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Hi All,

I'd like to hear your thoughts on the top tips for first time campaigners on Kickstarter. I'm planning to launch the first campaign and have been reading a lot on blogs, forums etc. lately.

As far as my introduction goes, I've registered an entity "Guru Playing Card Company" in Australia (I'm from Sydney) with a focus and intent to bring traditional Indian art & crafts to the world with some of them on the brink of being forgotten. The mission is to revive the interest in these traditional art, crafts & to preserve the cultural heritage. It all started with research on Ganjifa cards and then it has moved on to other arts. Through this company, I'd like to support the artists so that this knowledge is passed on to the next generation, because, at present it is not happening.
I'd like to know your take and top tips for first time campaigners on Kickstarter. Earlier, I'd plans to offer add-ons like t-shirts etc. but it is going to complicate the fulfillment and I think that if I focus solely on the deck it would be better. Should I combine two decks (one playing card and another Ganjifa which had 130 cards per each deck with round cards), or should I go slow and offer the first as traditional Indian arts inspired deck and check the pulse of the community.

Last but not the least, please feel free to browse to the following post and provide your feedback on the design.

http://www.unitedcardists.com/viewtopic ... af51168add


Regards,
Sunish

Suniah, we talked by PM about the traditional vice modern and how it affects the efforts to stay true to the Ganjifa Indian design. I would definitely try to get your fott in the door by putting out a typical 52-card ("poker") deck before you try to do the 130-card round deck, but show the direction of what you want to do or where you hope to go during that first campaign. Kickstarter campaign management is a tricky business. I have managed or copromoted dozens if not a hundred at this point and no two are ever the same, but there definitely are things common to successful projects. Mostly it has to do with listening to the backers and putting them into the feedback loop, but that's just the beginning.

Next - ask questions here! You have nearly 2000 opinionated members from 84 countries last I checked. If you don't get a good sense of direction before you think you are ready, ask more questions. Everyone here is ready and willing to help...

The one gotcha I see in the design we already touched on, and for religious reasons it's tough, because you let me know that for them, turning the cards upside down is disrespectful. It's a major source of angst if you can't figure out some way to compromise so that there are indices in both the "northeast" and "southwest" corners, at least for a poler deck. In this case it's a conundrum for you, but clearly a mess if you ignore this advice and try to fund without then. You can get away with one way court cards given the logical explanation you already gave, but without indices in both corners, I fear that you will be pushing a rock uphill trying to fund.

Mike Ratledge wrote:Suniah, we talked by PM about the traditional vice modern and how it affects the efforts to stay true to the Ganjifa Indian design. I would definitely try to get your fott in the door by putting out a typical 52-card ("poker") deck before you try to do the 130-card round deck, but show the direction of what you want to do or where you hope to go during that first campaign. Kickstarter campaign management is a tricky business. I have managed or copromoted dozens if not a hundred at this point and no two are ever the same, but there definitely are things common to successful projects. Mostly it has to do with listening to the backers and putting them into the feedback loop, but that's just the beginning.

Next - ask questions here! You have nearly 2000 opinionated members from 84 countries last I checked. If you don't get a good sense of direction before you think you are ready, ask more questions. Everyone here is ready and willing to help...

The one gotcha I see in the design we already touched on, and for religious reasons it's tough, because you let me know that for them, turning the cards upside down is disrespectful. It's a major source of angst if you can't figure out some way to compromise so that there are indices in both the "northeast" and "southwest" corners, at least for a poler deck. In this case it's a conundrum for you, but clearly a mess if you ignore this advice and try to fund without then. You can get away with one way court cards given the logical explanation you already gave, but without indices in both corners, I fear that you will be pushing a rock uphill trying to fund.

Thanks Mike for providing such good insights. Can't thank you enough. I've already started implementing your advice on having indices on both sides. Hope to share new designs soon.