As an agency, we have worked on a number of Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns. As Patrick Healy mentioned, you do a need a well planned strategy that incorporates paid digital ads as well as well as PR and a well executed campaign page with an engaging, informative video and a well designed layout and rewards strategy. We don't take on every client for these; it really has to be something we believe will succeed.

Maybe I had beginners luck or my message resonated. I had a very successful Kickstarter campaign --as in I made my pledge goals. More than that, I learned a lot about a lot. I would advise preparing as much as you can by reading the guides they give, looking at a lot of other campaigns, starting to communicate with your audience way ahead of time. And to another's point, your pledges will likely come from friends and family. There is always a chance you might go viral etc.... but either way, there is more to gain than lose IMHO. Anytime you put yourself out there, pat yourself on the back. It's scary and it's also brave.

You've really gotta know what you are doing here to pull this kind of stuff off. It's essentially online panhandling in many cases. Read the fine print, take the time to put together a really good program and pay to advertise it on other channels if you want it to work. Yes, I said that. PAY to advertise your Kickstarter on things like Facebook, Twitter, and Google AdWords or your chances are not great that you will succeed. The vast majority of these campaigns fail miserably.

A bunch of cliquish little twerps. I played their game last year. Setup the tiered rewards for a prototype of a product to manufacture. Their reviewer listed a few subjective complaints and concluded it wouldn't be listed. I appealed the 2nd reviewer listed three irrelevant issues, suggested I alter the rewards, which I did, waited 2 weeks and rejected the project on 2 more irrelevant criteria.