Stegmaier - A Crowdfunder’s Strategy Guide: Build a Better Business by Building Community

A Crowdfunders Strategy Guide

A CROWDFUNDERS STRATEGY GUIDE

BUILD A BETTER BUSINESS BY BUILDING COMMUNITY

JAMEY STEGMAIER

A Crowdfunders Strategy Guide

Copyright 2015 by Jamey Stegmaier

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First Edition

Paperback print edition ISBN 978-1-62656-408-4

PDF e-book ISBN 978-1-62656-409-1

IDPF e-book ISBN 978-1-62656-410-7

2015-1

Interior design and production: VJB/Scribe. Copyeditor: John Pierce.

Proofreader: Nancy Bell. Index: George Draffan.

Cover/jacket design: Wes Youssi/M.80 Design.

Author photo: Erin Desmarais.

To all of my fellow creators who put their backers first.

This book was supposed to be a young adult dystopian novel set in the year 2094.

In March 2012, I was six months into the design and development of Viticulture, the game that would later become the cornerstone of my company, Stonemaier Games. I was burning out. The game was in a pretty good place, but it wasnt ready for Kickstarter, and I had neglected my other creative passion, writing, for a long time.

I had also started to understand how big a commitment it is to design and publish a game, and I was worried that once I went down that path, it would be really difficult to accomplish my lifelong goal of writing a novel.

Id tried to write novels before. Two of them, specifically. I approached both as epic projects that would take years to complete. I got about halfway through both before I gave up. Other things took priority.

However, I have writer friends who write multiple novels a year. Writer friends with kids. And jobs. And other passions.

So in March 2012, I gave myself two months to write a novel from start to finish. It was my sole focus during that time, other than my day job, eating, and sleeping.

The strategy actually worked! Two months after I started, I put the finishing touches on Wrinkle, a novel in which overpopulation results in a significant number of people electively traveling to the future.

As you can see by this books cover, youre not reading Wrinkle. But this book wouldnt exist without Wrinkle for several reasons: First, completing a novel after thirty-one years of not completing a novel felt like a full-body cleanse. (Thats an assumptionIve never tried a full-body cleanse, unless you count Taco Bell.) I felt unburdened by that long-overdue personal goal, and I was free to go allin on my Kickstarter campaign for Viticulture. Without a successful campaign for Viticulture, its likely that none of thisthe games, the company, the blog, this bookwould exist.

Second, completing Wrinkle helped me realize that I was the only person or entity holding myself back from the joy of creating something new. That is the difference between an imaginative person and a creative persona creative person actually creates things. Crossing that threshold prepared me for the creative process that goes hand in hand with being a crowdfunder.

Third, after writing and revising Wrinkle in the summer of 2012, the novel came up in conversation with a literary agent I knew through some contacts in the publishing world. Jennifer Chen Tran read the manuscript, gave me some good feedback, and encouraged me to keep working on it.

I stayed in touch with Jennifer over the next year, during which time I ran two successful Kickstarter campaigns and built a strong audience on my blog about crowdfunding. One day, she e-mailed me and asked, Have you ever thought about writing a book about crowdfunding?

I had entertained the idea but hadnt seriously considered it. In terms of total content, I had already written a bookall of my blog entries up to that point could fill a large tome.

Jennifer pointed out that the blog is pretty technicalit is mostly a step-by-step guide on how to create a successful crowdfunding project. It doesnt read as a cohesive whole. It doesnt tell a story.

More important, she added, my blog reaches only those who happen to stumble on it. Its a limited audience, mostly tabletop game creators. Think of the other people you could help by telling your storyand the stories of innovative crowdfundersin a book, Jennifer said. (Im paraphrasing herein reality, about twenty e-mail messages were needed before I fully grasped the concept.)

She was right. The whole goal of the blog was to help other creators, and I was reaching only a very small subset at that point. So I started writing this book for all types of entrepreneurs who are intrigued by the idea of crowdfunding, particularly those who are open to the idea that creating something is less about themthe creatorsand more about othersthe backers, customers, fans, and supporters who share a passion for the thing the creators are trying to make.

If you like this book, you can thank Jennifer Chen Tran and my readers for inspiring and encouraging me to create something for you. If you dont like it, you can blame its existence on the popularity of the YA dystopian genre.

Ive run seven successful Kickstarter projects that together have raised more than a million dollars, and Ive consulted on and backed countless others. The success of those campaigns has allowed me to run my board game publishing company, Stonemaier Games, full-time.

Throughout this book I refer to Stonemaier Games in terms of we and our, since Im not alone in this endeavor. I have a business partner (Alan Stone), an advisory board, hundreds of ambassadors, and thousands of backers (crowdfunding customers).

I designed three of our gamesViticulture, Euphoria, and Tuscanyas well as a game accessory, the Treasure Chest, all four of which have a total of nearly fifty thousand copies in print. To put it in perspective, thats really good for a small publishing company that has been around for about two years and really bad for, say, Hasbro.