Entry Five - July 10

It’s Kickstater Week!

Our Kickstarter for Kikori has officially launched and it has been met with a heavy workload. The process of building a Kickstarter is filled with a series of trial and error, only further reinstating that you will make mistakes, all the time, no matter how hard you try. Luckily for me, my week tipped off with a huge mistake.

Last week on Friday afternoon, I finally finished developing the Kickstarter and set the launch date for July 7th and end date for August 8th. It was a massive relief to have completed the project and I very much looked forward to the launch scheduled for next week. I enjoyed my holiday weekend, and entered work on Monday prepared for an eventful next couple of days. The first thing I discovered Monday morning was that the Kickstarter had actually launched on Friday. I was entirely confused by this considering I specifically remembered selecting the start date. Although I tend to pick up these types of platforms relatively quickly, the Kickstarter software was never simple to comprehend. I apologized for the mistake and suggested that we edit the launch date or worst case create a new project by starting over.

Unfortunately, neither of those two options are viable and as a result, we were unable to line up our first-day backers appropriately and missed the window of opportunity to meet the qualifications for the trending page. Although it will never be known exactly what would have happened in the instance that this error did not occur, I could not help but feel responsible for a potential loss of funding. While Kendra vehemently denies any blame towards me, I became overwhelmed and disappointed in myself. Balancing work and my personal life has been a new challenge and I felt as though I was succumbing to the pressure and frustrated the work I produced was not at the caliber I desired.

After speaking to my dad, who has been in the business world essentially his entire career, he explained to me that no matter what role you are in - you will make mistakes. It was slightly disheartening to hear that I was going to make major mistakes for the rest of my life. I suppose a part of me just assumed at some point that part just disappears? As if you hit a certain age when you no longer overlook, forget, or mess up anything professionally. My main takeaway from the conversation was the fact that I must adjust to screwing up - over, and over, and over again for the rest of my career. I suppose it is better to find this out sooner rather than later, although I might have lost out on a few more years of ignorant bliss assuming life must get easier. Once I accepted the mistake and moved on, it felt a little better.

The rest of the week was very Kickstarter-centric. Tuesday was the "official unofficial" launch and there were a large number of contributors, which was very exciting to see. The rest of the week has slowed down in terms of contributors, and some advisors suggested a major content push to gain more attention, which has taken over a majority of my time. Creating and posting content on all sites has been an interesting and consuming project. I can argue that I have become extremely well-versed in creating posts and aligning to a specific brand, producing something eye-catching yet informing.

The past few days have been filled with several learning curves, however I am still extremely grateful for the opportunity I have been given to work for an edtech startup and the amazing team I was placed with. The time has been going by so fast, and I look forward to see what the future will bring. Actually, I’m interested to learn what major new developments will occur over the weekend that I will have to be caught up on during Monday’s briefing.