The Armour Archive

I know that some people that I have never met have done very well with kickstarter and I knew what they advertize. What do I not know? Has anybody here ever used it? I assume there are fees, but couldn't find them on their site.

It looks good in theory, but I also know not everything is always as great as the advertising department makes it sound.

There are a number of other sites as well.
What are you raising funds for and how much Capitol do you need?

I have purchased items through kickstarter before, and talked a lot with the people who were running it.

a) Kickstarter takes 5% off the top, plus uses Amazon payment systems to process, and they take 3-5% off the top too. (https://www.kickstarter.com/help/fees)
b) You don't get paid (and neither do they) unless you meet the goal you defined. (Indiegogo is an alternative where you get funds regardless)
c) For any physical items, you must show that you have the competencies to make them and that it is not a pie in the sky idea.
d) Kickstarter is not an ordering system. It is a place where people can fund your startup capital, in return if successful you are promising to provide them rewards (which often are a product).
e) If you run a kickstarter, make sure to post updates regularly. Nothing pisses people off more than being radio silent for a couple months.
f) From talking to come companies that did it, you need to advertise the HELL out of it. Most of your donations will be in the first 5 days and last 5 days of your campaign. So you need to get off to a good start. Ones that have done well advertised to their communities ahead of time that they were starting a kickstarter... so when it opened, a bunch of people made pledges.

A good article on this is here: http://www.bleedingcool.com/2014/03/23/ ... -do-wrong/

I have lots of different ideas from improvements on existing SCA designs to a new type of rattan alternative sword. One of the things I like about the idea of kickstarter is that nobody is billed until the goal is met.

That avoids two situations I have experienced firsthand. First is me paying out of pocket for several items that are less enthusiastically received than I imagined (like my current improved taping forks at http://foxknife.com/store/index.php/har ... -fork.html ). Second is me annoying honest businessmen with quotes for piles of stuff and then only actually buying one or two prototype (see viewtopic.php?f=2&t=140330 for that example). The guy that did the water cutting for those tsubas no longer returns my phone messages.

With something like kickstarter, my thinking is only those ideas with a minimum number of customers lined up ahead of time get made and nobody gets charged for product they didn't receive.

On a less-about-me level, I was also looking at something like kickstarter being used for things like "I'm interested in the barony pitching in and buying a bulk order of rattan", which has been an issue in other places I have lived.

8-10% markup kind of nullifies the point of a bulk discount, however.

Heck I'd like to start a medieval village but not sure I'd be able to get that kind of support.

Losthelm (or anybody else reading this), are there any other sites that are better for the uses I've given?

The article link RoundTop provided is excellent and will apply to any fundraising project you run. Of particular import is the bit about the actual fundraising portion of the campaign being the final phase of a long campaign. My experience is that you need to build your groundswell of support for six-months to a year BEFORE you run your fundraising campaign. You need to be active in the communities that you are going to advertise in and sell to.

As you observe, the 10% skim that services like Kickstarter charge is the profit-margin/savings. You've really got to think the process through in order to ensure that you don't lose money on the process.

Please keep in mind that Kickstarter is NOT a group-buy system.

It is a crowd-funded venture capital method to get something up and running that would normally require too much of an investment up front.

Eg: I'm going to make armour using a custom die, but I need X funds to get that die produced and for materials. At Y pledge I'll give you a piece of armour made using this die once it gets setup.

It is not: I'm going to order this armour from a guy in Ukraine, but need 20 people to make the cost effective. Who's in?


Edit: real life example of a kickstarter I participated in:

Catalyst Game Labs had a board game (The Duke) that they wanted to get produced, but due to other financial commitments they could not do so for about 2 years. By putting it on kickstarter, they would be able to get it going within the year.

I pledged at the $70 level, then later upped that to $110 for additional options and pieces.

It took almost a year after the kickstarter completed, while it was going through production in China, quality control testing, and everything in between. But I finally got it (and love the quality of the product).

If it had not been a kickstarter, it still would not have come out yet.
(I have spoken to CGL's leadership team several times over the course of the time period about their experiences with Kickstarter, this product, and the campaign. They tried doing some others but shelved them due to the fit not being right / not getting enough social momentum before the kickstarter)

It sounds like you need something closer to a co-op setup.
The archive has done them only a few times successfully for cop nails.
I think it was Craig or sinric that organized the purchase.

Rattan may be easier to put in an order and arrange dispersement at pennsic or other large event.

You still may endup with people backing out or failing to pay in a timely manor.
One of the other boards I'm on does bulk buys from various suppliers for volume discounts.
They charge a few bucks as a buyin fee, postage, and PayPal fees.
The buy is announced, people signs up and look at available items.
two-three weeks later the orders and payments start going. The buy closes and the order goes in.
Then everyone waits for the company to ship the item. The organizer sorts, distributes, packs and tracks via post everything, people respond when packages arrive.
So far i have sceen pirchases range from socks to items on allibaba or Firemountain gems.
Costs run between wholesale to 20-30% less then retail.