kickstart ebook

8/20/2019 Kickstart eBook

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Kickstart:Give YourCrowdfunding

Project the BestChance for Success


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Preface


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No Pain, No Gain?It's hard to describe exactly what my experience with Kickstar-

ter was because it's still very much a blur in my own mind.

You see, my project (Pressgram), an iOS photo sharing app,

was NOT one of those incredible overnight-funding suc-

cess stories. Instead, I had to claw my way to my $50,000 ob-

jective every single step of the way.

In many ways this served to teach me a number of valuable les-

sons that I've been able to codify into practical steps that have

helped a number of other Kickstarter project owners - in fact, I

documented the story pretty well on my blog

so people could

literally follow along in real-time - they saw the ups, the downs,

the side-to-sides that coalesced into a movement and a cam-

paign against all odds.

And at times it felt like the world wanted to crush me.

This Kickstarter experience literally kicked the living snot out of

me - I won't soften the blows or the edges for you as I felt like it

nearly killed me.

Take for instance the fact that I averaged less than 3 hours of

sleep for those 30 long and hellish days. Yes, my health rapidly

deteriorated and my relationships with those that I really love

and adore was put on serious hold as I battled my way through

720 grueling hours.

All-in-all I survived, I won the battle (barely), and I have ex-

tracted a number of serious learnings that I hope will provide

you with more than just one backer to pledge to your project - I

hope it swamps you with results and so you can wake up and

see something ridiculous like 200% funded or more.

Hopefully in the end you’ll be spared some of the agony that I

went through (and get a few more hours of sleep).

And that’s why I created this guide, an extremely helpful blend

of strategy and tactics to make your project and campaign a tadbit easier and much more profitable. Take this resource go kick

some serious ass. Be encouraged. Be informed!

Then ping me about it on Twitter (@Saddington) and it’ll make it

all feel gloriously purposeful.

Good luck and godspeed; you’re going to need it friend!

Preface

Nope. Sorry. No

Walk in the Park!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tentblogger/pressgram-an-image-sharing-app-built-for-an-indepehttp://twitter.com/saddingtonhttp://twitter.com/saddingtonhttp://blog.pressgr.am/http://blog.pressgr.am/http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tentblogger/pressgram-an-image-sharing-app-built-for-an-indepehttp://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tentblogger/pressgram-an-image-sharing-app-built-for-an-indepe


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I had a lot of help from a lot of people via Kickstarter and

I’m so glad that every single one has helped in both

small and large ways.

But there’s one in particular that really went above and

beyond the “call of duty” and that’s Chris Lema.

A true fan, he quickly became a leader in our small and

growing community as well as being the largest financial

backer of the project.

A true gentleman and Pressgram evangelist!

Chris is a serial entrepreneur and you can find him

blogging daily over at ChrisLema.com.

He’s also supporting a new startup and app called

BLACK CARDS WHITE CARDS.

3

Preface

Special Shoutout:

Chris Lema

http://blackcardswhitecards.com/http://www.chrislema.com/http://www.chrislema.com/http://blackcardswhitecards.com/http://blackcardswhitecards.com/http://www.chrislema.com/http://www.chrislema.com/


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The Core Chapters

1. The Art and Science of the Update

2. Measurement and Research Matters

3. Shameless Self-Promotion

4. Gamification & Community

5. Your Digital Toolkit

6. Attitude and Perspective7. 20 Extra Tips

4

How this eBook is Organized: You have a lot of stuff to do for your campaign and your project

and so I have distilled 6-ish (+1 tip section at the end) core les-sons that are highly functional, effective, and pragmatic in such

a way so that you can read it through fast and go execute in-

stantly with results on the other end.

In other words... you honestly have more important stuff to be

working on than reading yet-another-ebook-on-how-to-do-

something-better.

Right? But I’ll make it worth your while.

My intention is to neither bore you nor provide some swooping

narrative about how my success is the end-all be-all model that

you must follow.

Instead, I’ve created applications that can be done without

much brain-power but that are absolutely critical to any cam-

paign’s success.

I provide facts, figures, and tools that worked, even in the face

of apparent demise (okay, some narrative is at the end, but at

least I put it at the end, right?).

Rock it solid my friends. Be amazing. Go kill it.

Preface

Organization &

Chapters


6/531The Backer Update is both

and art and a science as it

takes systematic resolve aswell as classy engagement.

But don’t overlook this

since it’s pretty much your

weapon of choice.

Statistically-speaking,those that update more

have more success.

If that’s all you learned

from this section then

you’re good to go.

The Update


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The Almighty Update

This one is simple and yet at the sametime very difficult.

Here's the skinny: I researched the Top 10

most successful Kickstarter projects of all

time (as of March, 2013) and the average

number of updates per campaign (most

were 30 days) was 1.78 updates.

I’ll repeat that for you: 1.78 updates.

Just think about that for a moment. That's

literally 2 updates per day!

I couldn't believe it. And yes, I thought ex-

actly what you are thinking:

Wouldn't peo-

ple get annoyed with 2 updates a day?!

The answer is a resounding no. Sure, some people may unsubscribe from your updates via their settings and that's fine becausethey've already backed you but I can't tell you how many people said to me many times over how I was the most engaged project

owner they have ever experienced and how they felt super-tied into the process and experience.

In other words, they felt that I had done the best job of involving my backers every single step of the way.

So that's what I did. I updated 54 times in 30 days which is 1.8 times per day. If the top 10 most successful KS projects did 1.78 then I

was going to do just that (see screenshot):


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That's the science-side of updating as

it's simply a matter of numbers - nothing

too calculated or difficult.

Add in a bit of strategy (like updating

once in the morning and once in the eve-

ning to capture a full 24-hour window of

backers world-wide) and you've got it

made, right?

Wrong (and we both know why).

It's tough as crap to update twice a day

when you've got other things to do, a

life to live, relationships to not com-

pletely tank, and perhaps a full-time job

that you're trying to keep just in case

your project fails miserably.

And that's where we get to the "Art" part

of updating which requires a bit of crea-

tivity and a whole lot of hard work.

Here are 10 Strategies / Tactics that you

should be able to execute against withfair ease:

1. I created a number of Update Tem-

plates that I could repeatedly use over

and over and over again.

For example, I had a template for an

"image-based" update, a video record-

ing, a backer/community notice, a devel-

opment question/answer, a general

community-centric question, as well as

one that was more of a "just for fun" tem-

plate.

By creating these I could command a

sequencing of content that helped me

shortcut the writing and publishing proc-

ess. All I needed to do was daily use

one of my templates and knock it out.

2. Schedule. Please do this.

Yes, this is also an art so you're going

to have to find a way to schedule in that

morning update and then do one just be-

fore you go to bed.

3. The more media the better. People

want to see pictures of the actual pro-

ject or product that you're building.

With mine it was even more difficult be-

cause it was a piece of software so I


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had to come up with some clever ways of showing the progress

and work.

I bet you can think of tons of ways to showcase the going-ons

but first it requires the next point...

4. You need to make sure that everything is documented.

Everything.

Everything is fair-game for being an update. You purchased

some stickers at Walmart? Take a picture of it as that could be

your update that night. Ate lunch with a major supporter and

backer? Write about it the next morning with a small 30-secondvideo clip of you chowing down on a fat baked potato.

What is required of you is having your updates be top of mind.

Everything is potential content. Everything.

And yes, I’ll say it one more time: E v e r y t h i n g. Overtime

you’ll find a general rhythm and cadence that works for you and

that you’ll be able to put on auto-pilot. I loved my iPhone a lot

before my Kickstarter project but during the project I fell in love

with it as it became my weapon of choice.

5. Share your victories and share your disappointments and fail-

ures. In other words, be candid, transparent, and as real as you

possibly can be.

This is a story of how you, a strapping entrepreneur and daring

Kickstarter project owner took on the world and won. It's not all

candy canes and lollipops and your backers know that.

Share the "real" stuff, not just the marketing fluff. They are soldout and bought in on the narrative so give them a story worth

sharing. Did you get picked up by a big tech blog? Easy update

right there.

Share it and encourage them to share the news article and

guess what? They most likely will share it as well. That’s a win

for everyone.

6. Interviews, podcasts, and other such media is great to copy

and link and share. Do it hard!

If you get any press or any attention then that’s an easy update

that won’t take you much time at all. Go for it, check that one up-

date out of two as done and done. Sweet.

7. Sneak peeks, previews, and even your paper napkin

sketches are all game and your backers will love it.

This goes well with the media bullet previously, but if you can

give any of your backers an “inside” look and make them feel

even more a part of the “inside track” or “inside scoop” then you

will engender feelings of ownership and privilege, all very power-

ful things that can help motivate your backers to feel like they

are part of this amazing story.


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Hook them up with those shots and see what happens. Remember, everything is fair game!

8. I very rarely did "Backer Only" updates as I felt like every update was a chance to market the project and campaign. This was a pro-

tip from a few of the other successful projects that I borrowed heavily on.

You may find that there are some updates that really shouldn’t be shared or that you want to really up the “privilege” feeling once a

week or so - this is where you would do that and super-charge your backers.

But mostly I did “Public” updates which pro-

vided a lot of opportunities for links and tweets

and social shares. I’m not sure if there was an

SEO benefit, which is something I had consid-

ered by going public, but this may have some

value if you continue to do them.

Every link counts, that’s for sure.

9. It's not about how long your updates are but

rather how "juicy" and engaging the are.

Think quality, which doesn’t mean that they

have to be long which is a common misconcep-

tion. This is especially important post-fund rais-

ing as you’ll want to trim back the amount of up-

dates that you send the team.

As you can see, what I did was create what I

called “PKSWU #x” updates which stood for


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“Post Kickstarter Weekly Updates” which would go out Friday or Saturday of every week and highlight only the juicy updates from the

week.

10. Finally, try your very best to have a lot of fun with updates. I believe that

people can tell when you're having a truck load of fun with your project.Bring it out in as honest as a way as you possibly can.

Remember, you can never over-communicate with your backers and it's

far worse to under-communicate.

Kill your pride and squash all doubt away and remember that every opportu-

nity that you have to talk directly to your backers is an opportunity to get

them to become just as passionate as you are about what you're trying to

accomplish.

And that's a good thing.


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Cliff Notes:

1. Update twice a day.

2. Schedule it in.

3. Everything you do during your project campaign is fair game for being an update.

4. Have fun.

Personal Notes, Strategies to Execute:


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2“You cannot improve what

you cannot measure.”

A really smart guy said that

and believe me, it’s true.

Do your research and

measure everything.

Measurement


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Math, It Works.Measure, measure, measure!

I can't repeat this enough. Lord Kelvin (you know, the grandfather of how we calculate temperature and suchthings) has a quote that you can't ever forget:

You cannot improve what you cannot measure.

Makes sense, right? I'll give you a real-life example from my campaign and it's all about video length and

video engagement.

You see, my first video that I uploaded was 5 minutes and 7 seconds. After the first week it has a terrible %

plays completed stat of about 13%.

Kill me now.

So I iterated and my next video I "upped" the video production (added some screenshots with me talking) and whittled the time down

to 2 minutes and 3 seconds.

BAM.

I shot up to 23% overnight.

But I knew I could do better so I got help

from a friend late into the second week and

did a quality video production that was a

shocking 46 seconds.

And again, the completion rate shot past

50% total as you can see in my graph.


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The question, though, is whether or not this increased my pledges and the answer is yes. Yes, it very much did. The more clear I could

be with my mission and my goal (shorter time) and the better produced the video became the more successful the project became.

I have heard this dynamic time and time again from other project owners who share the same strategy. It's nice if you can go out of the

gate with a

perfect video that's well-produced and edited to be super-trim in timing but most likely you won't and you'll have to iterateon it.

Measurement matters, big time. If you just sit and hope that all the content on your page and on your project is perfect then you're

sunk, especially if you're not an overnight-funding success. Here are some other things that I measured and researched for my project

that you should do as well:

1. Video length and engagement (as per example above)

2. Pageviews and visits to landing page and sources of inboundtraffic are all very valuable to you (make sure you set them up

correctly!).

Reaching out to these sources and thanking them goes a long,

long way. I used Google Analytics like a religion taking a look

daily if not hourly as you can see to the right.

You can drill down into each source of traffic and identify not

only where it’s coming from but also who may have mentioned it

specifically so that you can thank them and follow-up. The power

of the follow-up, by the way, cannot be understated.

3. Tweets, Likes, and social sharing stats. There's a neat tool in

the tool section that can help with these.


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The same thing applies as with the pageviews as there are tools that can help you deep-dive into each traffic and source so that you

can perform that awesome follow-up.

4. I recorded how many shares per update and the # of comments per update to see which "type" of update got the most feedback so I

could concentrate on those types more over the span of the campaign.

This is easy to calculate and so a handy-dandy excel spreadsheet can do wonders. In fact, if you aren’t using some sort of calculating

tool then you’re probably not prepared. Boot up Google Documents (also called Google Drive) and start putting in the data that’s going

to matter for your calculations.

So, What’s the Point?

The point is quite simple: Your goal, every single day, it to make those numbers go up-and-to-the-

right. Remember the quote from Lord Kelvin in the beginning - if you can measure it then you can

improve it and that’s the point.

If you had 10 tweets today then you’re goal is to get 15 tomorrow. If you raised $1,000 today then

you’re goal is to raise $1,250 tomorrow. The #’s will obviously change but if you can’t keep your-

self accountable to these simple figures then you won’t be able to create the necessary momen-

tum to keep things going strong.

Also, you won’t be able to answer this very simple and yet fundamental question: Am I headed in the right direction? Will I make it?Sure, the Kickstarter Dashboard has some of those projections for you (so use them) but you’re going to want to do your own math so

that you can strategically position yourself and your time to take advantage of the ups and downs that you’ll experience.

It’s not small task to do the “simple” math so plan to schedule some time to record things at some point during the day (and do your re-

cording activity at the same time everyday for consistency of calculation). For example, I did all my number crunching at night before I

went to bed and that worked out just fine.


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Cliff Notes:

1. Measure everything. Literally everything.

2. Measurement isn’t enough, iterate, change things up, respond to the numbers as best as you can.

3. Use technology and tools to help you (further section below in eBook).

4. Schedule a time to do it consistently.



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3This is your baby and you

have to be utterly

shameless about it.

Tell everyone including

your mother’s sister’s

brother’s cousin twice-

removed.

Remember what’s at stake:NOT completing your

funding goal. Get to it.

Self-Promotion


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A Few Candid Thoughts on Self-Marketing:(Ok my friends, this first part is an encouragement of sorts for you - so take some time to read this and reconcile your issues before

jumping in full-bore. I hope it inspires you, makes you agitated, and gets you fired up.)

This part will be easier for some than for others. As for

me I was probably down the middle on this and so I had

to learn to just get out of my comfort zone and pitch the

hell out of my project to anyone and everyone.

Essentially I had one simple rule: If I could contact them

I would and deal with the shame or guilt or collateral dam-

age of looking silly later (if at all).

But I get it, I really do. I, like many of you, can struggle at

times with self-marketing. You know, promoting your own

stuff, things like that.

There’s something inside of us that makes us squeam-

ish; perhaps it’s because we’ve seen it done so poorly by

so many people or have heard too many self-

aggrandizing statements on the TV, the radio, the inter-

net, or that you overheard while standing in line to get

your morning cup of caffeine.

Sigh.

Yet another self-made digital marketer trying to sell another solution to an unsuspecting person who could care less this early in the

morning! All they want is their cup of coffee! Doh! #facepalm


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So, sure, we all struggle with self-marketing in a variety of degrees but I want to challenge you to get over it. Just get over it. And espe-

cially since you’ve got only a few days to make this work and the cost of failure is, well, to not get that money that you really, really ,

need.

But isn’t the online space the best place to show-case your awesome project? Where else could you

literally shine a light on your passion, on your life’s

interest, or something that has been a big dream of

yours forever?

The internet is all about showcasing awesome-

sauce. You see it on Facebook or Instagram #sel-

fies. We’ve all been there, right? You took 100shots of that same pose just to make sure that you

got the perfect one to share online.

And everyone hits that “Like” button and you feel

better about yourself. Struggle with self-marketing?

Bah. Whatever! You do it every single day.

You may not have been marketing a product or a

Kickstarter Campaign but you were marketing something - you’re marketing your life, your lifestyle, and how much better you’ve got itthan others.

Of course we don’t say it this way because we want to be humble and showcase anything but arrogance, but we do it anyways. It’s a

natural part of who we are as creatures – we like building stuff, creating stuff, and we want to share it with others.

Oh, and the reason you started that Kickstarter Project in the first place is of the same reasons: You like building stuff, seeing stuff hap-

pen, and you want to share that with others.


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So what’s the issue here, really? What gives? When it comes to your Kickstarter Project you have to get over all of that stuff that’s stop-

ping you from going all-in and sharing the good news of your world-changing idea that you firmly believe will enrich other people’s

lives!

Scott Belsky, a favorite of mine, challenges people often to over-come their stigma of self-marketing. We were born to self-market

and promote.

Overtime and over the life of your very short campaign you will

find yourself refining your approach almost in real-time. What a

learning experience. Eventually it’ll be so fluid and so natural that

you won’t look like the jerk that you were hoping to avoid.

And so I, too, challenge you to overcome the stigma. You’ve in-

vested more than just those 30 or so days - in some cases you’ve

invested a serious part of your life that has led up to this very mo-

ment and now you’re being gun shy about sharing your expertise,

your ingenuity, your passion incarnate through Kicstarter?! That’s

sad and it’s a loss for all the rest of us, especially if it doesn’t get

funded.

Let’s hear it. Let’s hear about it loud.

So self-market. Get over the stigma. Be shameless. Be awesome. Promote your project like it was the last thing that you’ll ever do.

What would happen if you don’t? Nothing would happen. Exactly. And the world (and you) would lose out on something great, some-

thing amazing, something... magical.


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In many ways the fine art of self-marketing has nothing to do with you but rather the problem that you’re solving, and in this case your

Kickstarter Project that represents the solution. You have to learn to sit well with your solution so that you can sit well with yourself.

Get used to it or you will not thrive and you will not reach your goal. Instead you will watch others thrive and others reach 100% and

leave you behind. And you’ll be the first, and last, person to blame.

Tactics and Strategies:

Ok, you ready to jump in now with both feet? Ready to promote the living poop out

of your Kickstarter Project? Righteous.

What I did was I broke my promotion tactics into two main buckets: Personalities

and Industry News Sources .

Personalities:

The goal here was to identify the top 20 or so individuals who had significant follow-

ing in the areas that were relevant to my Kickstarter project.

Obviously my project surrounded two main areas, the iPhone App world and ecosys-

tem as well as the WordPress online publishing one.

I include “Famous People” in this mix too that are also contextually relevant to yourproject as well - the more recognizable the better. Obviously Paris Hilton is well-

known and would be a crazy-source of attention and backing (if you could get her).

The point should be pretty clear here.

So, what I did practically was that I quickly identified 10-20 key personalities in each area and jotted those down on a list of "Must Con-

tact" gathering their emails, Twitter handles, and Facebook profiles so that I could ping them when I went live.


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Essentially what I did was create digital dossiers on

each one allowing me to quickly scan who they were

and how to contact them.

Also, I tried to create some “degrees of separation” be-tween them all. This was a bit of a “squishy” area as it

was tough not to obviously “carpet bomb” an industry but

I tried by best.

Then, I created canned emails that allowed me to cus-

tomize a greeting and calls to action that would be per-

sonal to them in the body.

I set these aside and got ready for the "institutions" and news sources. Canned emails save you time which you don’t have much of to

begin with. Most email solutions have canned email systems that you can easily create and save commonly used greetings and re-

sponses. I use Google Mail and their system works really well.

Industry News Sources

These are just as obvious places to reach out to but can be harder to gain trac-

tion in. So what I did was exactly the same thing as I did with “Personalities” -

I wrote down about 50 or so top technology, WordPress-centric, and iOS app

blogs/sites that I had prepared canned messages to.

But I took one step further by identifying editors and contributors to those

blogs that had a history of covering iPhone apps, Kickstarter campaigns, and

in my case a more "philosophical" bend to their reporting.

I wanted to not only get in their "catch-all" hopper for editorial consideration


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but also ping these particular writers specifically and connect with them on a 1-to-1 level to gain traction and some interest. I even

pinged a few of them earlier on in the process ramping up to the start.

I also put together some canned messages for these sources and blogs and again left room to customize.

All in all you simply have to get over yourself - this is about sheer survival and the success of your project. There's nothing wrong with

contacting people and sharing your passion and vision for the project. If you won't then you can't expect that anyone else will. You

have to get it together and suck up your pride and ask for support. Every single dollar counts (quite literally).

Bonus Suggestion: Leveraging New Markets/Verticals as They Appear

One neat thing that happened is that as I gained traction and steam I realized that

there were industries, niches, and verticals that I did not see as an obvious target as

I was planning my strategy but that became an important source of growth, market-ing, and funding.

In my case it was the photography industry and passionate digital photographers

who became very interested in my application and the use of it within their industry.

Sweet! I’ll take all the attention I could get! I was able to identify the sources of those

connections and ask them if they would love to be ambassadors to those industries

and verticals for me.

Not surprisingly they said "Yes!" and I literally gave them my strategy as well as my canned emails so that they could go execute

against those directives with freedom and passion. It appears to have worked.

I think having this "open source" mentality to your project and campaign can lead to some unexpected but very helpful funding points

in your campaign and project.

Don't underestimate your growing community throughout the 30 days or so - in fact, expect them to promote it for you!


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Cliff Notes:

1. Template out your canned emails.

2. Identify 20 key personalities within your sector and industry.

3. Identify top news blogs and news sources to ping.

4. Identify specific editors / contributors of those news sources.

5. Open source your strategy to new verticals and ecosystems that show interest.

6. Empower those evangelists within verticals that you have no resident foundation.


G ifi i


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4Everyone loves video

games and there is almost

nothing more powerful than

motivating and

incentivizing your

community of backers with

a few game-like strategies.

I can’t even tell you how

well this worked for my

campaign and how simple

it was.

Once you roll this 12-side

die once you’ll never go

back, trust me.

Gamification


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Games, Games, and More... Games!

Everyone loves a good game (or two). The idea of gamification is especially helpful when work-

ing your campaign and was a tactic and strategy that I employed almost daily.

For example, I encouraged my backers to have personal goals as well as signal corporate goals

that we had for the campaign.

The more granular the better, like one day I challenged my backers to reach out to 5 people and

get them to contribute. This is a much more real and tangible goal for each backer to handle and

they endeavored to do just that.

And everyone has 5 friends and it’s easy to count on one-hand. Seriously, easy stuff like that.

So I did simply math to help with the gamification as well like when I hit 20 backers I challenged

the group to double in size. Adding 20 more people to the mix seems so reasonable (but also a

decent challenge) that the first backers hit it out of the park with ease.

But guess what? We got double the amount of backers (and perhaps double the amount of

pledges). What this does is creates a system of momentum that is the lifeblood of any

campaign and project.

The more momentum you can generate and maintain the more excited and invested your

backers are.

It's a very exhausting process for you but without your investment in the backers (and daily

updates) they will lose motivation and even interest perhaps over time.

It's not that they aren't interested on the whole, it's just that they have busy lives and the


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"out of sight, out of mind" paradigm begins to set in. Don't let that happen!

So spice things up with a "game" or two. Challenge them to particular figures

in your campaign to reach and then reward them with public praise.

If one backer does something incredibly well and can be a source of inspiration

for the rest then highlight that backer and call them out by name.

This will energize not only that one singled-out person but encourage the rest

of the team to engage even better. Tweet at them and keep them "in the

game."

The simple goal for you is this: Don't let them drop off!

Developing a Community with Gamification in Mind:

In addition and closely tied to gamification is the art and science of developing your community.

Although I had originally thought of separating the two in separate areas I realized that they deserve to sit closely together, especially

in these formative and beginning stages, and here's why: You don't know who your community is at first!

With that simple fact in mind you can walk into your campaign with a blank slate assuming nothing about the community that you have

and the community that you will develop.

I have heard this re-iterated time and time again by other campaign managers and can attest to this dynamic myself: Those who you

"think" may be huge supporters may not be big supporters while those that are in the cracks of your existing community or that you

don't even know about yet will become some of your most passionate followers, fans, and evangelists.


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In my own experience the people that are the most die-hard fans and followers are people that did not originally follow me prior to my

Kickstarter project - I acquired them through the Kickstarter campaign and they began to develop as leaders within the community as

they daily pushed and shared the project.

But the point is that you have to gamify the situation and contextto eek out these passionate die-hards and the only thing you

have to measure in the beginning is how often they comment,

how often they tweet and share your project, and how engaged

they are in general.

If they are tweeting at the top of the boards consistently then you

know that you've found a foundational part of the growing com-

munity at large and that you should keep tabs on this person.

Eventually you'll want to do some of the following things with

your community:

1. Encourage them daily to contribute creative ways to market.

Collective genius is just that, a collection of genius.

2. Empower them to think independently and to come up with

their own campaigns and projects. Give them the authority to speak on behalf of the project. Remember, they don't have to be 100%

accurate to be 100% passionate.

I learned that I'd rather have the latter than necessarily the former, especially during the campaign. Emotion and passion can win some-

one over before 100% fact-finding occurs as you don’t need to know everything about the project to be convinced that it’s something

that you want to back.


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Even I do this for my own backing of Kickstarter Projects (I’ve

backed more than 200 projects!). Do I know exactly what I’m

backing? Nope. But I’m sure convinced that they do!

As a result you’ll want to continue to educate your communityconstantly, which will be in tandem with empowerment. Help

them understand the big and small picture and constantly feed

into them.

Tweet at them or friend them on Facebook. Do whatever you

feel is comfortable. Provide an "inside" look into your opera-

tions perhaps so that they can feel even more bought-in.

The point with community development is to give them

moreaccess to you so that they can further thrive off of your enthusi-

asm, gain direction and support, and be given material to

share with others.

Your Blog

The number one community development platform that I used was my blog where I communicated daily with them about critical com-

ponents, thinking, and collateral material. I gave overarching vision and cast a picture that was compelling for them to repeat to others.I also offered counsel when appropriate and only one time did I actually have to correct.

Otherwise, let the dogs loose and see who they can bring back home. I’ll share a bit more in the “Tools” section as we continue on but

without question your blog is where you really want most of those eyeballs headed.


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Cliff Notes:

1. Think granular and make games of all your stats.

2. Daily encourage backers doing a good job. Provide examples.

3. Celebrate the "wins" in your updates as you achieve milestones.

4. By the way, every single day is a milestone opportunity.

5. Create momentum, always. Pursue it and create it like your life depended on it!

6. You cannot fatigue a digital army. Keep it up!


Y Di it l T lkit


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5The problem with

technology is that it’s

everywhere and so you’ll

be tempted to try

everything that you can get

your hot little hands on.

Trust me, most of it is

worthless and not worth

your time, especially since

you have very little time to

begin with.

Here’s my list of tools that

kicked butt. Hope they do

the same for you.

Your Digital Toolkit


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10 Must-Have Tools to Kick Serious ButtThere are a number of tools that I used to get thing going that I would most definitely use again if I were to ever do another Kickstarter

campaign and project as well as a number of tools that I would

never use again after having experimented with.

I will list out the ones that I ultimately used to great success and leave the rest out of this little pocket ebook entirely as it's not worth ex-

ploring them on your own and thus wasting your time.

1. Chrome Extension

The Chrome Extension for Kickstarter is a must-have extension which gives you a wealth of data right at your fingertips. It’s a digital

dashboard of your Project that you can visit and that updates in almost real-time.

It will show you how you are doing overall, the per-

cent funded, the # of backers, how long you haveto go until the end of your campaig as well as the

number of video plays.

With social search enables as well as traffic-

related data and Facebook metrics you’ve got a

one-stop shop. I literally would kept this tab open

for the entire 30 days and it was a godsend of an

application. Do not leave home without it!

2.Bit.ly

I used Bit.ly’s service to track strategic links that I

would use to share the project as well as landing

pages and other marketing initiatives.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kickstarter-status-board/pbbbkenlhfhdgjjjnkjkgibfkbnmflnj?hl=en-UShttps://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kickstarter-status-board/pbbbkenlhfhdgjjjnkjkgibfkbnmflnj?hl=en-US


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If you create an account you can even customize the shortname to easily remember for quick sharing. For ex-

ample, I was able to grab http://bit.ly/pressgram and it was super-easy to remember and share, especially since

the official Kickstarter link looked like this:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tentblogger/pressgram-an-image-sharing-app-built-for-an-indepe which is

much longer and impossible to remember!

But it’s the stats that are great. All you have to do is add the “+” symbol to the end and you can goto the stats page:

http://bit.ly/pressgram+ as you can see above. I can see how many clicks, from whom and from where. Vital information that I could op-

timize over time.

In fact, on easy strategy is to create multiple bit.ly links and A/B test them for effectiveness in your variety of different campaigns.

Practically-speaking it might look like this:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tentblogger/pressgram-an-image-sharing-app-built-for-an-indepehttp://bit.ly/pressgram+http://bit.ly/pressgram+http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tentblogger/pressgram-an-image-sharing-app-built-for-an-indepehttp://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tentblogger/pressgram-an-image-sharing-app-built-for-an-indepehttp://bit.ly/pressgramhttp://bit.ly/pressgram


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1. Bit.ly Link #1 is used for News Article / Blog Post #1



And you get the picture. Since you’re now able to test effectiveness and conversion rates you can go back to the ones that were very

successful half-way through the campaign and ask them to retweet the article or even reprise it or refresh it with a follow-up.

This might get you even more traffic and even more money! Bingo.

3. Tweetdeck or Hootsuite or Tweetbot

The point of this tip is to use a system for

monitoring Twitter, Facebook, and the othersocial networks that might be talking about

your project. I particularly like Tweetbot per-

sonally but Tweetdeck and Hootsuite are ex-

ceptionally powerful multi-account social me-

dia management tools. Pick your poison at

this point.

But the important thing is to save searches

for particular keywords and hashtags. For ex-

ample, at the very least I saved a Twitter

Search for anything that mentioned “press-

gram” as you can see on the far-right.

What you can see is that mentions for any-

thing will start to show up, not just direct @ replies. This is critical because I made it my mission to personally thank every single per-


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son who tweeted anything about Pressgram at all! It made a huge difference and without a system that was constantly monitoring the

Twitterverse for me I’d never be able to track them or respond.

Hootsuite and Tweetdeck do these things for even more social networks like Facebook so those two are especially powerful manage-

ment solutions. I would highly recommend picking one, getting used to it, and rocking it out.

4. WordPress Self-hosted Blog

My blog was and will always be the true lifeblood of my social network

and community around my Kickstarter project. For starters it’s the only

truly persistent property that I will be able to control fully. I believe this

might be the most important factor and this alone is a reason to have

one.

Why? Because after the campaign your project is complete and you no

longer have any use or need to use Kickstarter’s messaging system. And

now you have more than just a finished project and a product - you have

the beginnings of a brand spanking-new business and venture that

needs a communication outlet for marketing, PR, and quality community

development.

The blog will do that and the more you can focus your time and attention

here the more subscribers and traffic your blog and your project will get

during the campaign and especially after it.

The reason I choose Self-Hosted WordPress (WordPress.org) is also

about control as I want to customize my blog to my own needs.

WordPress.com offers a free solution but you don’t have as much freedom in that solution as you do a self-hosted one.

http://wordpress.com/http://wordpress.com/http://wordpress.com/http://wordpress.org/http://wordpress.org/


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I’ve changed the look and the feel of my blog 4-5 times since I started the campaign and project and I’ve been growing RSS Subscrib-

ers and readers daily. These people, who may not have been in the direct Kickstarter network, are locked in as readers and will con-

tinue to help me grow a viable business long-after Kickstarter is done.

If you need any help getting started I’d love to assist you further and you get learn more about my WordPress Starter Kit here. In fact,I’ll even set it up for free for you if you meet certain requirements! Hope I can help you get this very important tool up and running!

5. Dedicated Landing Page

There are so many Kickstarter Projects out there that don’t have

much of a web presence that it literally baffles me. Instead, they opt

for using their Facebook Page or even a Twitter account for their

go-to point of digital contact.

This is a no-no. You need a proper URL and domain to really house

the project so that you can capture all that traffic and seed the foun-

dation of potentially a future business venture (you never know

where it’s going to head.

Here’s the thing: You don’t have to start crazy or go all-out either, all

you need is a simple one-page HTML site at the very least and

you’re good to go. That’s what I did even though I’m more than capa-

ble creating something much more attractive.

But here’s why I did it this way:

- Time - You are one busy person when it comes to launching your project and making it a success. You don’t have any time to spend

on the website right now when you have marketing initiatives to work on as well as all that other administrative goodness. Spend as

few hours as possible on getting this up and move on to more important tasks for the time remaining in the campaign.

http://blog.pressgr.am/starter-kit/site-setup/http://blog.pressgr.am/starter-kit/http://blog.pressgr.am/starter-kit/site-setup/http://blog.pressgr.am/starter-kit/site-setup/http://blog.pressgr.am/starter-kit/http://blog.pressgr.am/starter-kit/


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- Cost - You don’t want to spend anything right now when it comes

to building traffic, if you can help it. Save your money for more im-

portant things.

- Speed - Getting one up quickly won’t take time. Obviously this isrelated to #1 and #2.

- Mental Dilution - Right now you don’t want to spend any more

time than you have to in terms of thinking about your proper

homepage. In many ways you’re going to spending that time much

later in the process so it’s good to save it up for now. It’s just one

more thing for you to worry about and you don’t want to do that.

For me it was an obvious decision - hold off until I have more men-

tal energy to put towards it.

- Iteration, Learning - So many things happen and change during

the campaign that you’d end up changing your homepage a billion

times before you’re through. It’s far better to learn all that you can about your audience and the reception that your project has on the

digital landscape before you commit to a design that will sink your time, money, and mental resources. Gather your fact, your learn-

ings, and then later execute on it.

As you can see on the previous page that was the first version of the site (I even changed up the capital “G” to a lowercase as I movedforward - see #5 on Iteration and Learning!). Then, I made a slight update adding content over time and post-Kickstarter I upgraded it

slightly to a newer version as see above.

Finally, if you need any super-cheap (but super-effective) landing pages you need to check out Envato’s ThemeForest selection that’ll

have some as cheap as a few dollars.

For example, take a look at this, this, this, this, this, and this for starters!

http://themeforest.net/item/landerous-under-construction-page/592962?WT.ac=search_thumb&WT.seg_1=search_thumb&WT.z_author=DryThemes&ref=saddingtonhttp://themeforest.net/item/landerous-under-construction-page/592962?WT.ac=search_thumb&WT.seg_1=search_thumb&WT.z_author=DryThemes&ref=saddingtonhttp://themeforest.net/item/xenon-countdown-fullscreen-coming-soon-page/3994059?WT.ac=search_thumb&WT.seg_1=search_thumb&WT.z_author=IronTemplates&ref=saddingtonhttp://themeforest.net/item/xenon-countdown-fullscreen-coming-soon-page/3994059?WT.ac=search_thumb&WT.seg_1=search_thumb&WT.z_author=IronTemplates&ref=saddingtonhttp://themeforest.net/item/landing-soon/3414809?WT.ac=search_thumb&WT.seg_1=search_thumb&WT.z_author=sushipasta&ref=saddingtonhttp://themeforest.net/item/landing-soon/3414809?WT.ac=search_thumb&WT.seg_1=search_thumb&WT.z_author=sushipasta&ref=saddingtonhttp://themeforest.net/item/moonlight-responsive-coming-soon-page/2758527?WT.ac=search_thumb&WT.seg_1=search_thumb&WT.z_author=pixelthrone&ref=saddingtonhttp://themeforest.net/item/moonlight-responsive-coming-soon-page/2758527?WT.ac=search_thumb&WT.seg_1=search_thumb&WT.z_author=pixelthrone&ref=saddingtonhttp://themeforest.net/item/fleepy-under-construction-theme-with-countdown/101490?WT.ac=search_thumb&WT.seg_1=search_thumb&WT.z_author=elemis&ref=saddingtonhttp://themeforest.net/item/fleepy-under-construction-theme-with-countdown/101490?WT.ac=search_thumb&WT.seg_1=search_thumb&WT.z_author=elemis&ref=saddingtonhttp://themeforest.net/item/light-coming-soon-page/5245014?ref=saddingtonhttp://themeforest.net/item/light-coming-soon-page/5245014?ref=saddingtonhttp://themeforest.net/?ref=saddingtonhttp://themeforest.net/?ref=saddington


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6. Mailchimp

Mailchimp is a killer free newsletter subscription and sign-up service that you have

to use.

In fact, if I have any regrets it’s that I didn’t start collecting emails and capturing

those interested parties early enough. I did this after I was done with the project - a

big doh!

What you can do is sign-up for free and start grabbing those emails right out of the

gate. It’s easy to setup and customize and it’s what I’ve done to notify users of the

launch of the app and project and keep tabs post-Kickstarter.

This is especially important since the only people who can be notified are the actual backers

of the project and you’re going to start developing a community that’s much larger than just

the original backer base.

There really isn’t a better solution out there and most of the landing page design templates

listed in the previous section have Mailchimp integration natively - so you can hook your sig-

nup form on the temporary page right into one of your Mailchimp lists!

Fantastic. If it were only this easy on every part of your campaign trail!

Mailchimp, a must-have.

7. Campaign Viral Pages : Somawater

If you want to add any additional “viral” landing pages to your project and campaign / marketing strategy then I suggest that you go no

further than the free and open-source “Somawater” viral pages.

http://eepurl.com/CzOMPhttp://eepurl.com/CzOMP


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These templates are free to use and customize and can quickly en-

hance any marketing efforts through gamification and strategic

copy and collateral art.

There are two templates to use, the first being a place that you can

house all your sweet press that you get and coax users and back-

ers and community members to “Like” those news stories as well

to cause even more viral expansion and awareness.

Add a video, as seen on the right image, and you’ve got a sweet

landing page to update backers with and encourage them to get

more pledges!

Easy to customize but you’ll need a little HTML knowledge. Notmuch and you could probably get someone to help you, perhaps

even one of your backers has a few HTML skills to donate to the

cause.

Copy, paste, and you’re done. Winning!

The second is a sweet way to get people to

not only share the project but also with a direct

link back to the Kickstarter page that can get

more pledges and donations.

As you can see, the user can click 1 of 3 op-

tions and every time they do the percent graph

goes up a bit. Gamification!


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Love it. Such a simple solution and one that’s free! No cost to you except for your time, of course.

8. iMovie for Video Editing

This one is quite straight-forward and simple as you’ll want some video-editing software to do light editing

of the videos that you’ll inevitably take.

Did you know that more campaigns get funded and see more success with the simple addition of a well-

formatted and timed video? This increases with the more videos that you produce.

I use iMovie and I’ll be the first to admit that I am terrible at video editing - I know next to nothing about it and can do the bare mini-

mum, but that’s just enough to be effective. Keep one of these handy or find someone willing to donate time to editing video for you.

This is especially good if they are professionals in the field!

I got help from a friend who absolutely blew me away with a video he did for my project and campaignand I am eternally grateful for it! It’s part of the reason we made it past our goal mark.

9. iPhone 5 or Other Mobile Image Capture Device

This is also pretty obvious but I found that my iPhone was my number one weapon for capturing great

footage, images of the project, and video recording my thoughts for my backers. It’s hard to imagine

that you wouldn’t have a simple image capturing device on you at all times but you might not have

one handy.

I would highly recommend either borrowing one from someone who may have an extra device or pur-

chasing a used iPod (one of the newer generations with image and video capture) and using it liber-

ally.

I can’t leave home without it (and you shouldn’t either).


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10. Digital Art and Collateral

Finally, the last tools that I used nearly every single day was an image editing

application for my marketing material. Not everyone has Photoshop or can nec-

essarily afford it - thankfully there are awesome free or cheap alternatives that

do just fine.

For example, one of my favorite image-editing applications of OS X is Acorn

App. It’s $50 so it’s not super-cheap but it’s a much easier to use application

than Photoshop in my opinion.

You can Google around for free alternatives and you should be able to find one

that you like and that will suit you just fine.

But the more important thing is that you use it. You see, I would create banners, small advertisements, and marketing collateral for my

team of backers so that they had material to give to others and promote on Twitter and Facebook.

Eventually they went as far as creating their own unique art for the campaign and even continued to do so post Kickstarter!

These are just a handful of examples that were created by the community without me even asking! A passionate group, right? If you

don’t create them for your team (or at least provide an example) then they may not follow your lead. Be a leader!

http://www.flyingmeat.com/acorn/http://www.flyingmeat.com/acorn/http://www.flyingmeat.com/acorn/http://www.flyingmeat.com/acorn/


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Heck, one person even created an official Press Kit and another a print-out to put up in local Starbucks!

You have to lead and inspire your backers to do great things - that’s your job and your responsibility! Take good care of it and then I be-

lieve that they’ll take good care of you in return.

Finally, this is just a starting list of tools and technology that I found particularly useful. I believe in keeping your digital toolkit “trim,” if

that makes sense. I have so many things to keep up in the air that I don’t have time to have 1,000 tools at my disposal - I’d much

rather have fewer and be amazing at using them than mediocre. I think this principle applies aptly for a Kickstarter Project.


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If you have any other great tools though that have worked for you I’d love for you to tell me about it! Ping me via Twitter ( @saddington

or @pressgram) and it’ll benefit the community! Thanks in advance!

And good luck.


Attitude

http://twitter.com/pressgramhttp://twitter.com/pressgramhttp://twitter.com/saddingtonhttp://twitter.com/saddington


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6My father taught me that a

positive attitude can

overcome almost anything

the world could possiblythrow at me.

I was reminded of that

lesson viscerally through

my Kickstarter project.

The right attitude and

perspective is a game-

changer folks, trust me.

And you’re going to need it.

Attitude


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Warning: Rough Terrain AheadLastly and perhaps the most important is the fact that you need a crazy-positive attitude when it comes to managing, caring for, and

leading your campaign to success. In many ways you already are as you believe, naively or blindly, that you will be a wild success and

that you're not only going to blow past 100% funding, you're going for 2X, 3X, 10X the funding!

But it can all come to a grinding halt when you experi-

ence the emotional betrayal of a significant backer tak-

ing away his pledge at the last minute (I had a $10,000

backer renege with 6 days left to go wiping 20% of the

total goal out in seconds).

You may not have as violent a letdown as I did but you

may experience the sum-total over the project cam-paign as a small disappointment crops up here and an-

other one there and yet another one there.

If you're like me then you'll find yourself battling inside

the chasm between mountain-like highs and then deep

valleys of despair and darkness. One morning you'll

wake up feeling that you're going to make it and then a

few hours later find a blog post lambasting you publicly

for such a "stupid" idea, so stupid that no one should

ever fund it.

In fact, perhaps they'll go farther than that and begin to attack your person, your very character, not just the project or product itself.

They'll find fault with you, dredge up old wounds that you thought the internet had forgotten, and publicly create an anti-campaign

about your campaign.


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And for what? For their own ends of course. You, in these worst of times, must keep a level-head, a positive attitude, and remember

why you originally started which was very, very simple: You believed that you had something great to offer the world and that it would

create incredible value for many. You were determined to bring it to life by dedicating your time, your resources, your finances, and

your very life to making it a reality and are looking for help in a world that doesn't want to give it to you.

But you've found a few backers and supporters and it's

your job to find more. They are out there and they just

don't know it yet. Your job, during those 30 or so days, is

to help bring awareness to your project where there is no

awareness.

Education to those that are uneducated about your pro-

ject and the raw potential that it has, and that the commu-

nity (and world) desperately needs your gumption, yourresolve, your solution to a problem that they have.

And they are waiting for you to succeed. So don't let

those naysayers get to you - sure, it stings, but let it sting

for just a little while until you pick yourself back up and go

at it hard again, and again, and again. The last man

standing will have the last word and if you successfully

fund your project you'll have all you need in response.

And guess what? If you don't, that's fine - you've done more than most people will ever do by sticking your neck out and painting a big

target on your back while those satisfied with living mediocre and unimportant lives throw small sticks at you in attempt to make them-

selves feel better about their own personal and professional trajectory.

So keep your head up and you'll do just fine.

20 Extra Tips


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7There are a couple one-off

thoughts that I’ve also

collected that may help you

in small and large ways.

I’ve learned a lot and even

if you don’t reach your goal

you’ll take away a wealth of

information and experience

as well as provide an

incredible amount of press

about your project.

So keep that head up my

friends! You deserve it.

20 Extra Tips


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Here are some tips that may save you a

lot of heartache and pain, but only if

they work and apply for your particular

project!

1. Do not underestimate the cost of ship-

ping, managing, and fulfilling your re-

wards! I under-budgeted my rewards

by more then $3,000! This really hurt

the overall budget and as a result I

had to cut back on strategic market-

ing components that I really wanted

to have.

2. Get help. Get tons of help. I lever-

aged 2 interns just for the reward ful-

fillment process! It looks good on

their resume and they saved my ba-

con. Seriously.

3. Budget wisely. I know this goes with-

out saying, but you really need tolock-in the costs of your project BE-

FORE you submit as you can’t

change it after. Be hyper-critical of

the spending and where it’s all going.

4. There will be financial surprises that

will pop-up as you work through your

project. Plan for those, budget for

them in your overall plan.

5. Bad press is press, period. Take it on

the chin and keep on walking tall. At

this point you just need to get the

word out to raise those funds and

even if they spit in your face you

should keep on walking. Take it as

one person’s perspective and opinion

and move on.

6. Don’t go crazy with the rewards and

it’s not always good to have every up-

per tier “include” the lower tiers.

7. Price out the rewards specifically

(see #1). I did not do this and it really

messed me up.

8. Update constantly the collateral, art,

and messaging as you can see what

works and what doesn’t. I edited the

video, images, and text nearly every

single day to see what worked better

and what didn’t. Be ever vigilant.

9. I thanked every single person via Twit-

ter that tweeted something about

Pressgram. I felt like this rewarded

me with follow-up tweets and pres-

ence of mind. It also gave me the op-portunity to reach back out to them

later for follow-ups for more press.

10. Make sure your spouse, your family,

and your partners (if you have them

via another business or venture) are

“in” on the process and understand

how challenging this might be. If you

have a full-time job and don’t want to

lose it you should probably notify your

employer before you attempt it be-

cause it could cause some serious is-

sues later if the project gets super-

large and takes up a lot of your time.

Sure, you may even end up quitting

that job anyways if the project is agreat success, but don’t burn bridges

if you can!

11. Calendar in the 30 days (or the

length of your project) and expect


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that your world will turn upside down.

Plan for it as best as you can.

12. Remember that it’s ok to make mis-

takes - you’ll make a ton of them and

that’s part of the process. Take it one

step at a time and don’t rush.

13. Don’t worry so much about compar-

ing your success or your momentum

with other historical projects. Every

single project is wildly different and

what worked for someone may not

necessarily work for you. Don’t pres-sure yourself by saying things like

“Well, X, Y, Z campaign had 20% com-

pleted in 5 days - why is my project

not there yet?” Put that aside be-

cause it really doesn’t matter.

14. Have a balanced eating and sleep-

ing schedule. It sounds odd to say itbut if you’re anything like me then

you would quickly forget those things

so that you can get back to your cam-

paign and project. Get some good ex-

ercise in too as that helps really re-

duce stress and anxiety. I know it

worked for me and thank goodness.

15. Remember, you will survive this.

You will live to tell the story. 30 days

feels like forever and at the same

time feels like not enough time. You’ll

doubt your decisions the moment you

make them but don’t give in!

16. Go have some fun. Take a break.

Go out to eat. Watch a movie. Do

what you normally do and don’t let

this project take over your life (atleast not like me). Remember the les-

son on scheduling everything? That

includes recreation!

17. Remember that other opportunities

will be created through this project

and campaign. While you may “fail” at

reaching your goal you may haveopened up some other doors that you

had not originally intended to open

and new opportunities will be created.

This is not just positive thinking - this

is reality and a fact.

18. It never hurts to ask. I know I’ve al-

ready mentioned this a few times but

seriously - you never know what will

happen if you just ask for help, for a

plug, for some press, even for money.Just ask and see what happens.

Trust me on this!

19. Of, and of course, have as much fun

as possible. Sure, it’s stressful but al-

low yourself to find some pleasure in

the pain, sotospeak. Have fun with it

and you’ll do just fine.

20. Finally, please email me [

[email protected] ] about your success

and your experience as well as tweet

at me ( @Saddington ) if that’s easier

for you. Ask me any questions in real-

time and let me check out your pro-

ject! And please, don’t forget to tell

others that this eBook exists and en-

courage others to purchase and

download it! I hope I can reach many

and help many with my experience!

Good luck.

End

http://www.twitter.com/saddington/mailto:[email protected]://www.twitter.com/saddington/http://www.twitter.com/saddington/mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


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To Your Health & Success


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Thank you so much for purchasing this eBook and

supporting me and the future of my small app,

Pressgram . Please encourage others to purchase it so

that they can see similar success!

But more importantly I hope this resource was helpful

for you and that it has provided you with insight and

wisdom that you’ll be able to liberally apply to your own

Kickstarter or crowd-funding campaign and project.

My hope and prayer for you is two-fold, the first being

that you are wildly successful with your venture - moresuccessful than you had planned or even dreamed of!

Secondly, that if you do summon the courage to go into

a crowd-funding exercise and event that you’ll have a

much easier time raising your goal than I did.

The cost of those 30 days was very, very high for me

and in many ways I’m still recovering those losses to thisday. I hope you do not experience anything like that and

that it’s literally smooth sailing from day one.

Ping me if you need anything; best of luck my friends!

John Saddington - @saddington

The Legal (and Boring Stuff)

http://twitter.com/saddingtonhttp://twitter.com/saddingtonhttp://pressgr.am/http://pressgr.am/


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2013 © John Saddington

All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be repro-

duced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by

any means—except for brief quotations in published re-

views—without the prior written permission of the author.

Bio:

John Saddington is a video game-loving serial entrepreneur and hacker who is ad-

dicted to blogging. A graduate of Georgia Tech and two Masters from Dallas Semi-

nary, he's spent time as a engineer and executive in the Fortune 50 (JnJ, Dell, Fox,

NewsCorp) as well as leading his own bootstrapped and venture-funded startups.

He's contributed to and his work has been featured on CNN, TechCrunch, Mashable,

The Next Web, and more. He leads his teams, coaches other startups, and spends

time with his wife and 2 daughters.

His current obsession is his iOS application, Pressgram, that combines filtered pho-

tos with WordPress in a super-simple solution.

He blogs at John.do and tweets a lot @Saddington.

And he had fun writing this eBook and hopes it does wonders for its readers.

Have fun, be awesome; kaizen.
http://twitter.com/saddingtonhttp://twitter.com/saddingtonhttp://john.do/http://john.do/http://pressgr.am/http://pressgr.am/