What I Learned Launching My First Kickstarter With No Audience

Launching my first Kickstarter for my comic was both exciting and nerve-wracking. I’d read the advice. I’d built the campaign. I believed in the idea. And like most first-time creators, I thought I had a reasonable grasp on what to expect.

What followed was a month of constant uncertainty, with some small wins early on that helped me achieve my goal, and a handful of lessons that hit much harder than I expected - especially when it came to money, marketing, and how people actually behave during a campaign.

If you’re thinking about launching your first Kickstarter - especially without an existing audience - here are the four biggest lessons I learned.

1. The Hidden Fees Will Eat Into Your Budget

I knew there would be Kickstarter fees. I added a buffer to account for it - but while trying to make my reward pricing seem like a low barrier for entry, I forgot that Kickstarter does a different fee structure depending on how much the reward costs. I went in expecting Kickstarter’s payment processing to be around 2.4%. In reality, because I had my reward prices set so low, it came out to 3.79%. That difference cost me a page.

I live in NZ and so needed to price everything as such to be able to connect by bank account to Kickstarter. But my colorist was being paid in USD, so not only did I had to convert the money from NZD, as he wanted to be paid via Paypal, I had to use their high exchange rate and pay a conversion fee, which was higher than other payment platforms charge.

The result? I lost the equivalent of four pages. Fortunately I had the buffer, but these extra costs took me right back to the margin.

Takeaway: Always overestimate your fees. Don’t just account for Kickstarter - account for how money moves after it hits your account.

2. The 'Build It and They Will Come' Myth

I launched without an audience. I admit, it wasn’t the smartest decision. I believed in my story and the art and thought I could build the audience on the go. I pushed hard on social media. Facebook, Reddit, X - you name it, I was there. But as great as my idea might be, in a space as crowded as the comic scene, I was one more small fish in a very big pond.

I did get engagement from people - but most of them were other creators. They were supportive and wanted me to succeed, but they had their own projects they were investing in and so I didn’t get any real traction.

Even with a preview up on different platforms for people to check out, even with multiple positive reviews from comic bloggers, I wasn’t seeing the audience come in the way I’d hoped.

It was depressing - and I know I’m not the only one who has felt this way while running a campaign.

But fortunately I had friends and family who supported my dream:

• My artist, who stayed positive the entire time while doing the actual creative work.

• My wife, who kept checking in, encouraging me, and helping me stay grounded.

• And other friends and family who backed the project and helped push it across the finish line.

  
  

Takeaway: You can succeed without an audience - but being willing to play the long game, putting your own money in first and spending time on building an audience isn’t a waste.

3. Being Discovered on Kickstarter Isn’t Guaranteed

There’s a common piece of advice: “If you hit 50% in the first 48 hours, Kickstarter will push your project.”

I hit that milestone.

And… nothing really changed.

Maybe the algorithm picked me up. Maybe it didn’t. But I didn’t see any meaningful influx of backers coming from Kickstarter’s discovery. 

The truth is that while I was hitting my milestones, there were other projects hitting theirs ten times over. In the eyes of an algorithm, 'success' is relative. I hit the mark, but I didn't break the scale, so I stayed invisible.

And as recent changes to Kickstarter have shown, most of the comics that were gaining traction were more adult in nature (which was not what we were doing) and as the saying goes, “Sex sells”, and unfortunately it seems to trump the other saying “Story is king”.

This reinforced a hard truth: Kickstarter doesn’t bring the crowd - you do.

Takeaway: Treat Kickstarter like a conversion tool, not a marketing engine. If people aren’t already finding you, Kickstarter won’t magically fix that.

4. Be Wary of “Marketing Experts” Promising Traction

This one surprised me.

As soon as the campaign launched, I started getting messages from people claiming they believed in my comic - they wanted to back me, but they just needed assurances of success and then they’d put in a lot of money.

At first, it felt promising.

Then their questions started coming. And they almost always started with “I see you’re running this campaign on your own…”

No questions about the actual comic. They were asking about my strategies.

That was a red flag. Genuine backers care about the project, scammers care about the numbers. When I pushed back or asked questions, they either disappeared or tried to redirect me to irrelevant “successful” campaigns they had nothing to do with.

(BTW we got fully funded with over a week to go and I let them know - no response.)

Takeaway:  If someone isn’t interested in your project, they’re not here to help you. Ignore them.

Final Thoughts

Despite all of this, I don’t regret launching early without an audience. As they say, failure is just another word for learning, and I got the benefit of learning and achieving my goal. Now I know what to factor in for my next campaign. 

And for all that this was more work than I had expected it to be (and I know I still didn’t do enough), there will be another campaign. And fortunately, it’s going to be easier for me to build an audience - because I can’t keep asking my family for money…