Kickstarter Post Mortem - Eat

So five days in almost $2500 dollars raised, press was taking an interest and I and I up and pull the plug. Why? Well, I had multiple reasons.

First off, we were not going to make our goal. $65,000 was pretty high and we had not even scratched the surface. They say that somewhere around 50% of your donations come from people you know. Well, guess what ? I had contacted pretty much everyone I know and only came up with a few grand. My reach was at its end. Sure more would have eventually donated, and as more folks I know did, others would too. Hell, we might’ve even got to $30,000, shit, maybe $40,000 who knows, but we were never going to reach the full goal. In hindsight I realize the arrogance in setting it so high. Had I been smarter, I would have tried to raise $20,000 or $30,000 for partial funding and sought the rest from outside investors. With my track record this was a real possibility.  But, I didn’t do that, so be it.

2^nd thing, running a kickstarter is not fun. Yes, I know I’ve said in previous posts that is was. Let me explain,  parts of the campaign are fun. Interacting with friends and strangers over your project is fun. Seeing friends and strangers support your project is fun. Soliciting donations is not fun. It is really not fun. In fact, it sucks. It sucked so bad for me that I did want to give the kickstarter another week for a possible turn-a-round. Soliciting donations made me feel awful. I lost much sleep over it. Now I’m not saying that it is, but it made me feel like a panhandler begging for money.

3^rd thing, I will get Eat made regardless. There are plenty of other projects on Kickstarter that simply will not exist if they don’t meet their goals. The same cannot be said of Eat. It’s not a do or die situation and I think if you’re going to run a successful Kickstarter it has to be do or die.

So that’s it in a nutshell. I have nothing against Kickstarter and other artists have and will continue to use it successfully. I just will never be one of them.