best practices in crowdfunding

Hi, was wondering what your best practices in crowd funding are, as you've had a few successful ones. I've backed a few of them as well.

First, I recorded a HUGE podcast on the topic last year.  That will be the most thorough response.

I feel like each kickstarter I do it is still a mad scramble through the whole thing to get it to work out.  

I think there is a good 80 hours of hard work before the kickstarter starts, and then there is 60 hours of hard work each week throughout the kickstarter.  I feel I need to mention this because i see a lot of people putting together kickstarters and it is clear that they aren't doing the full effort - so it doesn't work out.  

As I look over the current kickstarter, here are the things that I think are helping a lot:

- make a great kickstarter video first - then build the rest of the kickstarter around that

- make a lot of substantial and great stuff at the $1 level

- make a lot of rewards loaded with a lot of goodies at the rest of the levels

     * make the deal better for kickstarter supporters than any other supporter for the next year

- have a lot of skin in the game before the kickstarter starts (some kickstarter folks don't have any work done on the product when the kickstarter starts)

- have lots of talented friend (tracy did the pics, dan made the video, shawn helped with the wording, a dozen people gave excellent feedback)

- promote other kickstarters and other stuff before your own kickstarter.  Then, when your kickstarter is going, go back to those peeps and ask for them to return the favor

- give away lots and lots of stuff over many years, and in time, people will sorta watch your stuff for similar offerings, and when you offer a kickstarter, a lot of them are keen to support!

- make the kickstarter description media rich - loaded with images and videos.


There's a few things off the top of my head!

I need to tell you guys  that if you spend 80 or so hours prepping a kickstarter, and then didn't know there is a "community page," as you just said,on kickstarter???What gives??? maybe the site is poorly designe similar to Facebook???how can anyone who has exactly ten minutes to give the subject even find out how to "comment" on kickstarter???  Consider, we don't live on computers, might possibly own a normal cooking device that runs with the flip of  switch, and so have a very short tolerance for extremely poorly designed websites (Kickstarter).  Mind you, i donated on your second call, but even that as laborious, for me, (not for you).  Also, consider, you opend onnthe hottest days of the year for most of us!  i don't want to even say the word "cooking" when it is 95 and 80% humidity!! you MIGHT hook me on a woodfired air conditioner!

The beauty of it all, Alexander, is that hopefully the video will be in your hot little hands (see my joke about the weather?) in time to build one of these to start using it this fall and winter!
We just came out of a nice, normal and wet Montana spring early summer, and now the temps are popping up into the high 80s and low 90s.