Kickstarter Fulfillment & Product: A story of dogfood and data validation
fredbenenson.com
fredbenenson.com
Fulfillment is KS's big hole, and an opportunity for them to make even more from projects as an optional service. I have done this kind of stuff before so was able to plan my mailing week fairly well, and KS do have a good list of tips on the site.
But too many projects crash on these rocks. Sourcing, packing, and shipping are hard work and can be a distraction from the real goal, which is whatever it is you just got paid to make.
The bold print blames Google Docs or Excel for interpreting the ZIP as a number and dropping the leading 0. You can fix this in Excel by right-clicking the column, choosing "Format Cell" then under the Special section click Zip Code. You can even do this after you've pasted the data. In Google Docs you have to select the column and change the type to Plain Text before you paste the data. Either way not too hard to fix.
That would make it easier to estimate costs vs rewards for each level and provide a guartanee for KickStarter users. KickStarter as fullfillment would make everyone happier.
Question: Bringing in $3600 and only profiting $400; was the whole thing worth it in the end?