Road to Kickstarter #10: Tag Team Edition

Greetings Heroes,

We’re going tornado tag-team style this week with Ryan & Nick teaming up for the weekly product update, while John & Kyle keep us in the loop on all things operations. Read along for more about how we’ve been scrying the crystal ball for some new graphic design allies (do you know anyone?), and scribing the tomes (FAQ articles) for the upcoming Kickstarter.

Ryan & Nick, Product

With our previous products, I’ve been solely in charge of illustration and layout. While working on the Hero’s Journal, I was able to balance the design and art elements since they take up equal parts of the daily page. But the Hero’s Planner is a whole new challenge! Sure, I’ve studied graphic design. I went to art school and everything. But I will be the first to admit that layouts are not my forte. They take me a long time and I don’t find them as interesting as drawing pretty pictures. Unfortunately, when it comes to planners, I think most planner people (is it OK if I call you planner people?) would agree that layouts are the most important thing to consider. It’s what you use to organize your thoughts and keep the chaos at bay. And I’m just not that great at them!

I could keep kludging together so-so, satisfactory layouts, but the team at the Hero’s Journal is looking to hire someone to help me make the Hero’s Planner the best, most unique planner on the market. That’s right - this is a job posting now! We are currently scouring the internet for potential graphic designers experienced with laying out stationery and an eye for making each page uniform, striking, and functional. Does this sound like you or someone you know? Please drop us a line! I need all the help I can get!

John & Kyle, Operations

With just over two months to go now until the launch of the Kickstarter campaign, Kyle & I are officially hard at work getting ahead of the game for all things "Hero Service". One way we're doing this is by creating an FAQ to answer the many common questions we anticipate receiving at all stages of the funding & fulfillment processes. This preparation is particularly important given our past experience with the Istoria Magic Academy Hero's Journal campaign in 2021, where we unexpectedly saw email ticket volume explode by over 200% in the weeks following the campaign's close. We'll be ready this time if volume explodes again, but we definitely learned some good lessons last time around that we'll be sure to apply going forward.

The first FAQ we're tackling for this week is a simple, but important one:
"What is a Kickstarter?"

Kickstarter.com is a platform where creators (like us) can launch crowdfunding campaigns to raise funds for their projects during the production process. Through Kickstarter, creators can reach a larger audience and receive support from people who are interested in bringing their project to life. It's how we brought the very first Hero's Journal to life in 2019, and how we were able to produce the Istoria Magic Academy storyline in 2021. Soon, we'll be publishing a new campaign on Kickstarter for The Hero's Planner with a particular funding goal, and related perks. From there, you (the hero's) can then pledge money on that campaign to secure your Hero's Planner and desired perks ahead of their planned release date in late 2023.

Thanks for reading this week's update! We're excited to be working on The Hero's Planner and are looking forward to finding another talented graphic designer to join us on this journey. If you know anyone who might be a good fit, please don't hesitate to reach out. As always, we appreciate your support and can't wait to bring this amazing product to life!

For this week’s teaser: Did we mention we’re working on an animated marketing video to help promote the Kickstarter? More on that later! Until then, say hi to one of the video’s several new characters: “Existential Elliot”:

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