if it was a kickstarter, today would be the biggest day you're likely to get because of the 48hr reminder emails being sent out. unfortunately, Indiegogo doesnt do that (i missed out on a project i was quite keen on due to that)
still, congratulations.

_________________
~Every Tool Is A Weapon, If You Hold It Right~

A well deserved vote of confidence from the community, and beyond.

_________________
Nitpicks Knapsack (Scratchbuilding and 3D designing and printing and painting)

Kickstarter projects always show a big ramp up in the final hours. Ive been on several ks mini projects that gained 25%+ in the last few days.

Ben - if I could urge you to do one thing though it would be this: update your images (and content) on the projects home page. There's a whole bunch of awesome stuff added by milestones thats not represented yet by the images on the homepage. I can get an idea of what'll be on the sprue by going through the updates and gallery but it'd really help to glance at the homepage and see what the latest sprue design is.

My 10 cents anyway...

Good luck!

Seconded. I've been sending people to the main project page but a lot of the juicy stuff is hidden away on the updates page and people don't always look that far.

_________________
The Wargaming Trader
NetEA Death Guard Army Champion

+1
Show your wildest target sprue up front. Then be clear about this being your goal, IF budget allows and so on.

_________________
Nitpicks Knapsack (Scratchbuilding and 3D designing and printing and painting)

Almost never, actually.

I'm curious, have you participated in successful Kickstarter/crowdfunding Project before, Ben ? I mean, as a funder ?

I've designed figures & models that have sold as part of Mantic Games' Kickstarter projects (Kings of War plastic Men At Arms, Deadzone Plastic scenery, etc.).

I agree that the project has somewhat run away from me at times - we simply never expected to do much more than £2250, so when the stretch goals started getting hit, I found myself sculpting lots of extra plastic poses that I never dreamed we'd have a chance of unlocking. If we pass £9k I feel there's a good chance the Ultimate sprue (or something close to it) will be within our grasp. Will poke factory again now to see where we are on the processing & quotation end (yep the factory have been caught off-guard too, as we've repeatedly upped our requirements).

I'll get an "ultimate sprue" rendered and uploaded before the end of the day.

_________________
Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

You have to plan and prepare stuff a lot more. Also, communicating is not your forte it seems.

I have backed a few successful crowdfunding project before. I think if you never participated in a large KS project, you can't even begin to understand the kind of hype and excitement it can generate, and neither do you have any chance of understanding HOW it generates it. I don't have enough time right now, but I'll get in touch by mail, and will give you a few ideas about that.

Also, I saw on the French forum that you anticipated your next campaign in 2 months; I believe it is quite too soon. You'll need to have more of a delay to allow people to get some money saving back, specially as this came shortly after the SG debacle. Use the time to plan for more designs on that front (Additional sprues, custom ones, get some input from forums, polish stuff, get some actual quotes beforehand, prepare for much more than you ask for), but also to consolidate : the first two factions don't have much yet, we'll need more releases (metal for a cheaper set up cost), leader packs, vehicles, etc. You also need to make a home for Did, with galleries, painted miniatures, WIP shots, actual updates about your project (a thread on a forum isn't enough).

You'll actually have a lot of work before you're even ready to make your next campaign as successful as it can get, not even mentioning our wallet. It's not like if the actual production and logistics of this first not even ended campaign is going to be a small task.


I'm sorry I'm a critic, you know I'm actually quite enthusiastic about your endeavours; but it could all work even a lot better ! This is indubitably a success relatively to what you set out to do; but I actually think you underestimate what you can do with what is essentially a world wide monopoly. I feel that this success is what you get DESPITE the way the campaign was handled. There is a lot to learn from this first campaign ! don't throw yourself headlong in the next one before consolidating it all and making sure you've learned everything you can about crowdfunding in general and from your first campaign in particular.

Huzzar !

Remember, mini wagamers are visual people - otherwise we'd play chess. A picture sells a thousand products.

(Hope you've got a chillout/celebration planned for the weekend!?

Hey Athmos, here's my reply on Epic.fr that covers some answers:



So the next campaign would be more limited in ambition, scenery and the Cybershadows, but with a wider potential appeal because 10mm gamers want scifi scenery too.

We'll prepare and get quotes on some extra scenery sprues just in case... and next time we'll have painted prototypes yep.


2 months should see most of the deliveries of this crowdfunder well on their way to being completed, 3 months if there's some slippage on the factory end. The bases sprue we can expect to be cut in 1-2 weeks now, and ~4-5 weeks for the infantry & IFV's sprue (it's been pushed back from its original July date to Aug due to all the requests for extra poses putting extra work on the factory guys).



Yup, we'll be putting out more models for the first two factions.
We probably won't need crowdfunders to get a lot of that released, though.
Where we're just looking at small aircraft, or leaders, etc. we can likely just get the moulds made up-front and worry about paying for them when the models are released.


This, I will do. If we have to push back the Cybershadows & Scenery to 3 months in order that everything is prepared and people already have their wave #1 models, then we will.

_________________
Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

The end of the campaign coincides with a pre-booked holiday, so I'll be taking some time off to visit family whilst the factory gets to work on preparing the plastics. I'll be taking a laptop with me to give updates as we get them from the factory, though.

_________________
Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

While i agree with Athmospheric in the main, now is not the time to pick over the bones. It has been a massive (unexpected) success. I suggest E&C might want to create a feedback thread in a couple of weeks when the dust settles to get the customer experience refined for next time. Cybershadows for Christmas!!

Agreed with the others, update the main page with the newer pictures and details! You've done well, but I think Athmospheric is right and you could potentially have done even better. Good going though

You stand a reasonable chance of breaking 9k (4 x asked for) but you should stick up a 10k goal which if unlocked could perhaps add one more free sprue as before but also would specifically add something else to the sprue you currently don't think you have money for. Mention and describe what it would be even if you don't have a render. Some people might not be bothered by more sprues than they have but might support to improve the sprue. Even if you don't make it, it helps to aim high and give people something to aim for.

I would suggest dropping the gobbler off the sprue (better to leave them metal) and having 6 leaders per sprue. That way it would make a stand of 5 leaders, plus 1 spare one to act as a squad leader for the 20 aliens. The tooling cost from the gobbler would be better used to make an alien with a regular sized rifle to make a different unit type. A couple of differnt human soldier poses and an better armed and armoured human veteran should be done first (leave human leaders for metal as you don't need many).

Quoted for truth, but I've already been assaulting Ben with emails. He had the advantage of a pre-existing 'fanbase' amongst more fanatic 6mm sci-fi players (we are worst than most, but there's 50 occasional lurkers to every poster on taccoms). The campaign is/was a wee bit ramshackle (although runaway success has a nicer ring) but since Ben's been pretty open and straight-forward the populace have cut him quite a lot of slack - people volunteering art, video editing ect.
People online prepared to back a crowdfunder of 6mm sci-fi is niche within niche within niche within niche within niche, so yeah, with solid prep and run up it would have done better, but I'm not sure if it'd be much better. Still, this campaign did open with breathless enthusiasm

_________________
My shifting projects

Looking back, that has to be the singlemost pessimistic campaign announcement ever. :-)


We're cogitating what the 10k stretch goal could be. If we can fit it in the budget I'd like to do something a bit different. Free metal high command figures for everyone who pledged over £xx would be one possibility...

_________________
Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter