Enabling Pre-Launch Discussions helped Joy Resolve tweak a key part of their perk strategy. Their current campaign is actually an upgrade of an older model that the company released in 2016. The company had originally planned to offer a buy-back option for previous backers who wanted to trade in their old Bariseurs for the new model. But, as some commenters pointed out, the pricing didn’t make sense.

“The program was basically, if you’re a customer of ours already, we’ll send you a new product if you send us the old one. Originally it cost the same to do that as to get the super early bird price. And backers wanted it at a cheaper price than the super early bird, because otherwise they reasoned that they’d rather keep the old model and buy the new one at the super early bird price,” says Joshua. “We adopted that feedback and adjusted our pricing for the buy-back program before launch. We thought we were in the right, and it turns out we were in the wrong.”

If you’re a campaigner who wants to bolster your following in those critical weeks leading up to a campaign, the Pre-Launch Discussion feature is a great way to bolster your community early and understand potential backers’ expectations for your product as soon as possible. It’s a key way to meet your backers and foster human connections with them – and those connections are a big part of why people choose to back crowdfunding campaigns in the first place.