For four years now I’ve been backing Kickstarter projects and since then I’ve gotten to be quite knowledgeable on what makes a campaign work and what doesn’t. When Midboss started looking for panel submissions for GX3 last year I jumped at the chance to share some wisdom with those willing to listen at the convention. As luck would have it, several others had the same idea and we merged it into one panel. As recently mentioned, GaymerX has started putting up each panel from the con on their YouTube channel and the one that I spoke on just went up.

GX3 Kickstarter Panel

Until now I have never spoken at a convention. I’ve always been quite content to sit in the audience and listen, perhaps offering a question or comment at times. But, ever since my first con I’ve wondered what it would be like to sit on the other side of the table. And believe me that it was an experience. GX3 was a great convention, and you can read our previous coverage for more, and was a fun place to talk about crowdfunding. At the same time, I was nervous as hell to be up on the stage.

Until we all sat down that is. All worry went out of me as the five of us were ready to talk about Kickstarter. And it was a fun hours worth of useful tips and tricks as to how to properly run your own crowdfunding campaign. Aside from myself we had the two co-founders of BackerKit (Rosanna Yau and Maxwell Salzburg) and two other successful campaign runners in Josh Trujillo and Zach Weinersmith. And they were all a joy to be up there with and they definitely knew what they were talking about.

GX3 Kickstarter Panel

After introducing ourselves and giving our background as to what makes us knowledgeable we basically jumped right into the Q&A session. And during the period that we were talking about Kickstarter and other crowdfunding platforms a lot of hands went up. I’m pretty sure we didn’t have the time to answer every question that everyone might have had. What surprised me most about my time during the panel was just how many basic questions that there was from the audience. Things that should be common knowledge by now are still being asked by people who might be considering running a campaign of their own.

GX3 Kickstarter Panel

I’ve always enjoyed sitting and listening on panels at conventions like GaymerX or Gen Con because of the incredible stories and wisdom that the panelists impart upon those attending. For once I was the one imparting my own wisdom on those who were in the room and it felt good. If given the chance to do this again I will. GX3 was certainly an experience and one that I’d love to do again in the future. I may not be able to make it to GX4 this year but I’m certainly looking forward to being on a panel again. Because this one was worth it.

If you missed it live, and would like to see it for yourself, the entire GX3 panel can be seen below.

About the Author

Serena Nelson

Serena has been a gamer since an early age and was brought up with the classic adventure games by Sierra On-Line, LucasArts, and Infocom. She's been an active member on Kickstarter since early 2012 and has backed a large number of crowdfunded games, mostly adventures. You can also find her writing for Kickstart Ventures and evn.moe.

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