RongoRongo 3 KS - Now Live

[Jock1971]

no jock, i never considered the pink one, but i would love to learn whatever u know about multiple decks so i don't offend someone in the process.
the experience on this side is quite similar to going through anal probing at the airport security, so I will proceed cautiously...

Check out the thread about the Get Made deck. It holds no definitive answers (and there probably are none), but should provide some insight.

Took the words right out of my mouth... Also the Viking deck from the same people.

[tomas]

thanks for the link MagikFingerz, it was very helpful and strangely confusing at the same time.
when adding a new deck on KS, what is the preferred method: a new pledge, add-on released on a specific day/time?

[MagikFingerz]

The main thing I took from that discussion is that you should clearly state your plans beforehand (ie how many decks you're planning on having in the same campaign). Other than that I don't think it doesn't make much of a difference, as long as your planning (financially and time-wise) is sound and evident to your backers.

[Godzillian]

The main thing I took from that discussion is that you should clearly state your plans beforehand (ie how many decks you're planning on having in the same campaign). Other than that I don't think it doesn't make much of a difference, as long as your planning (financially and time-wise) is sound and evident to your backers.

I added a TL;DR to my long and messy post in that thread. Here it is:

(1) State how many decks you intend to release during your campaign (via stretch goals)
(2) Make most of your stretch goals transparent
(3) Announce the deck a few days in advance of its actual release

[Sher]

Tomas, I'm not sure if using the Muertos campaign is a good model, only because that seemed to be an unusual case... The Muertos deck went viral because it was featured as one of the trending posts on a website called 9Gag, attracting the attention of a wider audience.

[tomas]

We used a lot of campaigns for the model. My comment/example was in response to the suggestion that we did not do any planning or research when we spent an extreme amount of time preparing for this campaign and we have a very detailed financial data about many campaigns. You are correct with 9gag event; it created a huge spike culminating with 379 new backers on day 25. Muertos collected 47% of funds in days 31-45.

The question I have: how do you introduce a second deck on running KS project?
We can do that either by new pledges or add-ons. My loyalty is with existing backers so I need to choose the method they would prefer without penalizing early bird backers.

[Bikefanatic]

C'mon guys, the courts aren't that bad. You've all seen worse! Of course, there IS room for improvement - the courts should be easily distinguishable from each other. Right now, they all look the same. But they ARE all different. I'll be in for 2 of these. That back is really nice.

He calls it RongoRnogo Gold as if he'll put out another color.

I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT!

I voted for #2. I like the design for #1 but it'll look better with white faces instead of gold like the Gold version.

[Strag]

strag -- stop with the warnings signs. I'm here to answer any questions you may have. My email is tomas [at] matifu.com -- and my phone number is at matifu.com under the contact info.
Funding period -- I researched previous campaigns for weeks. You are incorrect with your assumptions and I have a huge Excel file full of data to back it up.
I can give you the ratios of backer/funded for each of the most successful campaigns.
I assume you are referring to average $ pledges per backer per day for each day of the campaign.
Muertos (funding period: 45 days, which is a perfect funding period for the playing card campaign):
$20 $24 $26 $27 $27 $27 $29 $30 $30 $32 $35 $36 $37 $37 $36 $36 $37 $37 $38 $39 $38 $38 $40 $41 $42 $42 $42 $44 $44 $44 $44 $44 $44 $44 $45 $45 $45 $45 $46 $46 $46 $49 $51 $52 $53 $57

Sorry, I have the experience of backing over 100 projects to back ME up. I'm not incorrect (in my opinion) and I notice you didn't address at all how high your prices are. Look, fact is you are unlikely to fund now so I recommend the following;

Cancel your project and restart with 35 funding period, better pricing and fewer backing tiers. Reduce dramatically the amount of addons, there are just too much to take in. Make Bee stock a stretch goal to reduce upfront cost. Do all this and you might have a shot, it's a decent deck it's just being overwhelmed and is mis-priced.

[tomas]

Thanks for your input strag, you make very valid points. We are not going to agree on the funding period, but I believe you are correct in your tiers, addon and bee comments.

We are going to make some adjustments, run a vote for the third deck tomorrow (Monday) and release two more decks probably on Wednesday. If the backers like the outcome we will keep this campaign going, otherwise we’ll have to regroup following most of your suggestions.

[volantangel]

Thanks for your input strag, you make very valid points. We are not going to agree on the funding period, but I believe you are correct in your tiers, addon and bee comments.

We are going to make some adjustments, run a vote for the third deck tomorrow (Monday) and release two more decks probably on Wednesday. If the backers like the outcome we will keep this campaign going, otherwise we’ll have to regroup following most of your suggestions.

Wait a minute. You are having problems funding, but you want to release more variations of the deck ? That is a terrible idea my friend.

[MagikFingerz]

Thanks for your input strag, you make very valid points. We are not going to agree on the funding period, but I believe you are correct in your tiers, addon and bee comments.

We are going to make some adjustments, run a vote for the third deck tomorrow (Monday) and release two more decks probably on Wednesday. If the backers like the outcome we will keep this campaign going, otherwise we’ll have to regroup following most of your suggestions.

Wait a minute. You are having problems funding, but you want to release more variations of the deck ? That is a terrible idea my friend.

Yeah, that makes no sense at all.

[tomas]

A member of your forum made a very solid argument in our off-line chat about the pricing of a single deck in this campaign.
Following his advice we are reducing the price of the single deck to $12 and I will implement a few other changes later in the week.
I apologize to anyone who thought the pricing was too high, we posted a new reward on the site today.
Tomas

[Bikefanatic]

Am I the only one who feels awkward about this? The main Bicycle isn't struggling but not funding that much but he's offering more decks by another card company. It seems like he's running two different projects at the same time. For the Black and gilded deck, I don't think the contribute to the KS funding.

Also why pay $13 for a unsigned deck than $11 for a signed deck?

[tomas]

You can pay early bird $11 for signed decks until they run out at 200 decks each (roughly half of them were sold yesterday).
After that decks #201 to #1000 are $13 -- these are 1,000 deck limited print, so the cost of the setup and print is extremely high.

The "another card company" is well known to every person on this board; Heretic used them recently.

Black and Gilded decks doubled the KS funding in a single day. They did contribute to KS funding... by doubling it.

I'm not running two projects, I am working extremely hard to get RongoRongo funded.
The new decks were tested with the voting system by my backers before the release.

[volantangel]

You can pay early bird $11 for signed decks until they run out at 200 decks each (roughly half of them were sold yesterday).
After that decks #201 to #1000 are $13 -- these are 1,000 deck limited print, so the cost of the setup and print is extremely high.

The "another card company" is well known to every person on this board; Heretic used them recently.

Black and Gilded decks doubled the KS funding in a single day. They did contribute to KS funding... by doubling it.

I'm not running two projects, I am working extremely hard to get RongoRongo funded.
The new decks were tested with the voting system by my backers before the release.

OH MY GOODNESS. i would suggest you put a halt in your steps before you fall into a hole big time.

2500 uspcc decks - approx 8k
2x1000 EPCC decks - approx 7k
shipping costs - approx 30% of costs, 5k

you need 20k to make this work, and this is cutting it fine. (please correct me if my figures are wrong, but i doubt they are that far off)

if you hit a funding of 13k, but less than 20k, you are going to wound up in a world of hurt and lawsuits. I suggest you reconsider everything you have done. There is a reason why extra decks are a stretch goal, it needs to be ensured that they have a minimum amount of funding for the deck before adding it

[tomas]

Please, stop with this loaded language. I don't need a financial advice, I have a degree in the field.
I run 3 companies, consulted for 15+. I have never had a single lawsuit or a single complain filled against me in my life.

USPCC - correct; EPCC - no, if we hit $13K we will not need 1000 runs each, they can run 500, so it's closer to 3.5K. The x/1000 run will be upgraded to x/500 after discussing it with my backers. Shipping is not 30%, it's 17% to 18% or $2,200 to $2,340, for the grand total of $13,700 (not $20,000 as per your calculations).

This week I contacted 40+ hotels located on Easter Island in Chile. I also contacted 20+ restaurants on the Island, travel agencies, the Easter Island Museum and the Eastern Island Foundation. They will not order through KS because it's not setup for any commercial orders, but they do talk to me about orders.

In your worst case scenario I will have 2,200 decks of RongoRongo cards at almost break even cost (with KS fees). I believe I will be able to follow up with 70+ businesses on Easter Island with a product on hand. Ester Island is a remote place where all supplies are delivered from the mainland, so it's extremely expensive. They may display RR decks at $40 in their hotel's gift shops where people pay $300 per night and come to see RongoRongo culture, so $10 per deck is possible.

This week I spoke to a guy from Tokyo who opened a restaurant on Easter Island. We talked about RongoRongo, the typography of glyphs he truly enjoys, and MakeMake, the creator of the universe in their religion, and KavaKava from the hunger times on the Island, and the Birdman competitions, so close to IronMan competitions of today (I participated in one last year). He loves the deck, and that means a lot to me since he lives on the Island and he is surrounded by symbols of this amazing history.

So if you'd like to talk about the cards, and why you think courts suck, and what changes would improve them, I'm all ears, because you clearly have a lot of experience in the field.
But if you want to lecture me on accounting please review your multiplication tables first.

[MagikFingerz]

This deck is relaunching after a being reworked, Friday August 22nd at noon EST.

Preview link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ma ... n=4288773f

[volantangel]

So after all that talking, he didn't make his goal eh.. Hopefully the figures this time are more realistic.

[StanKindLee]

He needs to lower deck prices too, and run a shorter campaign... it stayed in KS search limbo for over half the campaign.

[badpete69]

now live

[MagikFingerz]

Pledged. Hope it makes it this time

[tomas]

Thanks Tom for all your help and the pledge, it was a true pleasure to speak to you.

[MagikFingerz]

Thanks Tom for all your help and the pledge, it was a true pleasure to speak to you.

The pleasure is all mine, I'm glad to have been able to help.

[StanKindLee]

I pledge this again... this time for all 3 decks instead of just one. Good luck on funding.

[tomas]

Thanks StanKindLee, it's great to see you among our backers.

[SBurk49]

In for 2 at this point. Once I can get a better look at these on a computer instead of a phone, I imagine I will be in for all 3.

Really hope it funds this time. I dont think they made enough noise.

Maybe if they do the obnoxious marketing technique of the Stars and Spades guy. Posting every three days on the UC facebook page.

Seriously though, if y'all can get more eyes on, it'll fund.

[sprouts1115]

I see two mistakes with this deck. First, the animal on the back of card is upside down. Think about it what are you going to see when you fan the cards? I like big butts and I can not lie. What is that animal? A kiwi?

Screenshot 2014-08-24 08.28.08.png (291.86 KiB) Viewed 1744 times

Second, his suit indicators need to be consistent. I like the placement of the Hearts. He needs to turn around the Clubs and Spades. His Diamonds are fine. You can't screw those up.

Screenshot 2014-08-24 08.27.38.png (53.2 KiB) Viewed 1744 times

Screenshot 2014-08-24 08.27.49.png (30.11 KiB) Viewed 1744 times

[rousselle]

Gonna have to echo Russell's points here, and I cannot lie.

[tomas]

The animal is half man, half bird, or Birdman. The cult of Birdman and amazing Birdman races on the Island lasted until the arrival on Europeans.
Every day (so far) at noon we have a $1 Birdman race for BIRDMAN SPECIAL -- today $1 winner got 2 decks + 1 coin + 1 pair of dice.
Tomorrow we take a break, the next BIRDMAN SPECIAL is on Wednesday.

The butt is oriented correctly on the bottom of the page, butt you make a very valid point.

You took suits from the campaign #1 -- this is campaign #2 and they are completely redesigned. Take a look at
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ma ... ngorongo-2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[tomas]