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FreePreview: Build

all right, So in the first section we covered all about planning how to identify your tribe, how to build your 1000 true fans. How to sort of identify them in this section. We're going talk about specifically how to build your Kickstarter project. Now build is still prelaunch. It's still the step before launch, but it's getting specific about reward levels, rewards, pricing, copy photos and video and how you really tell your story. So what that will jump in? So the most important single element of telling your story on Kickstarter is your video. It's absolutely critical. And if you look at the best Kickstarter projects the ones that are funded, they do an amazing job of telling the story. The story's got a lot of components. We're gonna look at a one great example. There's lots of great examples on Kickstarter, Um, but we're gonna look at the elements that make up a really great video. It's the first thing anyone sees when they come to your Kickstarter project. If you guys think about ...

all the Kickstarter projects that you've seen online, think about how you view the page. Did you click on the link from Twitter and then go down and read all the white copy underneath the video. I don't think so. Like most of us, and Kickstarter says this based on their analytics. People open the page, and it clicked the video, sometimes before they even read the title or subtitle was. Often the title is in whatever they came from, whatever they clicked from had the title in it, so they already know at least what it's about. So as soon as that page opens, as soon as that video loads there clicking on it. So this is a simple little graphic of how people view Kickstarter projects on Kickstarter um, video. So Number one, they play the video. So let's pause and think about what that means as far as how you structure the video. We all know about online video and attention spans, but you know you don't want a 15 minute video. You don't put the documentary as you know, the Kickstarter video. You want to keep it short. You want to tell your story. You want to include all the elements. The next step is people's eyes go over here. They go over to the top box, which shows how many backers, how much money and how many, how much time is left like we talked about? We've all come across projects where it's an amazing project. You want to back it, but they're 10% funded with a day to go, you know they're not gonna do it, so you don't back it right? People do that quick mental math and see the percent funded. What's interesting is before you land on the page, and when you're a searching Kickstarter for projects in the preview, it shows you percent funded on the page itself. They sort of make you do the mental math all by yourself. But, you know, on the preview page, you can see percent funded. Or if you really want to get detailed, you can pop it into kick track. The third place people read is the glance. Who the heck are you? So this is a J. You know any of these other projects? Same thing. It's like, who is this person notice right here? A. J has backed 32 other projects, so it's pretty safe to say he is a member of the Kickstarter community. He is a part of the Kickstarter tribe. Spike Lee caught some flak for going to Kickstarter, not ever having backed another project on Kickstarter. And then he had to kind of tell a whole story about how he does donate money to films and he teaches in New York and all this other stuff, which he does. He does do that, but that doesn't change. You know, not everyone saw that follow up message some people just saw. Here's this celebrity who allegedly has money. And here he is on Kickstarter, and he's never backed any of our projects before. Right, that tells a story. All right, Next video is video Wasn't wasn't the best Like it seemed like you didn't want to be there. Yeah, I think you know, we could dio ah, breakdown of the pros and cons of that video. They were definitely, definitely some issues, but it's very key here, too. Attach your Facebook page unless there's some reason why you don't want Teoh or fix your privacy settings on Facebook. But people want to know that you're a real human. I I recommend this part should be you, not the brand like for Soma for Mike Del Ponti, for this picture I don't remember exactly what which when he did, but I would have liked it better if that section for Soma was Mike, not a water pitcher. Filter. As a lot of people say, people don't want to talk to a logo. They want to talk to a person, right? That's why that is a face and you can get an idea of a J. There. You can see here is this. 704 friends click through the Facebook. Maybe you have 16 friends in common and you've never even heard of this guy, right? That's so connect your connect your Facebook back. Other projects, right? You can wrap all this stuff together as you're researching other projects in your category. Back Some of them, you know, see what it's like. See what it's like to go through, um, and contribute to these other projects because you'll get the feel for what you're asking people to do. The check out process. Maybe some people don't have an Amazon payments account. You'll learn a lot, but also it matters a lot. It doesn't say which projects you backed. It doesn't say how much you back to the mat, you know, I know a J personally. So I know he didn't back 32 projects at the $1 level. He contributed a lot to these other ones. But just find some other projects. It's important to show that you're a member of the community, and then their eyes continue to go down further. So we're gonna stay on the video, and then we're gonna get to reward levels in a little bit. So who has this question? How long should buy video be? Yeah, a few of you. That's a question I get all the time is how long should my video be? The truth is, your video sort of like your reward level should be a smallest possible to actually reach your goals. Your video should be a shortest possible while still effectively telling your story and hitting all the key elements of wire on Kickstarter. So there's not an arbitrary. It's got to be two minutes and 34 seconds. Um, I would say include, you know, most of the relevant components exclude and delete any extraneous stuff that doesn't need to be there. We're gonna watch an example video, and you're going to see that there's pretty much No wasted time and wasted space. Um, and the video ends up being being fairly short. Um, think about each. Each component basically needs to deserve to be in the video. Um, and this key story elements like we talked about with the positioning, some of those words are gonna come out right. We're gonna look at the soma water pitcher filtering. You're gonna see the word elegant. You know, the word clean and sustainable and eco friendly and things like that. Any questions before we watching? Example. Any questions in the chat room? Good. Cool. So, um, when I click, the video's gonna auto play. This is the video for Soma the water pitcher filter. Just because it's one of the better examples off. Ah, Kickstarter video. Um, we're gonna walk through after the video plays, the specific elements of a good Kickstarter video and how mike in soma ticked off a lot of those. You don't have to hit every single one. It's not like people always want a map, right? It's not the script to say. Here's the ultimate transcript, right? It's you telling your story, so it should be personal, personable, but there are things that you should include. So with that, we'll watch the Soma video. I I'm Mike, and I'm one of the creators of Soma. As someone we make beautiful water, crafts and innovative water filters and deliver them right to your door on a subscription so you never forget to change your filter again. The idea for Selma came from years of frustration and using one of these things. They're a number of problems with these pictures. One is when you go to port with lid flies off your water all over the floor. You look inside and you get those disgusting black flakes of charcoal. A lot of people feel like they have to hide this in the fridge because it's made of cheap plastic. Worst of all, you never know when you should really change your filter. We spoke to more and more people found out everyone felt the same way. We knew we could do better. So believe it or not, we quit our jobs partner with some of San Francisco's best designers, and we've created something that solves all these problems. We went through dozens of designs and it took months to reiterate on the product and to find the exact form that we like. We knew we needed something that not only worked well, the looked beautiful. For months. We obsessed over every single detail. When it came to the filter, we knew we needed the best. David. I've been in the water treatment industry for 35 years. I developed the water formula for Starbucks about 20 years ago, designed the water for Pete's D drinks, coffee bean and tea leaf. I love water. Most water filters out there composed mostly a plastic resin mixed with a little bit of carbon, so Miss Product is completely organic. We're working with a catalytic activated coconut shell carbon. You know Burt coconut shells. It will do everything that plastic will do in an organic method, which rather be drinking water that's filtered through coconut shell or filter to plastic on. It's pretty simple now. This is the Soma filter, truly unique in the industry. This is a starch based plastic P L. A. Together with a vegan silk as a filtering pad rather than plastic screen. This entire filter is composed double. There's nothing else like it on in the world. When we first got the prototype It was actually awesome to just fill with water and hold in my hands and see something that we had really poured our lives into. We knew we were onto something when we actually showed this to some of the thought leaders and health, sustainability and design, and they were blown away. The hardest thing to do the world is goodbye and great design and sustainability into a killer consumer experience. And that's what these guys have done. Clean water is the starting point for all. You can survive three weeks that food against for three days without water. There are so many products on the market that create more waste. I think that sama is revolutionary. What I love about the Sima craft is you could leave in the fridge aerator, or you could leave it on the dining room table, the middle of a fancy dinner party. Either way, it looks beautiful on its super functional. I have no doubt whatsoever that these guys will execute above beyond expectations that deliver the product to market. And I say that because I know these guys. What we want is we want lots of little actions that build up to becoming one major sea change. So today we finally have our working prototype and manufacturers. They're ready to get started. We just need one more thing. You guys are fundraising. Goal is $100,000. If we can do this, will be able to pay for the first step in the manufacturing process and ship you your soma by the summer. So please back Soma today. So what do you guys before we before we get into this, maybe this will. It's gonna be played okay. Before we get into the elements. Do you guys feel like you know so much better? Do you feel like you understand who Mike is? The point of soma? Why he's creating it? He didn't even tell the whole dinner party story. Right? But you know who he is and why he's creating someone you know who was involved. You know that He didn't, like, say, I don't know, water filtration. So I'm just gonna go to community college class and figure it out and try to create a company out of it, right? He went and got the guy who knows the most about water filtration in the country. Um, so that makes sense. Any questions about about the Soma video yet? We're gonna get into some of the key elements of the video now, so it's important to say who you are and who was on the team in this case. For Soma, Mike said who he is. Immediately, I highly recommend the very first thing you say is who you are high. I'm Robin Wright and why you're here. What I like to say is pretend that you only have 10 seconds to convince them, because in a way you do. The 1st 10 seconds of the video, sells them on watching the next two minutes of the video. So I see a lot of people like drag on and on about their background. But they haven't talked about the project yet, or a filmmaker throws up the trailer of the video, and maybe that's a great way to tell a story. But it's like, Who are you and why are you even making this film? Because trailers generally have this ark where it builds up to the problem. I would say you know, high, a mini mayor and I lost my father in Vietnam. This is why I'm building Gold Star Children to connect that check out the trailer. You know, so a quick thing about who you are and why you're doing it. Who's on the team? Why this project should exist, right? Just like Jake made fast fashion the enemy of the 10 year Hoody, it's pretty clear who might commit the enemy of Soma. Right? Um, who is your enemy? Who's the thing that your, uh, you know, railing against Is it is it ignorance? Is it, You know, with the narrative thing, Is it just your railing against boredom and films that suck? And you want a film that's awesome and interesting and creative? Um, what problems does it solve? Right. You think so? I was a pretty big problem. Your projects. I was a pretty big problem right back to the kind of what your real goals. What's the real story? Why are you doing this? You guys are all super passionate about this. And yet, sometimes when people get on, get in front of the camera, um, they freeze up telling their story like you guys didn't freeze up, but all telling me the story So a couple takes it is pretty clear how passionate Mike is about changing the world with Soma, right? Your passion should believe through the screen when I talk about, um, how long the video should be age aliens. Kickstarter Video was, I think, like five minutes and 20 seconds, and we sent it to me for feedback, he said. What do you think? I know it's a little bit long, and I watched the whole thing and ages. Passion just bleeds through the screen, and I wrote back, and I said, There's not a second out of that. It can cut. You got to run the whole thing. And it was just him talking to the camera about his story. So most people shouldn't create a five minute video. That one had to be five minutes. Um, what gaps does it feel? So Nancy Duarte has a great talk. She runs a firm called Duarte Design, the world's leading presentation design firm in the country, and she talks a lot about the narrative arc of a story. Steve Jobs, Martin Luther King. She went back and studied all the great presentations, the great speeches of all time, and they all do the same thing. I touched on earlier. The vessel A between the way the world is and the way the world could be and the way the world is today without this thing and the way the world could be. Steve Jobs would talk about mobile phones before the IPhone. The IPhone launch. It's worth going back and kind of re watching that keynote because he talks about our current mobile phones or or the when they launched the IPod music players with crappy screens and they're confusing. You can't see what files are on the toggle buttons, hard to you like that's the way the world is. And he spent a good amount of time explaining that. And then, you know, he teed up. And when he showed the IPod with its click wheel in its innovative design, you know it blew everybody away. You need to figure out whether you're tackling ignorance or fast fashion, or what the story you want to tell us. How will the world be different and that you know, you can see Mike even though he was talking about plastic and carbon and coconut shells like through that arc, you got the story of how the world is gonna be different, right? So what Gaps doesn't fill. So Part two of the ordinance story. Why you? Why are you the right person to bring this to the world? Right. Um, tell your backstory, Mitten. There's not much more interesting back story than Midi losing her father in Vietnam right before she even knew. You know, that this project was sort of in her mind in her heart before she even knew about it. You know, many years ago, Um, why are you the right person to do this and then show the process and the progress? Clearly with Soma, they were showing this with film and photography. You can show the trailer. You can show a lot of film projects. You know, maybe the shooting is done. You need money for post or whatever. Show what you have so far, it could be B roll B roll cutting between you explaining the project and what you have so far. It could be There's Ah, just like creatives. Don't always like to sell or ask for money. Um, there's also Ah, very much, um, hesitancy to ship before it's finally done. It's got to be perfect. Perfect. Bow on. It and then I'll put it out into the world. And sometimes with Kickstarter video you need to slice up your bureau and film some shots that you explaining why this is important and then putting it out there and saying it's not done and maybe it won't work right. But showing the process in the progress it didn't feel like you were almost on the Soma team for about two minutes. Like creating the water pitcher filter and learning about coconut shells and water filtration all in the span of about two minutes. And then the three key the page three key elements of the video Why you're here on Kickstarter, right? Um, I think that's to your point things. Bike maybe Didn't do all that well, It's like, Why? Why him? Why, why on Kickstarter doesn't have other ways to get money. Why are you on Kickstarter? What do you hear for what the money will go towards? We talked a little bit about the pie chart earlier, but like I said, people really want the thing. They want the HD download of your cool documentary for eight bucks, but they also want to know where their it boxes going right. People are sometimes a little bit selfish. They want to support you. But if you say we need this much for this this much for this and I was gonna ask for receipts, you can, you know, sort of estimate it. Um but I think it's great to show a pie chart and say this is where the money is going. And in the video, I think it's important to include that, right? Mike said at the very end, it was 11 sentence, maybe two seconds. He said, You know, this will allow us to execute our first production run and shipped the someone by summer. That's all it has to be, right? Um, what great rewards you have, like Mike, don't get into that because there were award was the picture itself for the for the most part. But we can talk soon about how to craft these interesting creative rewards for your different project, and I would mention those. So I've seen a lot of people do it, too. It seems almost a little bit corny, but I think it's good and, like we've got a lot of great rewards a point like this, cause on the video there, pointing to where the rewards are. Right. Um, check out our great rewards, right? I think that's, Ah, fun thing to do. We don't have this built in. And if we have time at that this session, maybe we can do it. But, um, to brainstorm what those rewards could be for your project, right? For a documentary film. The To Me, the best reward is an HD download of the film itself. Talk a little bit later about, you know, DVDs and things like that. Um, for photography, you know, digital photos, like sometimes photographers like the rights of shoes in a water market and this and that. These air thes your tribe. These are the people that were there early. You know, maybe for a photography project, it's, you know, that you can deliver a lot of photos really cheaply for a relatively small Kickstarter backing reward. And if somebody gets 500 amazing photos for $10 do you think they're pretty big fan? You think they're in their tribe and it's below I'm a Sharpie and they're happy? Definitely. So, um, the interesting thing about film and photography specifically is often the end product is something that can be digital, and so you can offer digital rewards and not have to ship it and keep your keep your thing. Keep your shipping low. So and then close with the call of action on Thank you. So it's important and a lot of people leave it out, especially filmmakers who tend to throw up the trailer and just let that stand. And then the trailer ends and basically you're on your own. You gotta figure out Well, who are they? Wire that here. One of the rewards. I got to read it all for myself. Ask for the thing into your point. About being tough to ask. I love the way a. J. We ended it with Hiss. He's got hey named his tribe The Misfits, right? Um, Lady Gaga has her little monsters. A J created his tribe and he calls his tribe the Misfits. And so at the end has called Action is absolutely beautiful. He looks in the camera, he says, Will you back a fellow misfit? He's talking to his tribe. He knows that he's talking to the 2000 people that have already read his book and heat by saying, fellow misfit, he's talking to them as a member of the tribe. He's not saying Please give a stranger money. Um, and then he gives them an out Thank you. And he says, And if not, would you be willing to share it with a friend? You know, there's just one friend, right? If everyone who sees it shares it with one friend, your gold. All right, Um, so I want to pause here for questions because the video is so important. And I'm sure how you guys are thinking about what? Um, we could go back to the previous elements if you want, but on pause here and maybe check the chat room as well. Yeah, very basic question. Um, what sort of equipment do you need to shoot this video? Can you do it on your phone, or should you really had a proper video? That's the minimal equipment you need, right with the current camera and video in the IPhone. Obviously, Mike and Soma, that was not an IPhone, but that was probably a Canon five D. The people in online and the videographers and photographers know a lot more about this stuff than I do, but in general and doesn't have to be crazy. High quality. If you're a filmmaker or photographer, it better be decent. Um, a lot of it depends. This is sort of, um, seems unrelated, but it's very related, depending on how big your tribe is and how much built in sort of traffic and backers you're gonna have. You can get away with less of a video. Right? Seth Godin blogged every day for 12 years. His thing is, is an IPod on a trip or his IPhone on a tripod in his office? It's just him looking into the camera. Very basic, not high production quality, not production cuts and things like that, because he had already built up the tribe. Right? So the two caveats is it can be just you look at age aliens, too. That's another one. He didn't have the crazy huge tribe, but he just looked straight into the camera and he just bled the passion. So and that was, I think, shot on an IPhone as well in an RV moving across the country, right? Or maybe on a SLR, Um, but I mean, that's the larger, so cheap now I would say, if you're trying to raise 2030 $40,000 you know, I think you can borrow them online pretty cheap or whatever. So I would I would shoot with an SLR. You could get away with the phone, but if it's in the photography or videography category, I don't know that you want to shoot your Kickstarter video on the phone. Um, any other questions? Yeah, this the Soma trailer and a lot of trailers. I've seen a really hip like they've got a great music track. They've got a great production cuts. It's mine we have. I think it's like two minutes, 10 seconds. Right now it's me and my co author on screen, a couple of cuts to like a free Children's clinic that we put on to me teaching in front of a group of people. But it it doesn't feel, doesn't feel hip right. It feels like just straight up here, the authors, they're passionate about what they're doing, and they're they're pitching their project. Please support us, and we go. I've actually as you're going through this, I've done most of these things, you know? What is the money going to go to very roughly why we're here on Kickstarter. But what can I do to make it more appealing to an audience that is not, uh that is gonna be interested in something more hip and less interested in something that is less high quality? Yep, that's a great question. Hire somebody higher, higher videographer. Show him your five favorite videos and say, I've got the script. I've got most of the stuff I've got most the components. Basically, you have all the Lego pieces. You built it into a maybe kind of an ugly house. But there's an expert Lego person out there who says, I know exactly how to create that You're missing these two pieces and I'm going to show you exactly how to do it and where we're going to shoot it. Because this proliferation of high quality digital SLR ours becoming very, very affordable means there's so many more people who know how to do that, right? 10 years ago, that's $100, video. He wouldn't have made any money on this Kickstarter project. Right now you can get that video made for $1000. You know you find the right person. If you've got all the right components. Now, if you don't know what you want, you don't have the script and you're running around like crazy. It's not gonna be $ right? Um, what I would do a great way to work with creatives, especially videographers. Um, things like that. The Web designed to show them what you love, right? Everyone's like, Oh, I don't want to copy that. We're not trying to invent a new way to use the web. We're just trying to get ideas of what you like, right? And you can show them five. Say, these are my five favorite videos and then literally, like, transcribe them right out. Type up. You know, it's two minutes right type of yourself to see, like what words? Oh, cheese. You know what popped out? All these great videos in the 1st 10 seconds. They say who they are and why they're here. So maybe we should do that too, right? And then let that person kind of create the art around it. This stuff is important. And the video is gonna pay for itself if you do. If you do a great video, don't spend 10 grand on a video. Don't spend 20 grand on a video unless you're trying to raise half a 1,000,000 for the greatest new video game. But like for your project, I would budget like at least for the video. But the good? Yeah. The good news is you can find people right you can find online. It's easier than ever. Yeah, right here. Right. We just made a made a love connection. Yeah, you know, and we can talk about sites. Go on, go on. Video. How would I would really research Kickstarter and say, you know, in back to the researching same projects in your city, in your category? If there's a project you love Well, if they just did it for another Kickstarter project that was funded. Another thing you could do that I I see done sometimes and I think is really interesting. A percentage of the total race. So you could say I got all the components. Here's what I've done with my tribe. I think this is really important. Thes autism email lists and blog's have agreed to talk about it. I want to give you 2% of my Kickstarter raise. Um, so if we raise, you know, given 1% or whatever. Figure out what that number is, where if the video is awesome and then you raise a bunch of money, they get a piece of the upside right, cause now they're incentive to make it awesome versus if it's $1000 or a day rate every bit you go over that. Now there's, you know, conflict and friction. So maybe give him 5%. Maybe 12%. Yeah, Photography project. Do you think it's effective to have more imagery and less words like just like a slide show type thing? Or is it really just the person talking in front of the camera? That's most important, I think, with a photography project, it would be great to have, almost like a Ken Burns effect of sort of panning over the images with the passionate story in the background. Um, you know, they say a picture is worth 1000 words and that so what's a video worth? Right, But a video of pictures worth a 1,000,000? Yeah, exactly. You could think the key is, um, to show thes I would show those soldiers at war. I would show the soldiers coming home, I would show the, you know, the I mean, I'm sure these are all the pictures that you're taking. That part of the project's right. The Alright, right? Sure they're in there. But definitely definitely for a photography project. You want to show the photography? It's got to be just and should be, like, dramatic, amazing, you know, giving birth and show like the chair where the husband's supposed to be in. He's not there, right? That's you wanna elicit that emotion and grab their heart out of their chest and say you're right. This project needs to exist in the world. You're the right person to build it. You've got an amazing back story, right? But you can tell your whole back story in 20 seconds. Um, so, yeah, I think for photography it's critical to show the images that people are gonna are gonna get. And you haven't mentioned this, but I've talked a lot of photographers, like so concerned about digital image rights or whatever. No, they could right click and save my picture from the Kickstarter project. That's a great thing. If they do that right, the N s enemy is not piracy. it's obscurity, right? It's not the fact that someone stole your five photos. It's that most of the world doesn't know about you. Um, so let them steal five photos from a Kickstarter project, right? You want them to spread it And you have a question? Yes, Um, kind of ties into, uh, Robin was asking, but I know for, like, projects of mine, I've worked with a lot of like composers or musicians, so I I easily have access to pre existing or like new music to use. But I know a lot of people don't don't have access towards that. What would you suggest as faras like Like music that drive your video. I know there's a lot of like, uh, like music that is out there on the web, that for, like, royalty free or for like, a certain, like price, you can purchase the royalties for it. But as far as Kickstarter goes, uh, what have you seen people get away with as far as using, like license music? And, uh, is there a lot of like, you know, backlash or worry about using, like, popular music and your videos? Or do you suggest trying to find like independent music or, you know, licensing music, Actually, yeah, definitely. The latter kickstarted right on there. Guidelines. And if accuse says, do not use any music or anything, you don't have the rights to or they could they can shut you down. You could blow away a goal. 200%. They could be sorry. You don't get a dime because you used Jay Z in your video, right? Um, Onley use music you have the rights to. I think we just saw with Mike's soma video, right? That was probably just a track from one of these, you know, license sites or whatever it paid. Maybe 25 bucks royalty, royalty free where you can pay. You know, the budget for music should be $25 or less. Or if you have a buddies band that's really good or you like the sound of a certain thing. The I don't know for a fact that I'm pretty sure like the music behind that video. It was just the right one that matches off the track, right? These sites have unlimited styles. Upbeat, you know, mawr for yours. I would do more of the piano. The slow sort of like touching. You know, I would be crying at the end of yours, right for yours. Maybe it's a big right. That's that's when you win. When they cry, they get other wallet and you win. Um, exactly for yours, I would maybe do like a kind of ominous low thing, and then it the uprising in these things and showing photos of the conflict and everything else and kind of this big thing that builds, right? So you and think you can even search for music by, like, you know, build in the middle kind of thing. So, yeah, I would not definitely don't use anything you don't have the rights to Or like I said, Kickstarter, connect the rug out from under you or you could get another hot water. Yeah, coming in online about the video and some in particular about doing alternative non conventional video. Um, jam. Shara says, Do you have to personally be on camera? Or can a powerful video be using photography, music, text in words work as well? So if they don't want to actually speak, is that a way to do it? You know what you think about that and Teoh Trail on that, Splitsville asks. They had an interesting idea. They have a Web series, and it's, you know, comedy Web series about couples breaking up in comical situations. So their video is the producer and the co producer breaking up because they don't have enough money to fund their Web series. So they're asking, you know, are these different ideas? Do you support that? Do you think? Maybe not? Yeah, definitely. Um, so on the comedy piece comedy, as we all know, because probably none of us in here do stand up. Comedy is hard, but when done well, it can be very, very interesting. So I think it was the first Kickstarter project to break a $1,000,000. I believe that's right was double fine adventure from a video game studio. I believe here in San Francisco, and it was the owner, and he's kind of a bumbling. Uh, he played a very good bumbling sort of Zach Galifianakis stacked character like he's not a drummer like wailing on a drum set in symbols and being just loud and obnoxious and like, tips over the symbol. And then he's like, Oh, hello, like, you know that was the opening of the video, and it was really cool how he did it. They walked through the double fine production studios. It's sort of like here creativelive like walking through the hallways and meeting, And he would have. The video was staged with all these characters, so they were able to pull off Funny that video. So a good litmus test, um, around being funny or viral overused term, um, is even if I didn't care at all about the content of this because in that case, that was double find for me. I've been played video games since college, and I'm not like I'm far removed from that world. But I probably sent that video and that Kickstarter page two 50 friends because it was hilarious. It was like, This is the video on the Internet that you have to see today. That is hard to do. Being pulling off a really funny, great video. It's hard to do, um, certainly try it. And if they have the chops and they've done those kind of videos before, I think it's great. It's awesome. If you can get in and it doesn't have to be accommodated, could be touching, right? Like the trailer from many mirror. Or, you know, Soma, you would send that to your ICO sustainable friends or whatever. Right? Um, would someone share this and it's hard as the Creator because we've been thinking about this project for months or years. Um, it's hard. You're like, of course, I'm sure this it's awesome. It's mine you got almost at, you know, here's the whole Starbucks trick. Go to Starbucks by someone $5 coffee card and say, kind of two minutes your time. I want to watch my Kickstarter video and give me feedback. Honest feedback, like people in Got to be a total stranger. Give a $5 card. You know, do it five times 25 bucks and you get really interesting insights. Maybe a little quick survey. Would you Would you send this to your friends and just say, Be brutally honest? I don't even know. You need to know your name, like as the creator were too close to these projects. And of course, we've shared right. I would share everything I've ever built course. Um and so and then Teoh, the second to the first question Do you have to be in it yourself, just like, you know, connecting your Facebook. I would say, if you don't, um, if you're not on the video yourself, it can be done. You can get away with it, just like being super funny or super viral. It can be done. I think you miss out on some key elements, which is who you are. Who's on the team just voicing that over. It gets very strange to just voice that over photos, unless it's photos of you would be like ever since I was a kid, and show yourself in a Superman costume like that maybe could work. But people want to know like you're the most important part of the Kickstarter project. Basically, it should be made about a too big parts you and the thing, you and the thing. And if you said, you know Mike and so it was him on the couch and the thing in him on the couch and then the team and then him and the thing. So I think people don't want to be in it. Generally, it's because of fear, because they don't wanna be on camera. They think it's maybe not gonna help the project. I would say you miss out on so many of these things. Like your origin story, who you are. Why you Why you're the right person to do this if you're not on camera, so I wouldn't recommend it, it can be done. Yeah. Yes. One way to test the video before you launch, perhaps with your landing page. That's where they went, that one. You know, that is a great, great question. I highly recommend that. Give him a gold star, whatever that is. Perfect. Because, yes, most people create their projects. Um, last minute, right? Everyone who calls me like I'm launching on Monday. What can I do it? It's like and I'll be much. That is one of the best things I could even imagine is take your video footage, slice up the like, you know, back it down here cause you're on launch rock. So say like, drop your email down here and put your video on your landing page. Absolutely. 100%. Because again, back to the whole thing of the photo tells a certain amount of the story. Ah, short version of the video. And the one caveat I would say is, I would make the really short version, like, 52 seconds, or like half of your Kickstarter video. Put that up on your landing page. That's awesome. And brilliant and super smart to do. It will increase your conversion rate or test it put too long trucks. One with the photo, one with the video and see Long truck will tell you the conversion rate. Right. There's no better way to tell your story. So Brilliant question. Brilliant answer. Yes. 1%. Absolutely. Yeah. Current drafted the video up on a launch rock this afternoon. Can we test it in front of the audience? I'll leave that up to the production team. We can see we can Certainly. Let's definitely look at it at lunch. And maybe we could look at that later. Yeah, Cool. Awesome. So we talked about the key elements. So what can you change or not change once your project is live? Has anyone ever had this question? So I didn't even know all this when I first started doing this stuff, and it's kind of interesting. So I'm gonna talk about things you can change and things you can't change once your project is live once you hit the mash that red button and hear your live right, um, you still can change your project title. You can change the description. So kind of the subtitle and the and the description below the video, you can edit most of the text. You can edit the copy. You're gonna the images. If you guys have used blogging software like WordPress or IPad or any of that stuff, it's pretty much like that. Like you can go in and edit that main column, right? Um, you new video updates. So this is a really, really important thing that most people don't do. And just like that question about what can we prepped for? So that that month that 30 days isn't complete complete insanity, One of them is set up the necessary steps to be able to record a video update every week. Um, I wouldn't pre record them because the whole idea is thank you so much where 40% funded, you know, again, believe the passion through the screen, but, like, have the tripod set up and have the place to shoot it, cause you don't want to go through all this or you could do it on the IPhone, that kind of thing. But video updates There's Indiegogo actually has a chart that shows the amount projects get back based on the number of updates they have. And it's like a linear. It's like it's like, exponential, um, they mawr updates and video updates cause people want to know it gets the backers to share right? Somebody who threw you 10 bucks and then you're like a 50% foot and they'll tell their friends right there. Now they're in. So definitely in video updates are huge empty reward levels. So if you say you get $50 you get a purple unicorn and nobody contributes to that. You could change it to a blue unicorn, or you could, like, delete that level. If, if, ah, if a level doesn't have a backer, you can change it. You can edit anything that doesn't have a backer. If it does have a backer, the cement is dry and that levels locked in. Does that make sense? You can also add new reward levels, which is really interesting, because you can use, um, scarcity and pricing and timing right so you can have early bird levels. You can have other things, but you can always insert new levels into your Kickstarter project. So if you have a $10 level for something and may be limited to 100 units and then you have a $20 level. If that sells out on day one, you could insert okay, well, the $10 early birds got it cheapest. But now there's a $15 level What used to be the $10 level. So when it's live, you can always insert new ones. So it's worth thinking about like and then that could become one of your video updates. Hey, we just We talked to production, and we've got 100 more of these things. We just inserted another one. So think about that. Things you can't change your overall funding goal. I think this is pretty obvious. Most people know this, but if you're trying to raise $100,000 you're on track to raise 30 you can't change it to 29 once you're locked in and it's all or nothing, all right. So again, another reason to set your goal low and blow it out of the water project aeration again unless you email me with a seven page appeal. But why? It needs to not be days and why you need to be, You know, 35 or whatever. One thing about project oration I didn't mention earlier is you don't want it to end when you're asleep. The last 6 to 12 hours of your Kickstarter project are gonna be a little bit crazy and backwards. You're gonna be hopefully hitting that last peak. Um, and it might be a little bit crazy, so it shouldn't end at, you know, 4 a.m. on a Tuesday, right? You want it to end? You know, maybe maybe on a weekend, maybe when people are home in front of computers depends on your time zone. Depends on all sorts of stuff. But, you know, maybe you want to be sitting at home all day Saturday and Sunday on your last two days of your Kickstarter project and have it end maybe 8 p.m. On Sunday. Um, there's no there's no magic toe Saturday or Sunday. But the key is you want to be in front your computer for the last 12 hours, so whatever that means for you um, reward levels with backers. So we talked about that Once someone contributes, that cement dries and you can't change that anymore. And then you can't update anything once the project is over. So using this concept of dried cement, when the project takes 20 the whole thing ends. You can log into Kickstarter and manager backers and stuff like that, but you can't go change the copy. So there's some sort of extra tips and tricks and hacks to do that. Kickstarter has pretty good s CEO, Like, if you type in a J. Leon Kickstarter is going to send you to his Kickstarter page. So what you want to do is update your video, your video tile that, you know, come see us at blank dot com right update that before your project ends, I do it with, like, 10 minutes left, just to be safe for maybe 1/2 hour left just to be safe. Um, because a lot of people are still gonna find that page, and it's like we talked about. It's great that kickstarted leaves up all this stuff and all this content. But, um, you want them Teoh, Then go to your website and find. Find the thing and find you afterwards, right? You don't want to just say Well, I missed out on the kick start. I don't know where to go. Right? So include your u R l at the end update that and update anything that makes sense to images. It's our and questions on what you can and can't change. Good. Okay, good. Cool. So we talked about this a little bit before. Kickstarter works best as a store for your tribe. People do want to support you. They do want to see your real goal happen and see this thing out into the world. But more than that, they want cool stuff. They want their rewards. And it's not the original goal of the founders. I think the original goal. The founders. They wanted it to be more like, Hey, here's what I want to see your project in the world And good luck with it. If I ever get the album, that's great. Turns out human nature, human psychology People are like I want the album. They want that thing or the movie, right? Or the photography calendar. Um, So Eric Makovsky was the creator of the pebble watch and, like Panahi, had gone to a whole bunch of the seas. And they all said, Get out of here with your George Jets and silly watch. And then he went to Kickstarter, and he raised $10.2 million from 68,000 backers. This thing went crazy. Nuts. It's another. It's another good video to watch for sort of the way the world is today, the way the world could be with the pebble watch and sort of who he is. They did not back this to this amount because they really liked Eric and they think he's a nice guy and he wanted him to succeed. They backed it because they wanted the watch, right, And that's how it's. It sounds harsh. It sounds like more like Amazon than Kickstarter. Think of the wanting to succeed as like the bonus they do want you to succeed. Um, and if you tell your story well, they really want you to succeed. But you got and we're gonna talk more about this craft award levels that really are enticing and interesting and makes sense. Um, and then again, the same really, really smart feces that continue to say no to people, and then they prove it on Kickstarter, and then they come back hat in hand and say, Please take my millions of dollars.