A year and a half since my last blog — looks like I fell out of the habit for a while! But I like blogging during Dallas Stars games, and we’re watching the Stanley Cup Playoffs in September this year, so…seems a good time to resume.
Wouldn’t you like to break some codes?
Last week I launched the Kickstarter campaign for one of my favorite entrepreneurial projects, Prize Puzzle Pouch*. I realized when I launched that I wasn’t really ready — I’ve put a lot of work into the product, which means a lot of creative content work, and very little pre-launch marketing and audience build up.
There isn’t a single “right way” to launch a business, but there are certainly best practices, and launching without a pre-built, first-person audience isn’t one of them.
So why pull the trigger? Here are a few thoughts:
It’s easy for creative people to go full steam ahead on development but never take the jump to the business side of, well, business.
if you’re aware of the opportunity for improvement, even a process that started without the best practices is worthwhile experience.
Kickstarter is a great launching platform in a number of ways, including the ability to re-rack and try again later if your first attempt fails.
Since I have a second project also deep in the development process, I can immediately pursue best practices with it while I try to pull off Prize Puzzle Pouch.
One other interesting observation from the past four years: I started some of these projects right after Microsoft sloughed off me and many of my colleagues. Some people find great entrepreneurial motivation in unemployment. With a family of four to support, that wasn’t my experience. I found great motivation to find a new career stop at a company with a strong, people-centric culture and security.
Having found that, it’s easy to relax and use my leisure time to focus on hobbies I’m passionate about, like launching a puzzle game business — or watching the Stars win Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals.**
*Prize Puzzle Pouch is a virtual augmented reality game. Each player receives a pouch (hard copies in snail mail or PDF files in email) of puzzles and codes. The first person to solve his or her way to the final instructions wins at least $500 of Nate’s Allowance. You should try it.***
**Go Stars!
***Did you like that marketing? I know., subtle!