For All the Pinheads Out There
Kicking the Tires on the Backerkit Crowdfunding Platform by Participating in Their Pintopia 2025 Event
It’s good to try new things.
(Or at least, that’s what I often tell my son as he looks suspiciously at the new foods on his dinner plate.)
After planning and launching 37 crowdfunding campaigns since 2012, all of them on the Kickstarter platform, I decided to try something new myself, last week launching a project on the Backerkit Crowdfunding platform, to take part in their latest “Topia” event…
Pintopia is one of Backerkit’s marquee annual events, a celebration for pinheads (that’s what we affectionately call pin-lovers, right?) with an open call for concurrently running projects with loads of cross-promotion not only encouraged, but programmatically supporter with some Backerkit exclusive crowdfunding features.
While switching up from a platform like Kickstarter that has been so successful for ComixTribe over the years is a scary proposition, participating in this event was really a no brainer for me for a number of reasons:
As host of the ComixLaunch Podcast, kicking the tires on Backerkit’s Crowdfunding platform would make for great content for the creators who appreciate my thoughts on the crowdfunding space.
In a recent survey, ENAMEL PINS were the 3rd most popular product we offer at C is for Cthulhu, according to our fans. However, they’ve always been a throw-in item during our crowdfunding launches, so the opportunity to let the pins get a starring role in a new launch seemed like a smart idea.
I was curious about the collaborative nature of the Pintopia event, an event that Backerkit invests real skin in the game in… heck, after the event is over, the Backerkit team will end up rolling up their sleeve and shipping out thousands of Trophy pins to backers who support at least 10 of the campaigns. Would this be an opportunity to attract some new fans to the C is for Cthulhu brand? I figured it would be worth finding out.
For the past few years, we have had a big C is for Cthulhu product launch on Kickstarter around March… but this year, it’s looking like the big launch of the year won’t be until a bit later, making scheduling a smaller launch event at the beginning of the year make a lot of sense for us business wise.
So, we decided to give it a go, and so far so good!
We’ve sold A LOT of freaking pins already, and while our total backer count is certainly less than what we would expect for a new book or plush toy launch, closing in on nearly 200 backers in a few days is never a bad thing!
Of course, one of the best things about the event is the community aspect, and to that end, I had a blast jumping on last night with a number of other veteran comic creators / crowdfunders who are also participating in Pintopia to discuss the event, the Backerkit platform, and a whole lot more.
CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE PINTOPIA PANEL on YouTube
Some of the Key Things I’ve Discovered Already About Backerkit Crowdfunding / Pintopia
There DOES seem to be the ability to get discovered by a new audience by participating in one of these events. While it’s impossible to know if the same launch on Kickstarter would perform better or if there are some backers who are NOT supporting us only because we’re on this new platform, the data is showing that we’ve already picked up 86 brand new first time backers by being a part of this campaign, over 40%.
The Cross-collaboration thing really seems to work! Backerkit encourages cross-collab rewards, where creators partner up and offer bonus freebie incentives for any backer who backs their project AND their partner project. For example, the C is for Cthulhu Team is partnering with Rob Multari’s Wolfpack Pups campaign to offer two special pins for backers of both projects. While these kinds of bonuses have been a strategy that Kickstarter creators have used in the passed, Backerkit’s platform specifically has way to support, track and call out this.
For example 24% of the C is for Cthulhu backers (about 47) and 72% of the Wolfpack Pup backers are supporting both projects.
Without this incentive, I’m sure those numbers would be much lower, so this is definitely an enticing feature for creators looking to crosspromote.
Free and cheaper tools! Backerkit’s Crowdfunding site certainly gets way less traffic than Kickstarter. To mitigate the potential loss that Backerkit creators might miss out on, Backerkit includes their Launch tool ($99) and Pledge Manager tool (2% of campaign raise) for free when launching on their platform. Additionally, if you also use Backerkit Marketing for your ad spend, Backerkit reduces its fee from 15% to 10% of pledges driven.
Your Followers get updates! The other feature that I know Kickstarter creators have been wishing for, is that during campaigns, creators have the ability to push out updates not only to their project backers, but to everyone who is following their campaign, to try to entice additional support with each update.
⚠️WARNING!⚠️ There was one super unexpected thing I discovered by mistake when using Backerkit. Prior to launch, you have the ability to share your Project Prelaunch Page and your Project Page preview. The prelaunch is designed to get you prelaunch followers. However your project page is what your page will look like after launch… however, once your project page has been approved by Backerkit, anyone who visits that page will have the option to back the project… even if you haven’t technically launched yet! So I was baffled and confused when my campaign had over $3,400 in pledges A WEEK BEFORE LAUNCH! I thought it was a glitch, but apparently I included the wrong link in a prelaunch email. Oooops… I guess? I suppose there’s worst things that can happen than early pledges, of course!
If you’re interested at all in the “Topia” style events or to hear more from creators about the crowdfunding experience on Backerkit, I strongly suggest you watch the full Pintopia panel on YouTube.
And if you have any questions about it, lemme know! I’m happy to share my experience now that I’m finally kicking the tires!
We had a blast too!