt that BGG users would be more likely to back Lanterns after it had already reached its goal. I know that seems backwards, but there's a lot of uncertainty when you back a campaign that hasn't funded. If you pledge, have you spent the money? Maybe. You only get charged if the campaign funds, which may or may not happen. If you pledge, you can’t really spend that money elsewhere. Or if you pledge you might forget that you backed the project (thinking it wouldn’t really fund anyways) and then decide to spend your money elsewhere. It’s just not worth the uncertainty for a lot of people. Once a project has reached its goal, it’s much more straightforward and certain: you pledge, you give the money, and you get a game.

Can you explain how you managed the Lanterns campaign?

Even with all the preparation, running a campaign is still a crazy time. I know project creators who plan everything with a detailed timeline, and I know project creators who fly by the seat of their pants. I lean towards the planning side, but I think it'd be foolish to try to plan everything. It kind of feels like running through a timed obstacle course. A lot happens during the campaign, and you have to be flexible and adapt as it happens.

I took the first day and the last day of the campaign off of work. You get a lot of visibility to a campaign when you first launch, and I wanted to be sure I could answer questions and comments quickly. I planned the dates for the campaign so that I wouldn't be out of town for the first weekend or the last weekend. I had worked to schedule as many reviews and interviews as I could before the campaign, but in those first few days I got a lot of requests from people I didn't know to do more of them. I had 12 review copies on hand that I could send out at a moment's notice, and I ended up mailing out most of them. I checked Facebook, Twitter, and BoardGameGeek quite a bit, responding to questions and sharing updates and comments as they came in.

Sending out regular updates is important. You want to keep the campaign in people's minds and keep them excited, which makes them more likely to share the campaign with others. But you also don't want to annoy them, so updates need to be meaningful. I averaged about two updates a week. Before launching, I had written the text for the first update. It provided a list with links and other information for backers to share the project with others, and I posted that a few hours after launching.

Beyond that first update, I would write the other updates at least the night before and then send them out during the day. I had brainstormed ideas for content that could be used for updates. If there wasn't any news to share, I wanted to be able to share some interesting backstory about the project. The Relic Expedition campaign needed more of those kind of updates because it didn't fund as quickly. With Lanterns, we also had some artwork that backers could vote on, so the news around that process gave me regular content for updates. In fact, I had written the text for an update about one of the components in Lanterns (the favor tokens), but I didn't end up needing that to fill an update during the campaign. So I saved that for after the campaign while we were waiting for the games to cross the ocean and get through the port delays.

What were your biggest challenges during your campaigns?

There's a lot you can do during the campaign to promote it: it could be a full-time job for multiple people. If you have the time, that's great. But if you don't, you have to be really smart about how you spend the time you have. Promoting the project before the campaign works well to get other people excited about it so that they will promote it during the campaign. I spent some extra time beforehand to put things in place to make other things like mailing out review copies take less time: I had extras printed and someone else at the ready to mail them out if I needed them. Again, it feels like running through a timed obstacle course: the better you prepare, the more you can accomplish in that time.

What’s the most valuable advice you could share with aspiring crowdfunders?

You absolutely must share your project as early and as often as you can to get feedback. I know the temptation to have everything perfect before you show your game or your Kickstarter page to anyone. The longer you wait to get feedback from people, the more you will have invested in it and the less you will be able to change. The first few days of a campaign are the most important, and you really want your page as good as it can be right from the start. We made a lot of mistakes on our Kickstarter page for Relic Expedition, and we got some good feedback after we launched; but it would have been much better for us if we had addressed some of those issues before we launched.

I'll give you one example. For both games, I wrote a script for the video and created a really rough storyboard to send to the person creating the video. With Relic Expedition, I didn't want anyone to see this: it was too rough and didn't represent the high quality bar we wanted to set. With Lanterns, however, I realized that feedback was so important. I posted the rough storyboard on YouTube and shared it on Twitter and Facebook so that I could get people's feedback. A few people gave us feedback, and I was able to incorporate that into the final video. We got a lot of feedback on every aspect of the Lanterns campaign from a lot of people, and I knew the campaign page was in good shape when we launched it.

This post is part of the #CrowdfundingCrashCourse series. You can find the entire series of interviews and summary posts here.

The Travelling Book project is a project to help the world connect.

Essentially, the project was to send out a number of “travelling books” (blank journals) that would travel the world from person to person, with each person writing in the journals information about themselves and their lives. When each journal is full it’s supposed to come back to me for me to scan and put on the Internet, so anyone can see where the journal traveled and who it met. This way you could discover what different parts of the world was like actually from the people living there.

I’m still waiting for one of them to make it home!

Why did you feel that the crowdfunding model was the best way to promote the product

When I first had the idea, I decided that I would send five books out. However, when I asked friends and family if they wanted to get involved, straightaway I discovered that there was more demand than there was books available. And I thought to myself that if they wanted to take part, they might be willing to pay.

The great thing about crowdfunding in this case was that the project could scale e.g. people would pay for as many books as they want, and I could put the extra money generated towards a project website which I wouldn’t have been able to create otherwise.

Why and how did you choose Indiegogo over other crowdfunding options available?

To be quite honest, I tried Kickstarter first, and I couldn’t work out how to set it up to work in my country (the UK)! Also, Geek & Sundry had at the time just used Indiegogo to fund the third season of TableTop so it seemed a sensible choice. Indiegogo was the first crowdfunding website and is the second biggest crowdfunding site after Kickstarter so it is well-established.

All that said, Indiegogo does actually have one massive advantage over Kickstarter, and that’s Flexible Funding - the fact that I would receive the funding (minus Indiegogo fees) even if I didn’t reach my target goal was a fantastic benefit for my project, where I didn’t need to reach the target I set.

How big was your budget before you launched your crowdfunding campaign?

Pretty much nothing! I was willing to buy a few blank journals and mail them out to people out of my own pocket, but bearing in mind that each one sent out costs up to £8 - and I don’t really have much spare cash - I was more or less starting with nothing.

How far along was your project before you felt ready to launch a crowdfunding campaign? In hindsight, would you have preferred to be farther along, or to have crowdfunded earlier?

I jumped into crowdfunding far too early on. I basically had the idea for the project, did a quick Facebook post about the project, from that thought that there might be value in doing a crowdfunding campaign, and set it up with a small amount of planning. It was a fine stage of the project to do the crowdfunding, but I should have planned more.

Can you explain how you prepared for and managed your campaign?

I read a lot of blogs about crowdfunding and how to do it. I learned that I needed to get a good amount of income early on in the campaign so I lined up friends and family to donate right at the start so I could show progress, and that worked well.

I had roughly planned how I was going to promote the project and where to, but to be honest I could have done a lot more.

What tools did you use to market your campaign? Do you feel like you did so successfully, and if not, what could you have done differently?

I used various social media channels - my blog, my YouTube channel, Twitter (I use Hootsuite to set up tweets in advance) and Google+ groups, I also did a lot of work promoting the project manually by emailing literally hundreds of writing groups around the world, going on my local radio station, and I also found my old colleges and universities liked to hear about an alumni of theirs doing something that they put could on their blogs (it worked quite well that I ran the campaign in the summer when they probably didn’t have anything better to promote!)

In retrospect what were your best assets for running this successful campaign? On the other hand, what would you do differently?

Friends and family were a great help to me and kept me motivated throughout. However, I should definitely have planned more. For example, as I say I emailed tons and tons of writing groups. However, they generally only meet once every 4-8 weeks, and as my campaign was only a month, sometimes I’d miss their meetings.

Another thing was a lot of my promotional literature was very amateurish - my graphic designs skills are non-existent, and basic things like having a half decent logo, some good pictures and branding were missing.

What was your biggest challenge during your campaign?

I would say keeping motivated, but it did seem like every time I started to get a little downhearted another donation would come in and cheer me up! Finding the right crowd was difficult - I went for writing groups but I’m not entirely sure that I quite got the right people, I do think to this day that if I had marketed the project better I could have got a huge amount of interest.

What’s the most valuable advice you could share with aspiring crowdfunders?

Plan, plan, and plan! Get clearly written down how you are going to get your funds in, who you are going to approach when, how you are going to keep things updated throughout the campaign, and make sure that your project stands up to scrutiny - what exactly are you going to do with the money, when are people going to get the thing you’re promising, and how are you going to deliver?

This post is part of the #CrowdfundingCrashCourse series. You can find the entire series of interviews and summary posts here.

My album is called Normal People. I describe it as being inspired by everyday situations I face as a young man trying to find my way in life while working a dead end job and moonlighting as a rapper hoping to someday “make it” in the music industry. It’s available at khanvikshyn.bandcamp.com and in Winnipeg at Into the Music, Music Trader and HMV in Portage Place.

Why did you feel that the crowdfunding model was the best way to promote your album?

I felt that crowdfunding was the best way for me to promote my album because it allowed me to build excitement and a buzz around my project that I wouldn’t have been able to build otherwise. The people who donated to my campaign are still engaged and excited to see what I do next with my album.

Why and how did you choose Indiegogo over other crowdfunding options available?

I chose Indiegogo because it looked like one of the most legitimate and widely known platforms I could find and it didn’t seem to have many barriers in the way of getting started. It seemed more geared towards what I was planning to do and had a lot of projects by independent artists with smaller budgets and networks. It also offered the flexible funding option, meaning I would get whatever funds I raised regardless if I reached my fundraising goal or not.

How big was your budget before you launched your crowdfunding campaign?

I didn’t really have much of a budget before launching my campaign. Crowdfunding forced me to really look at what I was doing and set a budget and a direction. If I didn’t raise money this way I would probably still be in the position I was before I launched my campaign – an artist with a dream but no clear path – and it’d be years before I’d get a project out.

How far along was your project before you felt ready to launch a crowdfunding campaign? In hindsight, would you have preferred to be farther along, or to have crowdfunded earlier?

I had two songs recorded and mixed before launching my campaign. I think I was at the right point in creating my album when I decided to launch my campaign and ask for people’s help with the rest of it.

Can you explain how you prepared for and managed your campaign?

I prepared for my campaign by spending about 6 months absorbing as much information as I could on successful crowdfunding campaigns by reading articles and watching videos on other people’s experiences. I managed my campaign by creating a 45 day plan so I’d stay on track and would know what I should be doing each day and how far along I expected to be. I knew that once I kicked things off I’d be too busy doing things to research and plan so I had to be as prepared as possible.

What tools did you use to market your campaign? Do you feel like you did so successfully, and if not, what could you have done differently?

I marketed my campaign online and offline. I contacted people by phone and email and through Facebook and Twitter to ask if they’d consider donating towards my campaign. I also posted up flyers around Winnipeg and held a series of busking concerts with friends/artists of mine that I filmed and uploaded to YouTube and shared on Facebook.

In retrospect what were your best assets for running this successful campaign? On the other hand, what would you do differently?

I think my best assets for running my successful campaign were being open and transparent about what I planned to do with the funds I raised so people felt more comfortable about giving me money toward my project. If I could do something differently I would have spent more time researching ways to get picked up by media and blogs because I didn’t have much media coverage. I sent a press release to the [Winnipeg] Metro, CBC Radio and Winnipeg Alternative Media, and WAM posted it on their Facebook page.

What was your biggest challenge during your campaign?

The biggest challenge I faced during my campaign was overcoming negativity I sensed from those who didn’t understand what I was doing and didn’t take it seriously. Some people thought it was charity or that I was being lazy but I came to realise that not everyone is going to “get it” but you just need to do it anyway. It allowed me to really focus on the people showing me support and positivity because they’re the fans and the ones that matter.

What’s the most valuable advice you could share with aspiring crowdfunders?

The most valuable advice that I could share with aspiring crowdfunders is to not get discouraged and give up. Also, be prepared. Put in the necessary time to research how to run a successful campaign and have a plan in place for what you’re going to do before you kick things off. Once you launch you should be confident that you know what you’re going to do to accomplish your goal.

This post is part of the #CrowdfundingCrashCourse series. You can find the entire series of interviews and summary posts here.

Can you briefly describe Dyscourse?

Dyscourse is an interactive choose-your-own adventure where you journey through a stylized world of choice and consequence. You play as Rita, an unfortunate art school grad turned barista, who is now stuck on a desert island with a crew of oddball travelers after a plane crash. That last choice you just made? It may end up being integral to your group’s survival, or it may lead you down a path to murder and cannibalism!

Why did you feel that the crowdfunding model was the best way to promote the game?

We hadn't yet done crowdfunding so it was something we wanted to try. We were about 7 months into development of Dyscourse, which would be the biggest title we had ever built. So crowdfunding allow us to let people see what we were working on much sooner so we could get feedback. Also this would start the word of mouth about what Dyscourse is and hopefully get people excited about it.

Why and how did you choose Kickstarter over other crowdfunding options available?

Kickstarter was the biggest and most well known.

How big was your budget before you launched your crowdfunding campaign?

We had already been working on the game for 7 months before the Kickstarter. The whole project took about 2 years to complete with a team that scaled from 4-10 people. The funds raised via the Kickstarter were just a part of the funding of Dyscourse.

How far along was your project before you felt ready to launch a crowdfunding campaign? In hindsight, would you have preferred to be farther along, or to have crowdfunded earlier?

We were 7 months into development prior to the Kickstarter. With this project, this was just enough time to figure out roughly what we wanted to build and be able to present that. Once you have crowdfunded something it becomes hard to drastically pivot your plan as that is not what people backed. Pivoting is a big part of game development. We ended up changing quite a bit from the original Kickstarter pitch, but the changes were not incredibly drastic and our backers were very supportive.

Can you explain how you prepared for and managed your campaign?

A lot of time and effort went into creating a great Kickstarter page. Graphics, videos and text. We had to figure out how to do physical rewards fulfilment (so we didn't undercharge). We also had a person to specially help with running the Kickstarter itself. Then there was all the work talking to the press and getting people excited for the Kickstarter. There is so much more that what is being described, it is a massive undertaking to launch and run a successful Kickstarter.

What tools did you use to market your campaign? Do you feel like you did so successfully, and if not, what could you have done differently?

Social media was a big part of getting the word out for our campaign. We were successful enough to get funded, which is the goal of crowdfunding at the end of the day. For marketing our Kickstarter I don’t know if there was anything I would have wanted to do differently.

In retrospect what were your best assets for running this successful campaign? On the other hand, what would you do differently ?

There are a lot of fans of Owlchemy Labs so that helped a lot when running a Kickstarter. I can’t think of anything specific that should have been done differently. I only wish we would have known how much work it was going to be.

What was your biggest challenge during your campaign?

There are generally 3 kinds of Kickstarters. Ones that are rockets and are funded in less than 48 hrs, ones that no one is really interested in that fail almost immediately, and lastly there are the ones that go down to the wire. That was our Kickstarter. We got great support but it was both a marathon and a sprint. We got successfully funded but with not a lot of time to spare. This meant that for 30 days the whole team was working hard to make sure it would be successful. Which was not only very stressful but very time consuming. We also launched our Kickstarter on Nov 6, 2013, so this was leading right into the holiday season where generally people spent less money on crowdfunding. Also, this was at the same time as the PS4 and Xbox One console launches. That sucked a lot of money out of the Kickstarter ecosystem so it made getting funding that much more challenging.

What’s the most valuable advice you could share with aspiring crowdfunders?

It was super time consuming and stressful to run a Kickstarter campaign. It is one of the hardest and most stressful things I have ever done. If you are planning on crowdfunding talk to as many people that have been through the process as possible, before you decide if crowdfunding is right for you.

Dyscourse is now available on Steam (Win/Mac/Linux).

This post is part of the #CrowdfundingCrashCourse series. You can find the entire series of interviews and summary posts here.