For agencies
You have the creative, the ads and the email in-house. You do not need another agency and you do not need a marketing team — you have one.
What you are missing is one person who has actually launched Kickstarter campaigns. So hire that person for an hour, or for the whole launch. Your client never has to know I exist.
Not sure yet? Start with the hour.
None of this is a criticism of agencies. It is what happens to anyone the first time, myself included.
Kickstarter shows a public progress bar. If the client needs £30,000 to manufacture and you put £30,000 as the goal, but their list only brings £8,000 on day one, every visitor for the next three weeks sees a campaign at 27% — and people do not back something that looks like it is failing. Set the goal at £8,000 and it shows 100% funded on day one instead. Same product, same money, completely different campaign. And the goal cannot be changed once you launch.
Roughly half the backers come from Kickstarter itself — its browse pages and its emails to people who already have card details saved. But that only switches on if the campaign funds fast. Budget for all of them and the numbers look impossible.
Kickstarter reviews every project before it goes live and it takes three to six working days. Until that clears you cannot collect a single follower on the pre-launch page. Campaigns lose weeks of list-building to this.
Tiers, early birds and add-ons are a pricing structure, and add-ons alone are commonly a quarter to a half of the money raised. Most first-time campaigns barely build them.
Traffic goes to a landing page you control, never straight to the Kickstarter page. Tracking works differently, and a hard 30-day deadline leaves no room for a slow test-and-learn.
Late pledges, pledge managers, backer surveys, add-on sales after close. Teams meeting this for the first time meet it in the final week, which is the worst week to be learning anything.
Both are a fraction of what another agency would charge you, because you are not buying marketing. You already have that.
Bring the campaign plan — the goal, the list, the timeline, the rewards. Sixty minutes is usually enough to find what would have broken it. Plenty of agencies need nothing else.
Book the hourMe alongside your team from planning through to the campaign closing. The goal, the reward structure, approval, the first 48 hours, the quiet middle, the final push, and what happens after it ends.
However long the launch takes. Campaigns slip and prototypes need another round. You should not be watching a clock while that happens.
I am ready — book it nowYour client never has to know I exist. I do not contact them and I do not pitch them anything. Most agencies introduce me as part of their team, or not at all. It is your relationship and your account, and it stays that way.
Five questions. Answer them all confidently and you probably do not.
None of these are about marketing. That is rather the point — they are the platform layer, and they are answerable in an afternoon by somebody who has done it before.
No, and I never contact them. Your client never has to know I exist. Most agencies introduce me as part of their team, or not at all — either is fine.
The Kickstarter-specific decisions your team has not had to learn. Setting the funding goal, building the reward tiers and add-ons, getting through approval, and planning the first 48 hours. Your team keeps doing the creative, the ads and the email.
Because it is a few hours of my time, not a marketing retainer. You already have the expensive parts. You are hiring the one specialist you are missing, not another agency.
The £750 covers the whole launch however long it takes. Campaigns slip — a factory is late, a prototype needs another round — and you should not be watching a clock while that happens.
Before the funding goal is set. That one number decides how big a list you need, how much you have to spend, and how long the runway is. It locks the moment the campaign goes live and cannot be changed.
Then your plan has been checked by someone who has launched thirty campaigns, for £60. That happens fairly often and it is worth knowing.
If the campaign is already in planning, book the full launch support and I will start with you this week. If you would rather test the water first, take the hour and see whether the plan holds.
Or send the outline by email if you would rather start there.
