"K-Kraft Miniatures Kickstart" Topic

I am making 20mm 1/72 scale sci-fi miniatures, i have spent the best part of a year setting this up and all i need now is to pay for my first batch of stock and production moulds, BUT . . . getting this far has used all the money i have.
I would really appreciate some support on my Kickstarter project to get my range launched and into production.

Kickstarter project
link

My webpage
k-kraft.com

Way too expensive, and no pics or detail on what it is we're supposed to be backing and no info on how you plan to handle production. Glad you have a dream, keep reaching for that rainbow good sir!

I'm not interested in 20mm scifi unfortunately, but I do have a few observations on your project page.

You need more content on the page – photos of the minis, scale pics, ideally paint a few casts as well to show how they could look. Explain to people what they can use these minis for – what games you're aiming at, what they are compatible with etc.

Also, your pricing levels are all over the place; the £10.00 GBP pledge costs £2.50 GBP a mini, and the top £100.00 GBP pledge costs £4.16 GBP a mini. That makes no sense. High level backers expect rightly to get the best deal. Plus, random factions is not a good idea; people like to pick the one that appeals to them.

When you use the word 'I' in your text, you haven't capitalised it. That makes you look sloppy, and can put people off.

£7,000.00 GBP funding total – really? That sounds high to me. 12 20mm minis sculpted, mastered and proddy moulded should be less than £3.00 GBPK easily; even allowing for KS fees and metal, the £7.00 GBPk goal looks high, and so looks unachievable to the average backer – so they don't back.

You should really back a few similar projects; ones by small businesses looking to launch a few miniatures. Just back for a pound, so you can follow along, get Updates etc and learn how other people do it.

Good luck with it – it's never easy starting up!

cheers,
Michael

Lovejoy
Unfortunatly i am currently unable to cast the models myself (as i cannot afford the 10K for the machines), the people producing the models for me are not cheap and that is the problem at the moment, once i have paid for the initial stock and have some to sell i am up and running.
Giving more models per pledge is a catch 22, people will be more eager to pledge but i'm loosing the money to set up my starting stock.
Thanks for the reply, and the information.

Kurt,

Your master figures look great. But I agree with McWong and Michael that at this point, your Kickstarter is doomed to fail. My advice follows. Some of it is harsh, but I'm only bothering to say anything because the figures look good, and could well succeed if you take the time to do this right.

I seriously recommend that you cancel this Kickstarter, and spend some time studying successful Kickstarters as Michael suggested. Then, re-launch, but next time around put more time and effort into having a polished presentation.

There are many things that should be fixed, and if they are not, will ensure that this project fails:

The sculpts look great; you need to put pictures of them on the Kickstarter page (there are pictures in the video, but not everyone will click on the video.

Use proper capitalization and grammar. Using lower case "i" all the time will make people think you are an amateur, lazy, and disorganized. Seriously, learn to capitalize. Even your name is not capitalized properly on the Kickstarter profile. Fix that.

Your posts here reflect the same sloppiness. When you are promoting your project, you want to come across as professional, well-organized, and attentive to detail. (It's "losing," not "loosing," by the way, unless you are loosing that money out an orifice.)

Random figures for pledge rewards? Terrible idea. Let people choose which faction they want. I guarantee you that this problem alone will probably mean you get zero pledges, and certainly will not get funded.

What are the factions?!? Have pictures and a description of each.

As Michael said, your pricing makes no sense. £10.00 GBP gets four rifleman. Fine. £25.00 GBP gets four riflemen and four grenadiers. This means grenadiers effectively cost £15.00 GBP for four figs: why so much more than the riflemen?

Same thing for the NCOs, but even more so: £50.00 GBP gets you four riflemen, four grenadiers, and four NCOs. Since you can get the four riflemen and four grenadiers under the £25.00 GBP pledge, this means the four NCOs cost a whopping £25.00 GBP Why?!? You are not Games Workshop. You can charge a small premium for command figures, but not 2.5 times as much as the rank & file troops.

What Michael is saying is that the price per casting should be lowest for the largest pledges, and highest for the smallest pledges. That is not the same as "giving more models per pledge." Figure out what the minimum price per model you can charge and still succeed, and use that price for the largest pledge levels, then increase the price a modest amount for the smaller pledge levels.

Here are a couple successfully funded Kickstarters that are comparable in scope to what you are trying to do. Take a look at how they presented their products, and how they structured their pledges:

link

link

Ivan DBA
Harsh advice is still advice and I thank you for the post. I must admit my grammar is not the best and I am currently rethinking the entire Kickstarter project layout.
I had not noticed the error on my profile name but cannot change it as I have a project active, and cannot find how you cancel a project (unless you e-mail Kickstarter!?)
The casting guy I am currently using is quite expensive, but have started looking around for someone who can do a better price for the work, thus bringing costs down for this.
I appreciate the advice.