Tag: fail

  • 7 Things I Learned from a Failed Kickstarter Campaign

    7 Things I Learned from a Failed Kickstarter Campaign

    7 Things I learned from a Failed Kickstarter Campaign

    For those of you wondering where I have been, I have been coming off a month after a failed Kickstarter Campaign for 99Blast – The Card Counting Game.  The bad news is the campaign failed.  The good news is that we still found a reseller who is able to sell them on demand.  So if interested go to 99Blast.com.  In the “Purchase 99Blast” section is a 20% discount code.

    The main purpose of this post is to share with you the seven things I learned from running a Kickstarter Campaign.  For those of you planning your own campaign, this may come in handy so you don’t feel like you are off on an island waving a flag to garner support like we did.

    1 – Gain interest BEFORE you start your campaign.

    I pushed out teasers that the Kickstarter was coming and had people sign up to be notified when the Kickstarter Campaign would begin.  HOWEVER, I didn’t push it hard enough and should have waited to begin the campaign when I had a big enough list that if everyone committed to the campaign, it would have accounted for 30-40% of my goal.

    2 – Get Reviews of your product prior to launch.

    I mistakenly thought that getting reviews during the campaign would be better since people could commit as soon as the review was posted.  You end up chasing after reviewers that work on their own schedule and not on yours.  Rather, let them do the review and if willing link to your mailing list form to be notified when the campaign will start.

    3 – Don’t underestimate the power of the first day of launch.

    We launched on a Friday.  Knowing that most of our social media engagement happens on Monday, we waited figuring we could get consistent interest over the first week.  Instead we got a lot of interest on Friday and then some more on Monday.  The better option would have been to do both on the same day to increase the chance of being listed higher in popularity on the site.  The higher your popularity, the more likely casual Kickstarter browsers will see the campaign.

    4 – You will know your chances of success after the first week.

    Our campaign ran 35 days.  After the first four days we were already 25% to the goal.  However after seven days we were only 26% to the goal.  Interests had dropped in the last three days of the week despite advertising and social media pushes.  I knew then that we weren’t going to make the goal.

    5 -Don’t assume Friends/Followers are likely purchasers

    I have a good selection of readers of this site.  I have over 1000 twitter and facebook followers and almost 100,000 on Google Plus.  By the math if less than .1% of them committed to the campaign we should have blown out the goal.  But…

    6 -Don’t assume Friends/Followers will help you promote your campaign.

    Just because you can convince 50 people to reshare your meme or cartoon to their followers, doesn’t mean they will reshare your Kickstarter Campaign.  Resharing a Kickstarter campaign is almost like an endorsement from the resharer.  They are less apt to do it.

    7 – Success or not, the process will drain you.

    From setting up your site, to setting up your campaign, to running it and promoting via ads/social media, the process can take its toll.  If not physically, then definitely mentally.  I haven’t posted here in a month just because I was just worn out from the process after our Kickstarter campaign and didn’t feel like drawing outside my caricature commission work.  Prepare for it.

    Best of luck.

  • How to Operate a Dual Flush Toilet

    Bearman Cartoon How to Operate a Dual Flush ToiletYou would think today’s cartoon has nothing to do with Australia.  But you would be wrong.  In an effort to conserve water, dual flush toilets have been installed in a whole bunch of places including all the hotels we stayed in.  Some, unfortunately, didn’t work as well as others.

    For the uninformed, a dual flush toilet has two buttons.  One that is a half flush for liquids and the other a full flush for solids.  The problem is that in several situations the half flush wasn’t enough to actually flush everything down so it required another push.   Usually the second push was the full flush button just to ensure there was no yellow in the bowl.   So instead of using half the amount of water to flush, you end up using 50% more than a typical sing flush toilet.

    Or maybe it was just operator error.

     

  • Editorial Cartoon: Facepalm – Facebook goes Public

    Editorial-Cartoon Mark Zuckerberg Facebook Facepalm

    I actually previewed this editorial cartoon on Google Plus on Friday.  It was well received due to the timing and my predictive nature on Thursday night when I drew this that the Facebook IPO would be less than stellar.   Poor Mark Zuckerberg has to do a facepalm instead of promoting his facebook.  Though none of us should feel sorry for them as all the pre IPO stock holders will cash out for bookoo bucks.   Besides Mark got to marry his college sweetheart over the weekend and since he knew her before he was rich, you know she wasn’t in it for the money.  Congrats to the couple.

    Charity Challenge Update

    Week 3 Breakdown:

    $10 for Using ME in their Cartoon –

    $1 for ever new follower on Google Plus at http://googleplus.beartoons.com

    584 NEW FOLLOWERS in a week.

    Which puts us way the hell over my goal of $1000 to those charities.  Thank you thank you.  I maxed out for the first time in 4 years.  However…

    I know there are a couple cartoonists who expressed interest in still doing a Bearman Cameo this month so for anyone else that does, I will donate the $10 to Crayons to Computers.  Also there is still time to donate to Crayons to Computers in honor of Bearman Cartoons.  Remember I will match those donations.

    Bearman Cartoons Charity Challenge 2012

  • Editorial Cartoon: Caricature Fail

     

    Editorial Cartoon: Life of a Caricature Artist

    This cartoon was inspired by my attempts over the last 4 months to do more caricature work.  If you get a caricature done by me or someone else there are several reactions you may have.

    1. Wow that picture is great and it looks like me.
    2. Wow that picture is great but I am not sure it looks like me.
    3. That picture isn’t good/flattering but it does look like me
    4. That picture sucks and it doesn’t look anything like me.

    I have run the gamut of reactions to my own work, though I have only had one person actually tell me number four (yet more probably felt that way).  I had my wife, and biggest critic, look over the work and she said “Yeah it looks like her, she just isn’t that attractive.”  I find that women are way more sensitive to you pointing out prominent characteristics in caricature.  I tend to go more realistic versus cartoony as I do with men.

    A piece of advice I got from Jerry Dowling, former Cincinnati Enquirer editorial cartoonist and caricature artist, is that you should over emphasize the size of women’s eyes…they seem to like that.  He may or may not have said something about boob size too, I can’t remember.

    He related a story of live drawing a caricature of a woman as her husband was looking over his shoulder.  Suddenly, her husband, who obviously thought the drawing wasn’t pretty enough, said “Don’t you know she is a former Beauty Queen.”  To which Jerry handed him his pen and said “Great, so you finish up the drawing”

  • Will the real Nate Fakes please stand up

    Ladies and Gentlemen.  The man you see pictured above is Nate Fakes.  Mad Magazine and Break of Day cartoonist Nate Fakes.  And hands down, the worst person in the world for me to try to caricature.  If it is the first time or the 20th time trying I can usually get to some semblance of the person even if the end result isn’t flattering (sorry Myra).

    But there is nothing distinguishing about this kid. Here are several of my failed attempts. The first being the one that probably looks most like him but the last being my favorite.

  • Editorial Cartoon: Facebook and Email

    Editorial Cartoon: Facebook, Email and Privacy

    Here is a potential real FAIL for you.  Facebook has announced that they will now offer email service for it’s members allowing you to send emails to people outside your friend list.  With all the controversy surrounding privacy issues with Facebook, I think I’ll take a pass.

    What embarrassing things could Facebook reveal to your “friends” if this happened?  C’mon you can tell us; it won’t get past this blog.