This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hello and welcome to episode 444 of Side Hustle School. That's right, 444. My name is Chris Guillebeau, thank you for joining me. Today is also, by the way, the first day of spring. At least if you're listening to these episodes as they come out, if you're listening later, perhaps it's still spring, perhaps it's some other season.
But again, as I record for you, first day of spring, the flowers are blooming, the sun is shining, people are setting up their email campaigns, opening their online merchant accounts, all those things you do during the changing of the seasons. And by the way, how do you tell someone winter is over? You spring it on them, right? I mean, how else would you tell them? Okay, I've got a great story for you today.
Today's story is about a board game maker who tries to raise $6,000 for his first project. He's like, I need to do some crowdfunding, I'm gonna go out and raise $6,000. While he fails in that goal, doesn't actually raise $6,000, he actually goes out and raises more than $100,000. That's right, more than $100,000 in his first crowdfunding campaign. Now you might think that's a fluke.
You might say, well, good for him, but he just got lucky in different ways. Perhaps he did get lucky, but then this new game creator does it again, and he does it again once more, three times so far. The second one does a bit better than the first. Stay tuned, I'll tell you exactly how much. He's far from finished, he's got a new campaign in the works, and in a short period of time, he's made more than a million dollars in three Kickstarter campaigns.
That's right, different campaigns, he had never done this before, wasn't a crowdfunding expert, and so far more than a million dollars in these three Kickstarter board game campaigns. Naturally, we were curious about how he did it, so in addition to sharing his story, he also generously offered to share seven tips for your potential crowdfunding campaign. If you've been thinking about doing something like this, or if you have an idea for a product that might be a good fit for a crowdfunding campaign, well, I'll bring you that story and all seven tips right after this little shout-out to today's sponsor. [Music]
If you had told a young Travis Hancock that he'd eventually end up making a living off of his love for board games, he'd probably have laughed outright and said, "Sure, whatever, there's no way "you could make any money doing that." But then he might say, "Hey, sign me up." Growing up in Ohio, Travis and his family were always playing board games, especially around Christmas time. He would call it their default state.
If they weren't eating or sleeping, they were usually gathered around a flat surface playing some kind of board game. One game in particular was especially magical to Travis, Mafia. Without fail, this classic '80s board game made a star appearance at each family reunion. It was a game that in Travis's mind simply could not be beat. It had everything, concepts of good versus evil, manipulation and deception, fighting for your life.
In other words, it fits right in with your family holiday dinner. Or maybe that's just my family. But for Travis, there was something else that didn't occur to him until much later. He loved board games for the escape that they provided. Just like a book or movie can do, he found that a board game can transport you to an alternate reality complete with its own set of rules, challenges, and triumphs.
This love of board games continued with him as he went to school and then college. He eventually began a day job, but he continued to play iterations of his old favorite games. The most popular iteration involved switching out the characters with characters from another series he loved, Harry Potter. Just like in the books, each player was assigned to a house and held allegiances to good or evil. The game was full of interesting roles, with people playing as Dumbledore, Ron, Hermione, the Weasley twins, Draco, and of course, Harry Potter himself.
Every Sunday night, he'd gather his friends around in a circle and catch up on the week's events over a game. It was so popular that Travis's brother even surprised him Christmas of 2012 with his own fully functioning set, complete with a printed rule book and cards. All of a sudden, Travis was a published game maker. There was just one copy of this game, but it was enough to get his brain turning. Could this possibly become something more?
He realized that if he did want to make this a reality, he probably couldn't use Harry Potter characters since he didn't own the intellectual property. But that challenge was no match for a game master like Travis. He pushed up his sleeves, shifted some things around, changed some names, and presto, a new iteration was born. It was called City and involved four teams, the bad guys, the good guys, the self-interested merchants, and the villagers. He printed several editions of this and tested it out with roommates and friends.
City got put on hold when Travis met the woman who would become his wife, and then they were married in 2013. But City wasn't too far from his mind because at some point it came back to life with a new theme centered around the Salem witch trials, and then given the name Salem. It had all the darkness and intrigue of mafia, but with a new historical spin. Travis and his wife Holly felt so strongly about this new iteration that they decided it would be a pity to not try and make something of it. From that point on, Travis did everything he could to find a way to get his game to the market.
His big break came when he went to a board game conference in Utah called Salt Con. Through the connections he made there, he learned about Panda Games, a middleman game manufacturer with connections to other manufacturers in China who could work with smaller orders. Travis began bringing his vision to life. His wife Holly had some experience in graphic design, so she built the main infrastructure. And before they knew it, they had an amazingly rich game full of interesting characters.
They then decided to launch a Kickstarter campaign. They began by making a prototype of the game and taking some great pictures that would tell their story and what they were trying to make. Now here's the thing, they were hoping that they would maybe hit $6,000 so that they could afford to buy enough games for friends and family. But they were blown away when the final tally came up to $103,000. Travis was so surprised by their crowdfunding success that he decided it might be worthwhile to pursue creating games full-time.
That's what happens when you make $100,000 instead of $6,000 all of a sudden. So he did quit his job and began developing two more games that fit with the theme of the first one. Travis's second game in the series raised around $400,000. That's right, $400,000 in 2017. And the third game, it's called Deadwood 1876, is currently raising funds on the platform now.
I took a peek at the campaign before recording this episode. It has now raised more than $300,000. It's actually $317,000, which is almost $300,000 more than its $25,000 goal. So it's doing okay. Now this success has brought them a lot of admirers.
Many creative people out there looking to also launch a game or product on Kickstarter have asked them over and over again, "Hey, what's your secret? How'd you do it?" They start by saying they're not sure, they have no idea. There's no magic formula, but there is a bit of a longer answer. And I'm gonna give you that complete answer in the form of seven tips in just a moment. But as for Travis and Holly, moving forward, they're hoping to expand their game board lineup even further.
The first three games all occur in the Americas during a similar time period. They're planning on having the next set of three games occurring in a new time and place in the world. All in all, they've already sold around a million dollars worth of games through this dynamic crowdfunding platform. That's a lot of money for a lot of fun. Okay, so for my little commentary section here, I'm gonna steal from them because these guys have seven great tips.
These are things that Travis and Holly believe have contributed to the success of their Kickstarter campaigns. They're a huge success, I should say. So hopefully you'll learn something here. Seven tips, here we go. Number one, make your product amazing.
Your product being amazing or not contributes to more than 90% of whether your campaign is gonna go viral. If you have an hour a day to spend on your Kickstarter campaign, Travis says, spend at least 55 minutes of that hour focusing on your product. Love that. Number two, your photography and videos matter more than you think. The people looking at your Kickstarter page have never seen, used, or played with your product.
They are relying solely on what you show them in the videos and photos. These assets shouldn't be an afterthought. They're critical to telling a story. Number three, show them a physical prototype that is as close to the real thing as possible. Your backers are taking a risk on you by giving you money for something that doesn't exist.
A legit prototype takes a lot of that fear away. Speaking of backers, number four, treat your backers with respect and let them become insiders to the project to tell your story. This means that you should respond to their messages quickly, respond to each and every comment in a timely and polite manner, and create a campaign page that is easy to understand. Speaking of story, people on Kickstarter are buying your story, not your product. Guide the backers through the page and logically explain how the game came to be and who's behind it.
Number five, pay attention to the all-important day one blitz. The first day of a campaign is its most important if you can get backers and funding immediately and even hit your goal in the first couple days, your campaign will get the momentum it needs to go further. Number six, be smart about the day and time that you launch. Since you want a lot of people looking at your project right in the beginning and then at the end, Travis recommends you launch before lunchtime on a Tuesday or Wednesday and then end in the early afternoon on a Thursday. It seems like it's working for him, so if I were you, I'd just copy that.
Last but not least, number seven, do some marketing, but don't stress out about it. Travis and Holly report that in their projects, they spend about 1% of the total money raised toward marketing and ads. They weren't worthless, they did get some new customers through it, but in the end, they weren't, well, game-changing. Again, going back to the first point, if you have an awesome project, then your backers will naturally share it and spread it. That is the most important thing.
They also encourage you to try to get lucky because your success will also require a bit of luck. At the end of the day, a lot is within your control, but not everything is. Well, I love that list of seven tips. I don't have anything to add to it. They're obviously the Kickstarter campaign masters.
Make your product amazing, create a great story, give people something to talk about. And who knows, you might raise a million dollars through three campaigns. It's very impressive. We're gonna link up their most recent campaign on the show notes page, of course. Those notes are at sidehustleschool.com/444.
Thank you so much for listening. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. Got more coming for you tomorrow and every day after that. My name is Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School.
