Host Richard Bliss and Co-Host John Coveyou are joined by Michael Mindes from Tasty Minstrel Games. 

Michael had just launched and cancelled a Kickstarter campaign because he knew he had done something wrong. 

Within two hours of launching the Kickstarter campaign, Michael knew they had missed on the offer and needed to take immediate action. Within three days, Michael was close to his funding goal, but knew they needed to pull the plug. If they had crossed the funding goal, he would have felt morally committed to follow through.

He refers to it as a micro-failure. What Michael saw as valuable was not recognized as something people were willing to pay for.
 
This episode Michael walks through the mistakes made and what they are doing to fix them for the next campaign.

Host Richard Bliss and Co-Host Thomas Umstattd Jr. who hosts the Creative Funding Show podcast, deliver a CrossCast episode to discuss Patreon and the power of the crowd to deliver consistent financial support.

In addition, Richard shares how he let his fans down and apologizes for how he handled the situation ( or failed to handle it), when life happened.

The hosts cover the idea of Patreon and how you can take advantage of it. It is a fun conversation that you will enjoy as much listening to as the hosts enjoyed creating it.

Host Richard Bliss and Guest A.J. Porfirio discuss game books and their live Kickstarter project. They have launched Graphic Novel Adventures Vol 2 on Kickstarter.

A.J. and Richard discuss how to license intellectual property, how to maintain a brand.

Van Ryder Games delivers strong narrative-based games with a solo-play angle. They have expanded into Adventure books because it continues with their brand of playing games that tell a story.

How do you find intellectual property? How do you get a license for a series of books? A.J. is always looking for new content and found the game book called Captive, a solo game book.

He had a personal passion for this kind of game. The key part of the story is that the game was difficult to find. Demand was there but supply was limited. He saw this as an opportunity.

Richard has backed A.J.'s Kickstarter campaign. Here is the link for you to do as well:

www.kickstarter.com/projects/vanrydergames/graphic-novel-adventures-season-2/description

Host Richard Bliss and Guest Eric Price, owner of Japanime games, explain why to bundle three smaller projects/games into a single Kickstarter campaign. 

Eric has built a company with Kickstarter and continues to make Kickstarter tightly tied to the growth of their company. Their current Kickstarter project, Three Worlds of Mystery, is a bundle of three different games with a similar theme and artwork that brings them together.

Eric has launched 20 Kickstarter campaigns, using the momentum from each to bring success to the company itself.

Host Richard Bliss and guest Tomas Härenstam talk about Tales from the Loop and gives advice on how to turn small projects into larger projects.

Their first project was an art book highlighting the talents of artist Simon Stålenhag

Simon's art and concepts are now being turned into an Amazon Prime Television production.

Tomas shares how he began working with Simon, how their tiny project turned into a series of large one. One of the great things about Tomas is he finds something of interest to one audience and transfers that interest to a totally different audience.

Find out more about Tomas Härenstam

Free League Publishing http://frialigan.se/en/startpage/

Tales from the Loop Kickstarter

Host Richard Bliss and Co-Host John Coveyou discuss five attributes of a great product on Kickstarter.

1. People want to buy the product. While this seems obvious. oftentimes people want a product, but aren't willing to pay for the product. You have to find something that is valuable to your audience.
2. People want to tell others about it. Word of mouth marketing is the best means of attracting fans and backers to your project. You can pay for a crowdfunding promotional company to help you artificially spread the word by paying for placement. But when your backers are excited enough to share their support you are able to grow and attract a wider range of backers than you ever could through paid media.
3. People can't easily get it elsewhere. This may seem counter-intuitive. Table top games, which are the single largest funding category on Kickstarter, can be purchased in a store. But the opportunity to participate on Kickstarter means you will get it sooner (Usually), you will get exclusives (Sometimes) or you are part of the development process and have an emotional investment. (An experience). All of these are hard to get if you are buying the product from Target.
4. It's something tangible and shippable. Selling an emotional experience on Kickstarter can be done, but it is a very rare thing. Instead, focus on creating and shipping a product of some kind that can be held in the hands and used. Today, there is a lot of support for how to approach manufacturers and shipping specialists to get your products produced and delivered around the world.
5. The audience is on Kickstarter. While Kickstarter and crowdfunding is common for you and I, it is still something very new to a large portion of the population. If you are going to launch a product, you need to determine if your target audience uses crowdfunding and Kickstarter. If they don't, you have to educate them first about what is Crowdfunding, then you have to convince them to back your project and give you money. Something they probably aren't comfortable with. 

John does a great job of highlighting these five attributes and how to build a great product for Kickstarter.

Host Richard Bliss discusses Live Kickstarter project Legends fo Novus with his guest, Bryan Rosander.

Bryan dug deep into the Kickstarter project and delivers some great analysis and feedback on ways for Legends of Novus to improve their message, format, and engagement. 

In addition, Richard Bliss apologizes for the failure of follow through on the Funding the Dream Patreon project. 

A Facebook Group has been created that discusses each episode. You can find it here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2628612933820642/

Host Richard Bliss is joined by co-host, John Coveyou, to discuss 4 unexpected benefits from Kickstarter.     

1. Gauge demand before you manufacture.

2. Improve your product based on customer feedback.

3. Ship products with maximal efficiency.

4. Tap into an audience you wouldn't be able to reach otherwise.

You do everything by the book. Follow all the advice, and yet you still fail to attract the numbers you need to successfully fund your Kickstarter campaign. These are the questions Wes Woodbury and I discuss. His project, Legends of Novus, has beautiful art work, great video, beautiful graphics, and an enticing theme, yet is still failing to draw a crowd.

The question I ask you, the audience, is WHY? What has Wes done wrong and how can he fix it. If you have an answer, I want to hear from you. I'll have you on the show to discuss Wes' campaign and how he can succeed.

Legends of Novus Kickstarter Campaign

Legends of Novus Website

Take a listen. I'm looking forward to hearing from you.

Mark Roderick explains the difference between equity-based and rewards-based crowdfunding.

Mark Roderick is a corporate and securities lawyer. Since the JOBS Act of 2012, Mark has spent all his time in the Crowdfunding space and is one of the leading Crowdfunding and Fintech lawyers in the United States. He writes a widely-read blog, www.CrowdfundAttny.com, with a wealth of legal and practical information for portals and issuers. Mark also speak at Crowdfunding events across the country, and represents industry participants across the country and around the world