It’s been a few days since the eleventh-hour successful end of the Dominique Pamplemousse Indiegogo campaign, and I’m just barely starting to recover from it. Don’t get me wrong: I’m thrilled beyond measure that the project got funded (and once again, everyone, THANK YOU!) but still feeling a bit dizzy from getting off the proverbial emotional rollercoaster, if you get what I’m saying. I’m not sure most people realise how much work it is to run a crowdfunding campaign, but suffice to say… it is hard.
I knew this coming in, of course. I’d successfully crowdfunded a project before, but that was back in 2009, when the whole concept was new and I knew I didn’t have much of a chance of raising anything other than a little bit of spare cash to cover a few expenses. This, on the other hand? To call it a step up would be a bit of an understatement.
My friend Corvus refers to crowdfunding as “the most affordable and brutally efficient marketing tool [he's] ever used”, and I agree with him. It’s marketing boot camp. Crowdfunding has become more familiar to the general public in the past year, yet some people persist in having this misconception that all you do is throw up a project page and video and the money just flows right in. That, I tell you, definitely won’t work on its own. [1] You have to get yourself out there and hustle. Which, I will reiterate, is hard.
It’s hard when your temperament naturally gravitates towards introversion, and you would much, much rather be spending your time doing actual creative work. It’s harder still when you’re dealing with being socialised as female. You know all that stuff they say about how women don’t negotiate pay raises, how assertiveness is seen as a more negative trait than in men? The same thing applies here. Oh yeah, and make sure you don’t get too popular, or else you run the risk of attracting trolling and abuse. See also Anita Sarkeesian. (Thankfully, it didn’t get anywhere near that bad for me.)
In the end, though, the hard work paid off, as I did get funded, but it was still nail-biting uncertainty until the last day. There were so many times I second-guessed myself, telling myself I should’ve set my funding goal lower, should’ve picked flexible funding instead of fixed, should’ve used Kickstarter instead of the less familiar Indiegogo, [2] etc. But the huge surge came at the very end, and the “crowd” part of crowdfunding stepped up in a big way to push me right to the finish line and then some. It was amazing. I’m still awestruck that it actually happened.
It’s been said before, but I’ll say it again: in crowdfunding, it’s way more about the crowd than it is about the funding. The funding is important because we all need to eat, sure, but finding your people and creating a community… that’s what will get you places. That’s what this is all about. It’s the way of the future. Direct relationships between artists and their audiences. It’s true that not everyone wants to see a stop motion musical videogame, but as I kept repeating to myself throughout, the right people will. And you know what? They do. You do. Again, thank you.
So, it’s now time to get to finishing the game, which I’m super excited about — really, you have no idea. I will definitely be writing more behind-the-scenes updates throughout the course of development, to keep you all posted on my progress, and I hope you enjoy them — and the game, when it’s finally done.
- Okay, maybe it will if you’re Tim Schafer, but for the rest of us… yeah, nope. ↩
- I had used Kickstarter for my first crowdfunding campaign, but being non-US-based wound up being more hassle than I felt it was worth, so I opted for Indiegogo — AKA the Pepsi of crowdfunding sites — this time around because it had better support for international project creators. ↩
Not a problem. Always a pleasure trying to push and prod along an inventive concept in gaming. Glad to help!
Note that indiegogo has a second “international advantage” over kickstarter: It accepts backers with no credit card, a situation which I think is a bit more common outside than inside North America.
I, for example, can’t contribute to kickstarter projects. Here I was able to use paypal, linked to a bank account.
It’s true that not everyone wants to see a stop motion musical videogame [...]
But they should!
There were so many times I second-guessed myself, telling myself I should’ve set my funding goal lower, should’ve picked flexible funding instead of fixed, should’ve used Kickstarter instead of the less familiar Indiegogo, [2] etc.
I am happy for your success !
It is bcs of fixed funding you got me
TC
There’s an unfortunate misconception that everything put up on Indiegogo uses flexible funding, and I made certain to explain that you weren’t using that scheme when I was boosting the project. I don’t know if that had anything to do with the slow pledge rate you saw up until the end, but I’m thrilled that things worked out!
wow. o.O Yeah, I couldn’t have contributed, in that case, and where I’m from, a LOT of contributors, especially in the 5-10$ range, wouldn’t be able to, either. Class thing, getting a credit card.
I’m so glad you made it!
So excited that the game is actually going to happen!
As someone Canadian that may be interested in launching a Kickstarter campaign someday (or, perhaps an Indiegogo one), I’m wondering what the big obstacles were for a Canadian (or, non-US resident) launching a project on that site.
Also, for what it’s worth, I likely would have been a bit hesitant, especially at first, to put money toward a flexible-funding campaign. To sum it up, I just feel (with no real data to back it up, mind you) they seem less confident/ committed, less likely to follow through with their end of the bargain, and generally more wishy-washy than a project with a fixed-funding goal. I mean, if someone is asking for X dollars because they need it to help their project launch, how are they supposed to do it if they don’t even get to 50%, say? While it’s always a gamble when people donate to these types of ventures, I feel that you’ve got a little bit more of a certainty with fixed funding, since it seems more clear that the person/ team has broken down the numbers, figured out what they’ll need to get things on track, and laid the number out there.
BUT anyway, congrats again on this monumental success, and thanks for putting in all the hard work (so far) to make it happen, even if some of it came less than naturally to you. I think I can safely say that those who play the game will appreciate your efforts immensely.
Hmm. I’m thinking I need to expand my thoughts on Indiegogo vs. Kickstarter as a whole separate blog post. I’ll try and get to that in the next week.
Thank you for your postmortem, I’ve just launched my first crowfunding projet and in a way it happens to be similar to yours (except I am not singing, too hazardous for me ^^) so all these informations are precious.
You confirm what I guess communication is the key for a successful campaign… oh you need to have a very personnal great project of course but without communication, it’s a isolated great project !
I was talking with a friend about finding the good crowdfunding platform for a projet (because we’re not in US and so we have the problem you got, Kickstarter cannot really be choosen) and the conclusion was, in fact we don’t care, what really count is the marketing stuff !
In my case, I heard of your project because I am following Tim Schaffer on Tweeter… that’s a great chance !
I was talking of your project on my website but that was not a great channel for you I think :p
Anyway, congratulations for your project, it’s a nice project
Sorry for my poor english, I am french and I’ve just woke up :p
Definitely agree with a seperate blog post on indiegogo vs Kickstarter, would be really interested to see what sort of red tape that Kickstarter puts up as I am an international as well and initially did thought that Kickstarter was the way to go (with its huge presence and all)
Btw a huge congratulations on the funding : )
Warm wishes.
Jenny