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Pretty Good Hat

Doing it Right on Kickstarter

I recently wrote about Ian Schon’s Pen Project as an example of neat craft, and mentioned that it was the first tangible product I’ve received from Kickstarter. Well, another project I’ve backed, Quarantine Z, has been funded, and I’ve been really impressed by the transparency that the project’s champions have shown. Throughout the project, they’ve posted regular updates with actual, detailed financials about their production costs and the decisions they’ve made in light of that money at various stages in the process. They also described carefully doing social media promotions at strategic points in time – identified by paying careful attention to when they tended to see the most backing activity, and coordinated to take advantage of things like the “Discover” spots on Kickstarter.

I don’t know if it had an effect other backers, but seeing the QZ guys' strategy really had an impact on me: After their first financials post, I kicked in a few more dollars. It made a difference to understand exactly how they were using the money, and I wanted to be supportive of that kind of communication. The QZ guys are also advocates of other projects that they have confidence in, which I think is a nice reciprocity within the Kickstarter community. For my part, I hope their model of planning and communicating about their project – demonstrating that it’s realistic and then carrying it out – continues to stick around and influences other efforts.

Also, it’s a tabletop game about zombies, so TAKE MY MONEY.