Project Takes Off, Kickstarter Crashes

The project in question is the board game Between Two Cities. (Here are links to B2C at Kickstarter, Kicktraq, BoardGameGeek, Stonemaier Games, Changing Way).

B2C launched on Feb 25, on schedule, with:

• A funding goal of $20,000. I expected that the goal would be in that range, and that it would be met within the first day.
• The game for $29. That includes all stretch goals, and shipping to anywhere in the USA (such as Maryland, where I live). I expected something in that price range.
• A special edition at $39. I wasn’t surprised to see a “special” funding level. I was surprised not to see a bigger difference between the standard and special rewards. I expected that if there was a special edition I’d be unable to resist it. But, looking at what each reward level includes, I found the special edition very easy to resist. At the time of writing, those of us in the resistance are in the minority, with special edition backers ($39 each) outnumbering us standard edition backers ($29 each) by about 3 to 1.
• A closing date of Mar 16. I expected a longer campaign, since most tabletop game projects at KS seem to run for 28 or 30 days. But a shorter campaign makes sense: the most intense funding days for Kickstarter (KS) projects are often the first few and the last few.
• Stretch goals to be announced in an update the day after KS launch. I was initially surprised that stretch goals weren’t specified at the start of the campaign. Then I reflected that if I were running the KS (and was as KS-smart as Jamey Stegmaier, who actually is running the KS), I would have done the same thing. Having some news at the start of day 2 helps preserve the early momentum. And I might want to see how funding is going before I map specific stretch goals on to specific funding (or other support) targets.

As soon as I found out that B2C’s KS had started, I clicked over there. I saw that hundreds of backers had beaten me there, and that the project was closing in on its $20,000 goal. A few minutes later, I was clicking to confirm my $29 backing. By that time, the B2C project had funded.

I tried to check back on the B2C KS a little later, but Kickstarter was down. There was some joking that the downtime might have been caused by widespread enthusiasm for B2C; but if any specific project sent KS down, it must have been the Pebble Time Smartwatch (which I’m not backing).

Jamey Stegmaier, creator of the B2C KS, was understandably pleased by the takeoff of the campaign, and displeased by the crash of the platform.

We got a nice onrush of previous and new Stonemaier backers, and the project reached its $20,000 funding goal in 38 minutes. The next 42 minutes went well too, with the funding level eclipsing $30,000.

Then Kickstarter crashed… I swear it wasn’t us…

I’m writing this post after Kickstarter has been down for 75 minutes (and counting). I have to say, it hasn’t been easy. Momentum is everything on crowdfunding. In the last 75 minutes, I’m sure that plenty of people have clicked on links to Between Two Cities … That may be the one and only time they click that link. That sucks.

I suspect, and hope, that B2C didn’t lose many backers while KS was down. Jamey did such a good job building awareness and demand before the KS even started that people who clicked during the downtime will be reminded of the project, and most will click again.

There may be projects that suffered horribly from this KS crash. The most obvious are those that also launched just before the crash, but did not have a launching pad as impressive as the one that Jamey had built for B2C. But what about projects that were in their last day, or last hours? Ouch, with spikes on. (I hope that there were no such projects, but…)

If B2C follows the usual KS project pattern, its daily funding level will slow down, remain comparatively slow for the next couple of weeks, then accelerate sharply in the last couple of days of the campaign. You could help Between Two Cities buck the trend by backing it now…