How I Raised Over $90K On Kickstarter After Only 2 Weeks Preparing

Hi there! About one year ago, I officially launched my company, Rotate Watches, through Kickstarter. To explain Rotate in a nutshell, we offer all-in-one kits to build a mechanical watch. Each kit includes parts, tools, and guides on putting it all together. It's a great gift for any hobbyist or watch enthusiast.

Why Kickstarter?

I was a 20 year old fresh out of college who had a great idea, but no money to carry it out. I was working full-time for another company, but quickly realized I was never going to save up enough to launch the company. For perspective, each of our kits retails for $200 - the first batch alone would cost at least $50k, not to mention all the other costs associated with starting a business.

I had dabbled in Kickstarter before and figured it would be the perfect way for me to launch my company. Kickstarter has an avid customer base of backers who are early adopters, tech-oriented people who like to try out new products ahead of the crowd. The perfect target market for something like Rotate.

To clear up a common misconception about Kickstarter, Kickstarter is PREORDERS. It's not people just throwing money and getting nothing in return. People choose to order products from you with the expectation that they'll receive it.

The great part is, Kickstarter backers are aware the product may or may not be in production yet, and so they will fund you and give you time to produce that first batch.

Results of the Kickstarter?

I launched a 30-day campaign and ended up raising over $91k, which was 600% of our initial goal. We hit our goal in the first 48 hours and ended up posting 3 stretch goals and hitting them all by the end of the campaign.

How did I do this in 2 weeks?

I launched my Kickstarter only two weeks after quitting my full-time job. I was very much on a time crunch since if this didn't work out, I'd need to get another job ASAP.

The first thing I did was find a designer and videographer to build out my Kickstarter campaign. I've built a Kickstarter myself before, and have come to realize that it's best to leave this part to the professionals. It'll be way faster, and way more professionally done to do this. If you find the right person, it'll be great quality at a great price. I joined some a Facebook group for 'creatives' and made a post saying I was looking for a videographer/designer to do a job. I had over a hundred people message me their portfolios and rates, and I picked the best from the bunch. Then, I sent them a backbone of how I wanted the campaign to look / what information to include and set them free to build it. We went back and forth with adjustments and were able to come up with a video and a beautiful campaign by the deadline.

While they were building out the campaign, I focused on getting ready to promote it. The only paid crowdfunding services I used were Backerclub and Gadget Flow. They ended up bringing in enough traffic to break a profit, but overall didn't really do much.

The main thing I did was reach out to publications. I spent most of my time looking up publications and editors, finding suitable ones who would write about something like my Kickstarter or my product. We ended up getting featured in the New York Times, Cool Hunting, and more.

I also zoned in on our audience on Instagram. We put together custom-fit messages, and DM'd every user with 'watch enthusiast', 'hobbyist', and other key terms about our upcoming launch.

Finally, I found every possible site and group to submit the Kickstarter. I saved all the links so once the Kickstarter was live, I could easily post on everything. I scoured Facebook groups, Twitter, startup sites, Linkedin, and more.

Woooot this was a really long article, and I'll cut it here for now. If you'd like to learn more about what I did during the actual duration of the campaign (not just prep), please let me know!