[espadagroup]

I designed a healthier men's dress shoe and was able to gain close to $100K in preorders in a Kickstarter this past September; https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/oaka/oaka-the-worlds-he.... Hopefully it doesn't stay a side project for too much longer, fingers crossed.

[serjester]

Any takeaways from such a successful Kickstarter? Or helpful resources?

[gnicholas]

I launched a successful Kickstarter a few years ago. Getting press coverage is critical, but it's difficult to get press to cover something that isn't yet available. To overcome this catch-22, you can (1) have a product that is somehow attached to a current trend in the news, or (2) have enough progress that you can convince journalists that it's not vaporware.

It also helps to have an existing network that would be interested, for example from a related product.

There are companies that you can pay to do marketing. I didn't use one of those, since it seems like many of them probably suck out all the profit from any Kickstarter that actually succeeds. But I imagine some of them could be good partners, depending on what you're making.

[dansult]

As someone who wears vivo's all day everyday these fill that gap when I have to wear a dress shoe. They look amazing.

[RedBeetDeadpool]

I always wanted to create/design my own physical product. Where can I go to learn how to get a product manufactured?

[makstaks]

This is great! I messed up my ankle when I began taking transit and walking to the office in a pair of terrible dress hoes.

[hooloovoo_zoo]

I wish I had seen this when the kickstarter was still open. Looking forward to being able to buy these.

[asdev]

how did you market this and get backers on your kickstarter?