How do I attract organic backers on Kickstarter

Question

A few months ago I began building a mobile app called Stok. We provide users with a tool to scan in their groceries in order to keep inventory, see when they will expire, and get recipe recommendations based on what&rsquo;s on hand.Our goal is to solve consumer food waste (major environmental issue) while also enhancing the grocery/cooking experience.We have a goal of raising $5,000, but seemed to have plateaued at $1,190. I&rsquo;m finding that online interactions generate interest but not backing.What else can I do?www.tinyurl.com/stok-app

codingdave · Accepted Answer

A kickstarter for a software startup just feels odd. 5K is an odd amount to be looking for, and an odd way to seek it. In particular it is odd that the reward is a discounted subscription to the service. This is deep into 'wat' territory -- If you got $1190 worth of people to sign up for that, you could have just sold them the service directly, without kickstarter. So start doing that instead.

jschveibinz · Answer

With the current downturn in venture capital, this is a legitimate question. I have been mentoring startups for about 10 years, and this question has come up several times. There are some good articles on the web that discuss this topic, but in short, you need to do some brute-force legwork before crowdfunding to gather an audience if you expect to get anywhere with it. To do this, you have to "talk" to lots of people and do lots of social media pre-marketing. This means:
- something to demonstrate - something to say about pain/solution to your audience, I.e. value - social media accounts and postings that link to... - landing page(s) - a call to action, e.g. email, pre-order or link to crowdfunding page - a great story and video for your crowdfunding page - and lots of interaction with those people that seem excited about what you are doing...they will tell friends if they are impressed enough
There are no guarantees, and it's a lot of work, but it's good work because it helps you to focus on your customers and your product offering.
Good luck.