Ask HN: How to get my Kickstarter in front of the right people?

[cmckay]

I tried posting this earlier, and something went awry; the majority of the post didn't go through. Here it is in its entirety.

I recently launched a Kickstarter project: ( http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1402474606/the-ilex-edc-pen-and-capacitive-touch-stylus ) and have found that it is much more difficult to get people to the Kickstarter page than I had anticipated. The project is a combination pen (either fountain pen or ball point) and capacitave stylus, with a focus on quality and elegant design. The project came about in response to my frustration with the stylus market when I bought my iPad. None of the styluses I could find felt like high quality writing instruments.

There has been some recent discussion on HN about Kickstarter projects, and problems with them (particularly that some proposers have pretty unrealistic ideas about what it takes to get a product to market). I've tried to avoid falling into this trap by involving my brother, who designs and develops products for a living (he's a mechanical engineer working in the knife industry). Based on his experience, we have a pretty good idea of what it is going to take to get this into people's hands in quantity, and our pricing structure reflects that. It's somewhat higher than other pen or stylus projects on Kickstarter, but not out of line with the high-quality writing instrument market as a whole.

Response to the project from people who have seen it has been pretty positive, and conversion rates have been okay, so I don't think there are too many problems with the product itself or with the pricing. The main problem seems to be publicity. There are a host of manly-gear-related sites (uncrate, gear patrol, and the like) which would seem to be the obvious venues for this sort of thing, but they haven't responded to our emails. Does anyone have any suggestions?

[Sunlis]

A quick Google and I came up with a very similar stylus on Amazon for only $15.[0] Or this one for $8.[1] Why should I pay $100 more for something that's essentially the same? What makes your stylus different?

As far as spreading it goes, social media (HN, Reddit, Facebook, Twitter) can do a LOT of the legwork for you, you just have to plant the seeds. That's much easier said than done, and a lot of it is going to rely on luck. However, if you put enough seeds out there, one is bound to catch on in the right place to get the attention of your target demographic.

[0] http://www.amazon.com/rooCASE-Capacitive-Stylus-Ballpoint-To...

[1] http://www.amazon.ca/Capacitive-Samsung-Blackberry-Playbook-...

[adambenayoun]

Cmckay, Good luck with the project - looks nice.

I think you need to up your PR game. First I would rework the video and make it a bit more professional, at least to a point where I wouldn't have any problem embedding it in my website. I would also make it a bit shorter.

Next, I would draft an email with a story. I think the story you got is great and if you can write something concise and send it to the press you might get their attention. You could send them emails, call them, find someone who could intro you. You just need to be persistent and not give up. I've found many times that following up many times get me an answer. Sometimes it's better to get a NO than no answers.

Approach more sites, gadgets, mac related (it's for an iPad right?) etc...

Good luck!

[shloimtothee]

There are a lot of Kickstarter pens and stylus pens..

http://outgrow.me/tag/pens-stylus-pens