Intro - How Does This Work?

[TravisSteffen]

Hey all,

A friend of mine noticed I had backed a lot of Kickstarter campaigns and recommended I join this club - so here I am, a new 1-star member (52 projects backed).

I'm a tech entrepreneur, thrill-seeker, adrenaline junkie and adventure athlete, and I'll most likely be launching my own campaign this coming April - but how does this community work in a nutshell?

Does everyone vote on campaigns to back, then everyone is encouraged to back them?

Is there a page where I can learn a little bit more about what's expected of me as a member, and how I can stay in good standing so if I decide to launch my own campaign at some point, others show me equivalent support?

Thanks in advance

[One Soap]

Hi Travis,
this is Azat with the One Soap project. We have applied to enter for our project to be presented at the club and were accepted. For projects, the usual process is that you apply and then if you want to "unlock" additional features, there are fees for that (receive a list of bloggers, get in touch with projects who want to do cross-pledging). That's what it's financed with, I guess.

We have just done the normal application up to now. It has been really worth it.
We were absolutely "ignored" by Kickstarter and you cannot find our project there at all despite the product being first and one-of-a kind. Plus we launched close to the holidays and with it being our first project did not do everything well. It is not very easy to find objective infos on how to do everything but this here seems to work best of any other promo we did up to now. 80 views and 20 backers already.

I don't mind sharing my experiences and giving you some tips on the literature, if you like, so feel free to get in touch. By the way with you being an athelete and an adventure junkie you might like our One Soap. I'm a windsurfer and it's by far the best thing you can take with you to a surfing spot IMHO.

As for backer voting and similar things, I have to pass on to others.

This here is our project by the way: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/onesoap/one-soap

All the contact data is there and you can find me with my full name on FB and many other places.
Azat

[TashaTurner]

Welcome.

The founder(s) of the club pick the projects. It's "generally encouraged" to back projects and share them with your friends but I don't think we can see what each other are backing - only founders & the specific project can see who backed their project.

We do use the Kickstarter - category area to share favorite projects we are backing - games is the most active but i certainly hope, as a regular member, to see more activity all around.

The best advice I can give you is read through the forums and jump in if anything looks interesting/you have questions/thoughts. I think 1-2 hours will get you up-to-date unless you read some of the links from Lobster and a few others on breakdown of funding process - which you might find useful if your thinking of running a campaign. Late last week he posted a link to a 200 page "in processs' document/handbook of sorts,

Welcome again. Good to see other "not just games" addict around here.

[TravisSteffen]

Much appreciated, both of you.

What I'm hoping to get from BackerClub is - aside from discovering some cool projects to support - getting some great feedback from some folks in-the-know about what makes a campaign successful when that time does come.

I won't be asking for a verbatim list on action items to take, we've got a lot of resources we're pulling from and have a lot to do before we even think of launching one, but once we've got a preview page live, I'd love any thoughts, feedback, questions, etc. you lovely folks would be willing to help contribute to make things more clear, and more appealing

[Sandra]

Welcome! I'm fairly new to the club as well but my goal is to have the opportunity to work with creators before they launch. I have seen many good projects fail on Kickstarter because of poor marketing, communication, or detailed information about their project. if they would have had the opportunity to present their project before it launched they may have been able to make the changes necessary to make their project successful. I certainly will not back every project that comes through backerclub (just like I don't back every project I start on kickstarter) but I certainly hope I can make it more likely for a project to be completed.

[TravisSteffen]

This is incredible - at what point do you think a project is worth posting? Once you've taken it as far as you can on your own? I'm guessing posting the preview at least a month prior to launch is recommended to give ample time for edits, yes?