A Crowdfunder’s Strategy Guide by Jamey Stegmaier

Author:Jamey Stegmaier
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.
Published: 2015-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

FIGURE 5. Many backers begin to feel restless if a project is more than three months late.

Every backer has a tipping point, but the majority seem to start being aggravated when they haven’t received their rewards between three to six months after the estimated delivery month.

Is It Even Possible to Deliver by the Estimated Delivery Date?

It’s rare but possible. Viticulture and Euphoria delivered early to many backers, on time to most backers, and a few weeks late to a small number of backers in the UK because of a mislabeled pallet.

Most large board-game companies don’t even release delivery dates until the games are actually on the boat from the manufacturer (or very close to it). Why is that? Because it’s really, really hard to correctly estimate dates many months in advance, even for major publishers who have way more experience than you or me. Crowdfunders don’t have the luxury of waiting until the product is on the boat to launch their crowdfunding campaign. Thus the difficulty in delivering on time isn’t so much your physical ability to finish the product and deliver it as it is your ability to correctly estimate the delivery schedule.

The best thing you can do to increase your chance of delivering on time is to under promise and over deliver. Estimate your delivery date, and then add two months to it. Continue to operate as though you promised to deliver during the actual estimated month, and if you pull it off, awesome. But having some buffer room to account for all the things that can go wrong when developing a project can be huge.

Don’t even attempt to deliver a project in November or December. There’s simply too much happening at that time in terms of retailers, shipping companies (freight and courier), and the complications of backers going on vacation (which you will also encounter in August, particularly with European backers). It’s great to get products on shelves for the holiday season (after delivering to backers), but if you want that, you should eye October as the very latest delivery month.

Remember that there is no better way to lose future backers than by delivering your product to retailers before you deliver it to backers. Don’t do it. If you’re working with other parties who have control of when your product is released to retailers (like a distribution broker), make sure you have a very clear, written understanding that the distributor cannot release the game to retailers until you authorize it.

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