Kickstarter - How to turn failure into success

This week I’ve been talking to Dhruv Kumar, the creator of Livegrid, a Tamagotchi Inspired Digital Aquarium.

His is a particularly inspiring story because his campaign failed to meet its goal the first time around, and now he’s trying again and is well on track to exceed his target.

In my own experience, Kickstarter can be a humbling endeavour. You pour your heart and soul into an idea and put it out there for all to see. Sometimes it doesn’t work out and that’s really tough.

But the best entrepreneurs brush themselves down and get straight back on the horse.

That’s exactly what Dhruv did. I spoke to him about his story, his Kickstarter campaign, and the things he did to ensure a successful relaunch of the project.

Dhruv Kumar and his relaunched Livegrid Kickstarter campaign

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RH: Tell me a bit about your background.

DK: I graduated as an architect in India but quickly realised it wasn’t the right profession for me. Luckily by that time, I knew my true calling was interactive technology which I did for a few years in India before moving to London for a Masters at UCL. This helped me enter the Digital Arts industry of London, where I had the opportunity to work on international projects with ridiculous budgets.

I switched to IoT because of the much deeper impact it has on people's lives - and eventually started Livegrid almost one year ago.

[You can see Dhruv’s portfolio here: drvkmr.github.io]

What is Livegrid?

Livegrid primarily is an environmental sensor which shows the data in a unique way.

Livegrid: Tamagotchi Inspired Digital Aquarium

Instead of showing numbers or relying on an app, it shows the data in the form of a fascinating tamagotchi aquarium. The aquarium is designed to create an emotional connection with its users, with its health linked to the environment. This way, Livegrid actively encourages its users to keep their environment healthy, which is a design leap from the sensors available right now.

Where did the idea come from?

I was working at Jason Bruges when I found some LED matrices from an old project. These matrices are typically manufactured for large video walls in malls and advert billboards which makes them readily available and cheap. However, making them work is quite complex and requires expensive controllers. I decided to make an easy-to-use controller which is how it all began in 2020.

Why did you choose Kickstarter?

I was always fascinated by Kickstarter, and the idea that anyone can post a project and get support from people around the world. For Livegrid, I initially tried to avoid it because I was scared for some reason. However, after some discussions with you and the fact that I had almost completely run out of savings, I prepared and launched the project on Kickstarter.

Why do you think your first Kickstarter campaign didn't reach its goal?

I rushed and made a lot of mistakes at the same time.

• Not enough pre-launch marketing, I naively thought I can do enough marketing after the launch.

• The project goal was too high (£32,000). This was just a habit I carried from working in established studios where we always inflated budgets.

• Launched on Friday evening which apparently is the worst time to launch.

However, even with all of this, the fact that I reached £8,000 was a big motivation to keep going.

Before the campaign ended, I pushed out a survey to the supporters which really helped me understand what's important and develop in the right direction.

What did you do differently for the second campaign?

Put a lot of focus in pre-launch marketing. Built a bigger e-mail list which brought the largest number of launch supporters.

Let the pre-launch page sit on Kickstarter for two months, which organically brought followers in.

Reduced the project goal significantly by genuinely cutting down on non-essential costs, as reaching the goal fast is a 'must' for Kickstarter projects.

Lots of minor optimisations to the product itself (based on the feedback).

Launched on a Tuesday afternoon, apparently the best time to launch :)

Also invested around £300 in FB ads, although I am not sure how much difference it made.

This time it reached 100% goal in five days, and is over 230% of its goal as of now with three days until it ends.

What advice would you give people running a Kickstarter campaign?

Kickstarter's home page is filled with extremely successful projects - which can be quite misleading I think. Most of those projects are created by companies with dedicated marketing teams and massive ad budgets. It is important to not compare your project to those ones.

Marketing is essential to running a successful project, and there is no way around this.

Finally, don't let the fear of failure stop you. In my case, failing was actually good because it showed me how to really play the game. Also, all work I did for the first campaign was still used for the re-launch.

What's next for you?

Well, the first thing now is to actually make this project happen and ship the units to all the supporters. Beyond that it's not clear right now - I am hoping the path will reveal itself at the right time.

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Thanks to Dhruv for taking the time to share his experience, and you can see his campaign below.