This week, we took another important step towards Kickstarter: we set the date for the start of the campaign. January 11, 2022.
Well, to be honest, this date has been rolling around in our thoughts as a possibility for a while now, and we’ve mentioned it to reviewers when we sent out prototype copies for reviews, but this week, we’re announcing it publically. We sent out the email newsletter to our subscribers yesterday, and we’re sharing it over our social media today.
This marks an important stepping stone for us — since the start of the project, this is the first time that we’re setting a deadline that’s so cemented and involves people outside of the team. It will be the first time that we’ll potentially officially be late if we don’t meet it.
And this makes me feel anxious, especially as I see the pile of things that are still on our to-do list before the launch can happen. But at the same time, I am excited, as it means that the campaign is getting a new layer that will anchor it in reality. Yes, it’s really going to happen! And it’s happening soon!
So how did we get there? How do you decide, what date to launch?
When we started with the Crowdfunding Boot Camp back in January (I talk about it in this post) the idea was that projects would launch in the months following the theoretical part of the Boot Camp and that we would still have co-working sessions during that period. The last month that applied was June, so we initially put down June as the launch period. It felt a bit close, but we thought we’ll try, and if we make it, great, and if we don’t, we’ll just launch later, on our own.
But then June was approaching, and we were pretty sure that if we want to do it right, we won’t be ready. Coincidentally, some other projects weren’t ready either, so Niko suggested, we take a break during the summer and continue co-working in September, and we all launch in the fall. It sounded like a great idea, but then we sort of messed up during summer. We first took some time off, and then didn’t account for the Italian ferragosto, and the manufacturing delays that would inevitably arise from that, and we realised there was no way we would get the prototype series in time. And we needed it because we wanted to send the game to reviewers. So we started to look for another manufacturer that would print a small series, but after a few weeks and a lot of emails, we decided we’ll just have to wait for the manufacturer we chose originally, even if it meant a change in our plans.
So there goes the launch in September or October. We were expecting the prototype series at the beginning of November, and as all reviewers that we’ve researched want at least a month with the game to create a review, we could potentially launch in December. But in practice, that didn’t sound like a good idea. November and December are really saturated with ads and promotion, and we would have to compete for customers’ attention with literally the whole world. Not a good plan considering our very limited budget. And even though Kickstarter runs over the whole year, it does see a decrease in funding in the last weeks of December.
With this artificial break, the next viable option was January. It felt a bit far away back in October when we were deciding on it, but we’ve put so much effort into the project so far, and it would be stupid to rush it and potentially ruin it with bad timing. In practice though, it will probably work great, as the communication with reviewers took a bit longer than anticipated (and we didn’t want to start it too soon before we would be 100 % sure when we are getting the prototype copies).
So we were kind of planning on January. But I’m pretty sure we could find an excuse to push it further if we haven’t found that there will be an event connected to board games in Ljubljana on January 15th. It’s called Na meji nevidnega, and it is a convention for fantasy and science fiction fans, that also includes a section dedicated to board gaming. It’s the largest board gaming event in Slovenia, so we thought it would be great if we attended it. Ideally, the Kickstarter campaign would already be live, and we would have copies of the game available for testing, and use an opportunity to promote the campaign.
So that means, we would have to launch in the week before. And Kickstarter experts will tell you, that it’s best to launch on a Tuesday or a Wednesday. So we focused on the 11th. There are no major holidays around that day, and everyone will hopefully be back and rested from New Year’s.
And this is how we chose the date. As I mentioned before, it seems really close now and I’m sure we’ll be spending the night before it awake regardless of how well we prepare. You can always find one more thing that can be polished more, and I know we’ll be tweaking everything until the last possible moment.
But at the same time, it almost doesn’t feel soon enough. We’ve been living with this project for almost a year now, and we have been preparing to launch it for a long time. And as much as I love our project, I feel I’m getting exhausted by it, or better, by the feeling that we’re working and working on it, and it still lives only inside our group, and while there are some parameters that can predict if a Kickstarter campaign will be successful, there’s no real feedback on how it will do out in the world. So I’m looking forward to the moment when we’ll be able to share it with the world, and hopefully see the results of all the energy we’ve invested in it.
I’m also looking forward to seeing how it goes from a personal point of view, as at the moment, Kickstarter is this big unknown, and I have a lot of things that sort of depend on when it’ll be executed and how it’ll do. For example, we’re supposed to get married in the summer, but we haven’t even decided how big of a wedding we want or where it would be. We’re putting it on hold so we can have all the focus on Kickstarter, and so that we don’t put any additional financial and time pressure on ourselves. So I’m looking forward to finally doing the Kickstarter and seeing how it goes and then deciding, where to go from there and making a new list of priorities to delegate my focus to.
So all that said, the date is chosen, and it is public. January 11, 2022. And I think announcing it is making us all feel very excited and elated, and it’s providing this huge source of motivation to work even harder, to make the project even better, and to prepare even more. And I really need to thank Niko again at this point, as I can’t overstate how valuable his advice and mentorship is and he is still with us so long after the Boot Camp was supposed to end.
Now I really have to run and go back to the project to-do list, so I guess I can finish this one with: Cheers to working!
Nika
If you are interested in the project, this is the Kickstarter pre-launch page: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1485795534/hike-a-card-drafting-racing-game-with-huskies. We need to update that image with the date too. :)
Edited: I just learned that Niko is still accepting applications for Crowdfunding Boot Camp 2022. If you’re planning on doing a Kickstarter campaign, this stuff is absolute gold. https://www.bizme.org/boot-camp
