Join Us to Make and Launch on Kickstarter

Go behind the scenes to learn 📝 How To Launch a Kickstarter and 30+ skills in 90 days

Many people don’t take a step towards their idea because they don’t like getting out of their comfort zone. That isn’t going to be me anymore. I am starting a new project and sharing everything with you.

Have you ever wondered what it takes to launch a product or launch it on Kickstarter?

You’re in the right place.

See every step of our journey to design, build, market, sell/launch on Kickstarter and then support a physical product.

Accept there is a catch. Well, for me anyway. I’ll be making it in public and in real time, live blogging for 90 days leading up to the launch. This isn’t a retro blog.

I’m getting out of my comfort zone co-designing and launching a physical product. It will be 100% in public view.

Gulp.

Launching on Kickstarter is no small thing. Research of successful launches in past show how important it is to have an audience.

The problem is I have no significant audience or following on social media and have never launched a physical product.

No big deal right?

Gulp.

Photo by Kyle Loftus on Unsplash

So why and how are we going to do this?

To be successful, we won’t be able to go around our problem. I’m going to have to confront it head on.

Or, like if you have read the book, the obstacle will have to become the way. (Ryan Holliday, The Obstacle Is the Way).

If you would like to jump in and see the current status of the project — scroll down.

So comment and let me know, what would you like to see?

Will you join the Maker team?

Sign up right here to be a part of the team. I’ll send you updates by email so you won’t miss any of the behind the scenes action, and it’s where I post all the updates first. I’ll also send you a free ebook of the entire process after we launch.

Beyond the Kickstarter, is my mission is to use this as a blueprint to encourage anyone to change their life for the better. Because I believe in the power of good things happen when you just make something.

This is where I will also answer and do what you would like to see while I launch the project live (assuming it will help the project). See live experiments and results.

Join the team right here and never miss an update.

Day 0 — Everything done so far

Everyday I will post a TL;DR version of what happened. The newsletter, I’ll give you a heads up of what I’m live blogging next.

TL;DR — What is this?

Ready Kit is a compact and multi-use bag to help bring organization instead of chaos to your life wherever you go. It’s design is for first aid kit that you’ll actually use so you are prepared. It’s also ready to replace your travel tote bag with simplicity of storing just the essentials and not the clutter. It’s ready for any adventure you have and we’re excited to see what you use it for.

What’s different is how you can customize it for what you need. What we noticed is most bags are generic and non specific, actually create disorganization. We are designing it as something simple, minimal and multi-functional.

We started this as an idea to send one hygiene kit to a family in Haiti with your purchase of a Kit. At the core of what we do, our goal is to figure out a way to engage people to give hygiene and disaster response kits to Haiti. We believe basic hygiene is a human right.

I few years ago I went to Haiti and we went to the villages and passed out hygiene kits to families in need. These were families were still living in make shift blue tarp huts from the devastating earthquake.

They literally slept on dirt and lacked any form of consistent type of basic hygiene.

Imagine you live there and you have a headache. Forget about finding an Advil. They don’t even have soap.

That’s unacceptable to me.

Because we believe hygiene is a basic human right. So what if we created a business that engaged people to buy a bag and give a hygiene kit to a family in need?

Every time you use your Ready Kit my hope is for you to be inspired and reminded of the purpose of sending hygiene kits to families in need.

Project scope — provide comments here or in the linked google doc :)

Marketing

• Strategy document — this is overall strategy of how we are going to bring this product to market. (What are the three things are we going to do really well?)
• Vision document — this is what is the product and what purpose will it serve. How will it be different and better serve those who purchase it?
• Roadmap document — what are all the things we must do to launch. If you subscribe to our Kickstarter launch newsletter, we’ll make sure you are in the know when we go behind the scenes to make it. Don’t miss out because we all get busy and get distracted.

Want to see all of this get done?👇🏼 What are you most interested in seeing? Leave a comment here or the roadmap document.

• Cost Analysis
• Project and Product Stack

Product Design

First Prototype Delivered mid July

• Can leave design comments here in Medium or this document.
• Let’s just be real. First prototype has a ways to go. Full analysis of what needs to change in this document here. What’s not included in this design is the modular components we will be adding. But below you can get a sense for the size, and function. I anticipate the inside pockets changing substantially. What do you think?
• What is hard to see at this point is the details behind the inside components. More to come here.
• Also the logo is just a patch to see size. Much much more refinement to go. But I wanted everyone to see how you start. It starts ugly.

1st image is front. 2nd is back. !st prototype. Needs much work. Goal was to get overall feel and function.

Pockets on left need to change — not functional. Yellow stitch is very bad. I did not anticipate the yellow thread on black materials. That will change. Also, modular design has not been sketched out yet.

First Dry Run sent for hygiene kits to Haiti:

Each hygiene kit has a washcloth, toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, floss and comb.

• We packed 45 total hygiene kits in about 2 hours…took twice as long as I thought it. Also shipping was much more expensive than I initially scoped out $138 vs actual of $207!!! The reason was the weight of box was 23 pounds! Way more than I thought. This jacked up our total cost per hygiene kit by more than a dollar.

You can see the cost analysis here and see the complete break down. First shipment went to Haiti July 16. I’m testing to see what type of labor is involved to pack, shipment costs and time to deliver.

Had a great little helper pack our first shipment to Haiti.

Day 1 — July 20, 2018

TL;DR — reached out to reddit to survey people and ask what they do not like about small travel bag. Made google form with ask for email at the end.

Marketing

• Got feedback from Andrey Azimov — “focus on people who can potentially be interested in this…like reddit/r travel…focus on product and potential customers…travel forms…you can make some survey in google forms…and ask people on travel forums about why travel bags sucks”. I’ll be seeking our forums on reddit to ask people what they don’t like about their travel bags. Hopefully this will start to build audience.
• Finished the first email for the Maker Newsletter — You can check that out when you sign up.

Day 2— July 21, 2018

• Finished the second and third email for the Maker Newsletter. Curious what people think of the flow and how I laid out the content for the three emails. You can see for yourself by signing up here.
• Studied a lot of hashtags for Instagram and I started to engage with other makers who have recently launched their Kickstarter.

Day 3— July 22, 2018

Marketing

• Engaged with more makers on their Kickstarter.
• Also I DM Jason on his request here.

• Created first Instagram launch post here. I got more traffic than I thought considering I posted at almost midnight. That’s the best timing right? SMH. I needed to get it out the door and started. I actually got a few people signed up for the Maker Newsletter and interested. YEAH!

Day 4— July 23, 2018

Design

• Had a detailed conversation with the designer today. Notes on what we discussed are here. The TL;DR, we are cleaning up the interior quite a bit, getting rid of yellow thread, altering the pockets on inside left flap, discussed logo placement, and a few other items. It’s still missing something and we are set to have another conversation.

Marketing

• 📝 A How To: Drive email conversions. A basic funnel created.

Step 1: Here is first Facebook and Twitter Post.

• This looks basic but here is the framework that has driven 15 email sign ups from one post. Remember I have very small unengaged audience to start with. This is ugly sketch, but at end of 90 days challenge I’ll clean it up to be readable.

Step 2: Is really having the other parts of the funnel ready. Don’t start creating value without the ability to start capturing it. I created the funnel in reverse order. First I created the blog (#3 below), then I created the first 3 email newsletters when you sign up (#2 below), then I synched up ConvertKit, then I created the social media posts last (#1). For a visual check out this framework:

Day 5— July 23, 2018

Marketing

• Recently an Indiemaker Daniel Meade I have been following launched https://givewithella.com/ Which is a concept I believe in strongly solving the problem of finding the right charity to give support to.
• I happened to notice a community he started https://opengood.co/ . I was just checking it out when Daniel got some love when he asked me to tell a bit about this project in the community.
• It surprised me because it was the first time anyone asked me to explain what the project was. I failed today to give a clear answer as to what we’re doing. As a result no one asked a question…😩.
• “If you confuse you lose.” What I realized is I don’t have down a 2–3 sentence explainer. So I worked on it tonight. Does this make sense to you: “Ready Kit, is a simple multipurpose bag to organize your clutter wherever you go. With every purchase we partner with a local organization in Haiti to distribute hygiene kits to families in need.”

Design

• Had another conversation with our designer Michael . We are hashing out a concept that’s kind of radical and different. I want to expand the modular design and make something bold that accentuates what is going to make this bag different. I’ll post this in the Maker Team Newsletter to get feedback tonight.

Day 6 — July 24, 2018

Design

• The latest changes to the first prototype are here. Aesthetically I am much happier where we are going. Functionally, my designer and I are at odds over how to make it modular.
• Ramping up for a big weekend I spent time planning today what will be creating next.

Day 7— July 25, 2018

• 📝 A How To: How would you explain what you’re working on? This is more difficult than it appears. See the framework of how I got clarity:

1. I did some research and modeled after Gather. I chose Gather because I loved the clarity of how they describe their product and our products share similar value props (organization, minimalism, reduce the clutter).

“Gather is a modular home for your essentials, thoughtfully designed to help you cut through the clutter.”

I used that as a template to start.

2. Then I substituted in what made this project unique from our UVP and created three options.

3. I then posted to Twitter and FB get feedback by way of voting. Thankful for input from other Maker’s like Daniel:

See Day 8 below the before and after.

Day 8— July 26, 2018

• How would you explain what you’re working on? Asking for feedback was insanely more helpful than I thought it would be. What do you think?
• Before👇🏼:

• After: “Ready Kit is a multi-use first aid and travel kit to help bring organization to your life wherever you go. With every purchase, we partner with a local organization in Haiti to distribute hygiene kits to families in need.” Thoughts?

Day 9–11: July 27 — 30, 2018

• Time spent planning these few days. I have a lot I am loading up. Also, over the weekend I was not nearly as productive as I would have liked…family happened.
• Because I will be leveraging twitter — I created a pinned post that will drive engagement. Think of it like a landing page for twitter.
• So far in first 24 hours 242 impressions, 68 total view, and 24 actual engagements. As I share more through twitter my hope is that this will drive high conversion to more twitter followers and email newsletter sign ups.

Day 13: August 1

📝 A How To: Have you ever named a product or business before? Naming a product is my least favorite part about the creation process.

Our Purpose:

Ready Kit is a multi-use first aid and travel kit to help bring organization to your life wherever you go.

With every purchase, we send a hygiene kit to Mission of Hope:Haiti to distribute to families in need.

The current name of this product is #1 below. What do you think???

1. Ready Kit
2. Adventure Kit
3. Savvy Kit
4. Village kit
5. Kit Relief
6. Angel Kit
7. Matter Kit
8. Project: Village Kit
9. Project: Ready Kit
10. …

🙂 Helpful exercise to name what we are doing. 🙂 I used this from Nathan Barry’s blog: http://nathanbarry.com/naming-your-product/

1. What is the core function of our product?

A. Store B. Organize C. Provide life saving resources D. Provide life preserving resources

2. Is there a way we want to describe that product?

A. Just your essentials B. Organized C. Ready

3. Are there other ways to describe the actions that are shorter, and easier to remember?

A.Essential

4. Can we combine the words to make a cool sounding name that describes your business?

A. Essential kit

B. …

5. Or we could try removing vowels or adding suffixes like “LY”, “IT”,”ER”

A. Essentially

B. …

🙂 Have any ideas? 🙂

As you may know I am doing a challenge to push myself outside my comfort zone. I’m calling it a 90 day to make and launch a Kickstarter.

I would love your support and help to make this project a reality 🙂

This blog often lags 24–48 hours behind. To always have the latest news and give input sign up to be part of the Maker Team 👇🏼!

Day 15: August 3

DESIGN

My designer quit today. I received an email from our original designer stating he has to quit the project. He has started a new job and not running his design shop anymore.

This was no surprise at all and I think this is a blessing in disguise. He was flaky from the beginning and I stayed with him even when he was super non responsive. I saw the warning signs, but my goal was to at least get a finished prototype then find a manufacturer to give the finished specs to. We got about half way there.

I’ll be spending all weekend looking for a new designer and post how I find our next one.

The project goes on.

Day 18: August 6

Made progress over the weekend talked to three designers who could to the next prototype. Had conversations with two that were interested. Fingers crossed that one of them can take the project on. What we need is one or two more iterations for the prototype.

Day 27: August 15

The last week has been the most depressing of this challenge so far. And just 48 hours ago, things were not looking good for this project.

1. I was still looking for a new designer (the old one actually shut down his shop and announced it on Instagram)

2. I felt a dark cloud of lack of clarity

3. I had still not been able to connect with key contacts due to missed phone calls and conflict of schedules

But suddenly like a passing storm things changed. August 15 was a great day.

✂️NEW Designer — we found one! The old one quitting on the project set us back about 5 days. It takes a lot of time to find someone who is qualified and willing to take on the project. We now have someone who is excited to take this on and has already begun working on the second prototype.

🎥ACCESS to Haiti video footage to use for the Kickstarter campaign. Kickstarters are astoundingly more successful when they have a video. And especially when you can use it as a way to emotionally connect to people with your organizations mission. I have a friend named Matt whom I went to Haiti with in 2015. He just so happens to be an Emmy Award winning videographer. AND has agreed to give us access to over 220 GB of video during his documentary in Haiti that one him an award. Saaaay whaaaat!

🌅CLARITY around logo and the name of this project. After a ton of great feedback through social media I am planning a grand reveal next week. Right now working on the landing page.

🔦FOCUS around what we could go to market with. There is a lot we could do. But to be successful focus is key. Especially starting. Are we providing hygiene kits and disaster relief kits? Where are we providing it to? Starting small is a position of strength. I see that now.

🔨PRODUCTION of creating these kits. This is a large obstacle we must overcome for this project. A friend Josiah Smith brought to me the idea about to empower Haitians to make the soap for the hygiene kits. This is something we would really like to do. However we have no experience or know how. This led to the idea of sourcing the labor from people in Haiti to create the First Aid kits. What do you think about that?

🌅CLARITY around logo and the name of this project. Next week will reveal the new landing page with logo and name.

Day 63: September 20

We have some catching up to do…

A lot has transpired and delayed the project but, there still is hope. I have much to update but will wait to post more soon. Right now what I have been working on is creating a lead generation mechanism. So I created a game that can be shared on social media.

Check it out right here. It is the first prototype.

Have you heard of the game, The Oregon Trail? Is it modeled after it. I’d love to know what your thoughts are.

JOIN THE TEAM AND NEVER MISS AN UPDATE. I’d love your feedback!

Follow me on twitter. @ me and DM any ideas or feedback. Thank you very much for reading. @michaeljnovotny

Michael Novotny (@MichaelJNovotny) | Twitter

Thanks for reading and hope to connect with awesome people who want to be a part of this journey.

How I got to this point…

My TL;DR story summed up in two words:

Make Something.

When I stopped learning passively and and started making…my life changed in a big way.

But, I learned a really painful lesson along the way. Two years ago I launched an online marketplace for farm to table. But it was a lonely, long, I was burnt out and I really needed help along the way.

After grinding every night and weekend for a year I was ready to give up. Thankfully I stumbled to the “finish line” to launch it, but with not much drive left in the tank. Launching changed my life but my side project turned side business didn’t survive. That sucked.

I had thought that you should not tell other people about your product until it was a finished product. I was wrong.

This time it’s going to be different.

Instead of trying to figure it out alone, I am going to make it in public. Working in public isn’t new but I’ve seen it done with incredible success by these Makers below whom I try to model after.

I’ve learned watching Pieter Levels and I’m determined to try and apply what he does and writes about in his book Make.

I’ve studied up on Nathan Berry’s 2013 Web App Challenge and will be using his principles and structure to launch ConvertKit (now Seva).

And I’ve devoured every piece of insight I could from Jeff Sheldon of Ugmonk who launched a beautiful and insanely successful product on Kickstarter.

I’ve also had the chance to see how Andrey Azimov quit his job and go hard core to become an indie maker. I connected with him two months ago about a side project I was making. He gave me great advice and helped me get out of the “make it perfect” mold.

I’ve listened to Andrey and others, self scouted myself, learned that I have to get out of perfectionism and just ship.

Collaboration creates unique connections working by yourself never could. — Benjamin P. Hardy

(I owe a lot to these four for just responding to me when I had beginner questions. They were awesome enough to help.)

The “Live Blog” Experiment

This isn’t your ordinary, how I did this retro blog. I want to invite you to join me as I “live blog” the entire journey from start to launch on Kickstarter. You can sign up by email and follow on twitter.

With live blogging I hope to engage you during the actual making, sort of like crowdsourcing the areas of the product and process I am not going to pretend to be an expert. It’s more so than just building in public. (I am sure it’s been done before. Or maybe its not even a real thing? — I have no idea but I couldn’t think of a better way to describe it…)

During the “90 days to launch”, I will be responding to 100% of your feedback, suggestions and ideas. You get 100% Access. And 100% transparency when you sign up for the 90 days to launch newsletter. (Could be a very bad idea…but its an experiment.)

I’ll be sending emails through out the week with progress, what we need input with and what ideas and feedback is useful. If you help the project in anyway, I’ll be giving shout outs. Hopefully I can give a lot of them!

I’ll need your feedback and input to make this project successful and hit our Kickstarter funding goal. I don’t want to make the mistake of thinking I know it all.

Ever heard of crowdsourcing the making of a product? We’re doing that in 90 days to see if we can hit our Kickstarter goal.

If you have never made a product before, now would be a great time to see it all and your input could influence me as we make this product.

By the end you will at a minimum, learn 30+ skills in 90 days.

My goal is for you to use this experience thinking, “I can do that” to start your own side project, Kickstarter, startup…and to stop waiting. Start making.

That’s where real growth happens. That’s what happened to me.