Thanks again to all the contributors here, and particularly the regular contributors and those of you who have backed the
tiq KS campaign. We're into the final couple of days, the Hackaday publicity has brought a significant up-
tiq (oohh - sorry - couldn't resist!) in pledges - but still a long way to go.... I'm not giving up until the countdown ends!
BTW, KS (and a couple of other sources) provide creators useful data that is very telling about why the pledges have been below goal. While the reasons mentioned above are certainly factors, the biggest "lesson learned" (and useful for any others considering a KS project) is that you have to get enough interested people to GO TO KICKSTARTER. Seems obvious, but the majority of folks are not cruising around KS, don't really know what KS is/does, don't want to sign up and give credit card info etc. etc. But you need visitors to your page at a 5x - 10x multiple of your goal, since even when they get there not everyone will pledge (but a reliable % have, for
tiq). And there's the factor that if you tell people about your project on other sites (like this one), not everyone is going to hit the link and go to KS. So there's ANOTHER multiplication factor (like another 5x). In my case, I need ~600 pledges to meet goal, so I need ~6000 KS page visits and that's at least 30k unique people views elsewhere. I started publicizing
tiq 2 weeks before the campaign started, and my estimate of unique viewers to-date is ~10k - so I just haven't exposed
tiq to enough people
For others - START PUBLICIZING EARLY! For those doubting there's enough market, Arduinos alone sell at >10k/month, with well over 1m out there....
Regarding life after KS - I've got enough working
tiqs to last my lifetime, so I'm ok
JUST KIDDING - since
tiq has come this far, and there are >250 people who've already demonstrated they'll buy this kind of functionality, I want to bring this to life. I'm able to continue with the "KS plan", however, with the inputs I've received, reduced production expectations, and some new ideas, I likely will make some changes and re-launch in the not-too-distant future. EEVbloggers will be the first to know
But - it's not over until the fat lady sings (Sunday night at 6pm Pacific) - so please continue to support
tiq on KS, and if you haven't pledged already, please help - if the goal isn't reached you are NOT CHARGED! (That's an example of something not everyone knows about KS...)
Thanks to all (and to Dave for hosting this great forum - good on yer, mate!)
Mark