Before Launching a Kickstarter campaign you must read this! Things your won't hear anywhere else about Kickstarter.

Thought I'd share some intell with you about running a Kickstarter. I'll start by saying my campaign failed and it hurt my business.

Here's the deal on Kickstarter;

1. Kickstarter the company provides zero support.

When you ask questions you get canned responses. When you rate their customer service you'll get you more canned responses.

RESULT: So you're on your own with this platform.

2. Company Culture -

If you check the staff of this company on LinkedIn etc. you notice a very eccentric, young looking staff. They look more interested in what hipsters are hating this week than business. This platform seems to be heavy on the geek staff when it needs business minded staff. Business people have business needs and Kickstarter staff could care less. It's like a payroll company that cares more about the computer system software than the end result for their customer.

Us campaign launchers are Kickstarters customer; we bring the income to pay their bills.


3. Community -

It's a fact certain items just speak to the Kickstarter community. If your product doesn't strike a cord with that group be cautious of dragging your personal circle of supporters into Kickstarter. Why over priced plastic water bottles sell like crazy I'll never know! You can get a plastic water bottle at any retailer for $7.99 but people are paying $30! If you're launching a plastic water bottle then you might be on the right track with Kickstarter.

MISTAKE: We encouraged our inner circle to pledge to Kickstarter in hopes that it would boost our page rank.

RESULT: Not hitting our goal, losing that funding opportunity to the platform failure. We could have used the money we raised but how many times can you ask people you know to enter their credit card for the same project? The money we could have actually collected had we just sent these people to a paypal link dropped by 60%.

4. Kickstarter is complicated.

Believe it or not there are a lot of people online that are not net intuitive. They do facebook, gmail and surf the web. Kickstarter's pledge process is not streamlined. First you have to register, that right there is more than some people want to do. Then the concept of rewards is not understood by many. As a matter of fact we had people who would rather hand us money and let us do the kickstarter part for them.

RESULT: We ended up spending a lot of time educating people on what Kickstarter IS and how it works. The concept of possibly getting a "reward" just was lost on most people. The idea that they may of may not be charged on their credit card was also bewildering.

NOTE: Even 30 somethings were challenged with the concept, typically a computer literate group!

5. TRUST

If you've never heard of Kickstarter you might not trust them with your credit card. We found that people are hyper sensitive to credit card fraud online. They are very selective on where they will enter their info. With the challenges of not fully understanding what the hell Kickstarter is comes the final road block, simply not trusting the site with their payment info.

6. Flawed Backend Algo System

You would think that Kickstarter would want to give every campaign a chance but they don't. If you don't come out of the gate on fire with tons of pledges on day one you're likely never going to get any traffic from the Kickstarter community.

Naturally you will send all your friends and family to reach higher funding percentages but as stated before that is a mistake. Your rank may bump up for a tiny bit but will fall immediately. When you don't hit your goal all those supporters funds will be lost.

On our campaign, using google analytics, we could see that 100% of all traffic to our Kickstarter landing page was from our own efforts. Meaning our twitter, facebook and paid advertising. Nothing from the supposedly huge Kickstarter community.



Bottom line: If you're going to launch a massive social media campaign, put out paid PRweb press releases, do media events, launch parties and call your aunt back in the old country for some money; just do a "PRE-ORDER" and Donate paypal button on your own website. Piggyback the Kickstarter campaign using all those efforts but drive the traffic to your site. If the Kickstarter community jumps on board then you double win.

When you send readers of a news articles and tweets to your Kickstarter landing page you assume 1. They will understand the concept of Kickstarter, #2 trust the site and lastly go through a signup process to give you money. Think about that.

While I fully get Kickstarter I was suprised how many didn't.

Here's the campaign we did. We knew going in it was not a popular product category for Kickstarter but we never expected to get ZERO traffic from the Kickstarter Platform. 

We've since routed all the social media and PR efforts to our site where they always should have been directed.

Keep in mind we brought almost every dollar into the Kickstarter from the outside, I think we had at most 3 people for $45

Just the Tip. Why the American resturant tipping system is wrong.

I know that servers tip other servers ridiculous amounts. For the rest of us, especially us economic minded, expected tips can be a sore point. Look it's a game and it's rigged to put server against patron.

Here is what is wrong with the system. Once upon a time a business owner had to pay someone to serve the food he sold. There was a really good server named Bob who was exceptional at making patrons feel welcomed and special. So Bob started getting extra money left for him because his customers enjoyed their experience so much that they wanted to reward him for a job well done.

Well the business owner said WAIT! You're making a lot of money Bob. Too much for simply serving my food. So the GREEDY business owner told Bob, I am going to pay you as little as the law makes me since you are tipped so much. AND by the way there is a line of people who want your job so leave if you don't like it. Bob liked his job and needed a job so he stayed.

Soon word spread that Bob the excellent employee's wage was lowered. So the good people of Bob's town felt sorry for Bob. Soon everyone would leave a tip no matter how good or bad the service was. And shortly there after the servers incentive to do a good job would vanish. And so today we effective have a shell game going on.

Restauranteur puts a lower price on menu, doesn't pay a baseline living wage and expects his patrons to effectively pay the server directly.  Putting the server and patron in an awkward relationship. The restaurant owner has effectively STOLEN the TIP for a job well done by lowering the pay to a point where a tip is required to compensate the effort required to do the job fairly.

How can it be fixed? One way is if EVERYONE stopped tipping. The people who do that hard server job would soon look for better pay or a job that wasn't so difficult for the pay. And very quickly business owners would have to raise their wage to keep the place open.

Since that isn't likely to happen a servers income will continue to be linked to the philosophy of each individual customer. Some will tip no matter how good or bad, others won't tip at all and some will tip when they are impressed with service. The best customer a server can hope for today is one with a big heart or a big ego who is afraid of being called cheap.


THAT AIN'T RIGHT!

Reef aquarium algae

I'm pretty sure the filter sock was causing constant algae bloom. I only cleaned it a couple times a month. Read that others clean theirs 5 to 6 times a month! Since I took it out of the water column things seem better.

Diatom filter method for reef salt water aquariums

Maybe this is well known? I just figured it out. So I've had many regular diatom explosions in my tank. Typically I suck the brown stringy diatoms out when I do a water change. But never get close to completely removing it. So I've been thinking about a Vortex diatom filter. When doing this last water change I noticed how well my macro algae chaeto filters the diatoms! Usually they breakup so fine that most common filter socks, etc can't contain them. So this idea hit me to stuff a good sized wad of chaeto in  my reactor 150 chamber to see if it would catch them. I only filled a quarter of the tube packed pretty dense. Well dang it worked! The out flow hose into a clear cup and no diatoms. The issue is that the flow is much less that the Vortex which probably clears the tank much faster. Anyway thought I'd share this DYI method to remove diatoms!

Late night spots to eat in San Diego

In San Diego, 24 hour mexican food has been your only after hours late night option for the most part. Recently, there have been some new choices.

1. Doner Grill 823 5th Ave. open until 3 am Thursday, Friday & Saturday.

2. Jimmy Wong's Golden Dragon - 414 university ave. in Hillcrest. Thai food. Says Chinese food but everything taste Thai. Open until 3am

3. Studio Diner - 1407 Ruffin Rd. , Fri, Saturday 24 hours, American diner food, burgers, milk shakes, onion rings.

4 dozens of Taco Shops

Natty Dread newspaper 1975 - UCSD

I found these in my attic. Looks like distrust if the government is nothing new! Students paranoid about the CIA at UCSD

Immediate gout arthritis remedy treatment

I just want others to know that I discovered marijuana oil from bubba kush immediately took away the pain and swelling of gout for 4 days after a tiny capsule of oil. Every four days for  3 weeks and the gout was gone. I don't believe the oil is masking the pain because of the small dose and the length of relief. Typically masked pain wears off with the effects of the oil 4 to 5 hours after taking oil. Maybe the oil breaks down crystallization? Or counteracts acid in blood? What I know is that I go from agonizing pain to being able to walk and sleep in 45 minutes to an hour from taking half of a size 00 capsule of cannabis oil from bubba kush variety with 4 days of no inflammation. Hope this makes your life better quickly. Lastly, I wanted to say that 500mg of Oxicodine was no match for the gout pain. Rest of me was numb but my foot was red, hot to touch and in severe pain.