Derek Miller has always had a creative side to his life. As a kid he wanted to be a cartoonist, and little did he know, he would become deeply entrenched in that world as an adult through the web comic Cyanide and Happiness.

While he was in college, and a few years afterward, Derek was part of a small metal band and also ran a small music blog. He was also a part of a non-profit to help artists turn their passion into full-time jobs.

All that experience in the art world helped Derek run three successful Kickstarter campaigns at Cyanide and Happiness. Instead of treating Kickstarter like another crowdfunding tool, he treated each campaign like its own event.

After three successful Kicstarter campaigns and constantly being approached by creatives about crowdfunding, Derek decided to write a book on the topic. This led to the creation of his book Six Figure Crowdfunding.

In this episode, Derek talks about why you need to keep your creative momentum, the power of a positive mindset, and not getting down on yourself, among many other things.

Here are three lessons you can learn from Derek:

The Importance of Acting on Your Creativity

As someone interested in creativity, you have probably felt the urge to do something, anything, to get your idea out there. The problem is, a lot of times, we feel that creative urge, but never take action on it.

Derek believes movement is the most important thing about creation. Creative people suffer when they stop creating. So remember to always leave time for your own creative projects.

“The act of creation is very important for intellectual growth and happiness. I really think the most important thing about creation is movement. And the movement of creating it forces you to make decisions, figure out what’s important to you and what’s not, and what kind of emotion, what kind of world you’re trying to create. So any time I’d be overwhelmed with too many projects or something, it came down to I had to drop a project to give myself breathing room to create, because… the process of creation improves all other aspects of your life because it teaches you to generate ideas.”

The problem many of us have is, we bog ourselves down with too many projects. We feel the need to occupy all our time to stay busy, but we don’t leave enough time to work on creative projects of our own.

That’s why Derek advocates for coming up with, and more importantly, executing your ideas.

“Everything you do is ideas and executing ideas. That’s the basic equation for getting anything done… It’s been very important, and any time I’ve jumped in the deep end too much with too many projects, it made my performance suffer and everything, if I didn’t have time to be creative.”

Just remember creativity is not a binary thing. There’s no such thing as being creative or not creative. Creativity is a process.

“It seems a lot of people view creativity like you are or you are not. That’s a weird way to do it. Oh, you’re either healthy or you’re not. No. It is a process. It’s a process of self-care. It is a process of development. It’s a process of just using your brain and stretching it. It’s not something you are or are not. It’s either you are behaving in creative ways or not creating. It’s not a binary thing. It’s not just Oh I’m creative so that part of my life is handled.”

The Power of a Positive Mindset

Many of us believe talent and luck are the things holding us back from finding success. Luckily for us, that usually isn’t the case. The thing that most holds us back is our mindset.

You can have all the talent in the world and still find failure if you have the wrong mindset. That’s why Derek believes in the power of a positive mindset.

“The biggest thing holding most anyone back, myself included, it’s mindset, it’s behaviors, it’s the strategies you use. Those are the thing that hold you back more than in-born talent or whatever aptitude you’re born with. It’s the mindsets and strategies you use and the way you’re able to push past the uncomfort that makes you good.”

One of the most helpful mindsets you can develop is one of an experimenter. Don’t let the fear of failure prevent you from trying things out. After all, trial and error is one of the best teachers you can have.

“I like the test and failing mindset because again, that gives you the right mindset to focus on the fact that, yes some things you do are going to suck, no matter what. There’s no artist that I can think of, regardless of context, that has not put out one or two bombs… That’s the process of learning and figuring out what your art is. You’re going to bomb. Just learn. Every time you bomb, learn from it.”

Just remember that failure isn’t final. It is is our ability to dust ourselves off after failures that allows us to grow and become better.

“A failure now doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t turn out being something fantastic a couple years down the line.”

Don’t Get Too Down on Yourself

No matter how much success we have, we will inevitably face some failure. That’s why you should never let yourself get too wrapped up in your own success or failure. Celebrate your success, but also keep in mind failure could be just around the corner.

“Even when there’s a lot of public facing ‘Oh, this is going great.’ Again, struggle, and difficulty, and uncomfortableness, it’s a constant in life.”

The thing to remember is to not let your struggles get to you. Most people don’t see your struggles. If you are creating great work, most people will actually like your work. Don’t let negativity drag you down. Know that there are people who will be behind you, no matter how much you don’t like it yourself.

“It’s very easy to get down on yourself and focused on the moment of ‘This thing is bad right now.’ But when it comes down to it, the majority of people watching anything or any piece of art you do are not going to know and see all the struggle… A majority of the audience won’t notice that, and the few of them that do, that’s fine. You put a piece of art out there. Nothing’s perfect, but you put a piece of art out there that makes people happy.”

Shownotes

• about Derek
  • raised over $4m on Kickstarter
  • launched 3 seasons of The Cyanide and Happiness Show
  • author of Six Figure Crowdfunding
  • first Kickstarter for Cyanide and Happiness 
    • looked at Hollywood first, but didn’t like what they were offering
    • asked for $250k, got $770k
    • started up animation studio
  • Joking Hazard
  • Point and click game
  • Kickstarters allowed them to fundraise and keep creative control
• creative things he did as a kid
  • wanted to be a cartoonist
  • started metal band in college and played for 7 years
  • likes to produce music for fun
  • coaching artists to leave day job with local non-profits
• needing to create

6:06 “The act of creation is very important for intellectual growth and happiness. I really think the most important thing about creation is movement. And the movement of creating it forces you to make decisions, figure out what’s important to you and what’s not, and what kind of emotion, what kind of world you’re trying to create. So any time I’d be overwhelmed with too many projects or something, it came down to I had to drop a project to give myself breathing room to create, because… the process of creation improves all other aspects of your life because it teaches you to generate ideas.”

6:50 “Everything you do is ideas and executing ideas. That’s the basic equation for getting anything done… It’s been very important, and any time I’ve jumped in the deep end too much with too many projects, it made my performance suffer and everything, if I didn’t have time to be creative.”

7:38 “It seems a lot of people view creativity like you are or you are not. That’s a weird way to do it. Oh, you’re either healthy or you’re not. No. It is a process. It’s a process of self-care. It is a process of development. It’s a process of just using your brain and stretching it. It’s not something you are or are not. It’s either you are behaving in creative ways or not creating. It’s not a binary thing. It’s not just Oh I’m creative so that part of my life is handled.”

• fear and stigma behind creativity
  • dreamless potato people
    • mentioned his band to people, people showed interest, but would never act on it
  • graveyard being the richest place on Earth

9:35 “I think one of the things that scares me is ending up on the other end of life and not having challenged myself, not created enough, so I just need to create.”

10:38 “All that time spent on the phone or watching TV, it’s not that you don’t have time, it’s just that you would rather watch TV than create things and it may be very uncomfortable to point that out, and you won’t make a lot of friends with that argument, but I mean, at the core of it is you are the sum of what you spend your time on. And if you want to create, then you actually spend your time on creating.”

• create the time if you feel like you don’t have it
  • beeminder – bet against yourself
    • charges you if you don’t hit your goals
    • narrows your focus
    • put in the time regularly and project will get complete
• what are people afraid of when it comes to having a creatively fulfilling life
  • everyone faces fears eventually

12:50 “The main thing that holds people back is the mindset that it can’t be done or, it’s not for me, or they’re lucky. It’s the combination of that and the fear of failure. What if you spend five years of your life making something you think is going to be the greatest thing ever and you end up making The Room and everyone’s laughing at you and whatnot? That’s really scary for people but when it comes down to it, fear of pain or any of that is inevitable in life. It’s a thing that happens. You just have to choose are you more afraid of someone saying you failed or are you more afraid of not even trying? It comes down to that.”

13:50 “It doesn’t matter if it pleases everyone. If it pleases you, it’s great.”

14:20 “Beyond the fear, it’s accepting that some things you do are going to suck… it’s not anything that’s celebrated for the most part, especially in the States… whenever you see Behind the Scenes stories, it will be like ‘I overcame these struggles,’ but I feel like they really skim over the botching things, making terrible mistakes and just screwing stuff up because that’s the process of learning.”

14:57 “Experience is the knowledge you needed five minutes earlier.”

• Shoe Dog by Phil Knight
  • biography by founder of Nike
  • struggles that you never hear about

15:40 “I feel like a lot success, no matter what endeavor you’re in is, how willing are you to be uncomfortable. The only way you grow is if you are doing things you have not done in the past.”

15:57 “I pull a lot from workout metaphors but, the only way you’re going to get stronger is if you push things that you can barely push, and then you adapt and get a little bit better and a little bit better. It’s the same thing with art or let’s say you have a problem with stage fright. You only get through it by doing it and being uncomfortable. If you let being uncomfortable rule your life, you’re never going to be good at anything.”

• fear and overcoming it
  • letting his fear fade to background
  • playing your own music in front of an uninterested crowd
    • labeling emotions to get over stage fright

17:42 “One of the differences between people who say they have stage fright and who don’t have stage fright, it’s not the amount of adrenaline in the body. The physical reaction of people who are about to go on stage who have stage fright and who don’t have stage fright, they’re both being flooded with adrenaline. One of the big differences though… is people who label the emotion as ‘Wow this is what energized feels like… I’m about to go on stage. I’m so amped,’ versus ‘Oh I’ve got the butterflies in my stomach, that means I’m scared. What if I screw up?’… On a chemical level, adrenaline is adrenaline. It’s how you focus that and the internal self-talk you apply to that, that is going to make a difference for your performance.”

• the power of our mindsets
  • startup mentatlity
  • C&H animated weekly shorts
    • you don’t know which things people will love and hate
    • Ow, my dick – went from bomb to in joke (so bad it’s good)

19:20 “The biggest thing holding most anyone back, myself included, it’s mindset, it’s behaviors, it’s the strategies you use. Those are the thing that hold you back more than in-born talent or whatever aptitude you’re born with. It’s the mindsets and strategies you use and the way you’re able to push past the uncomfort that makes you good.”

20:16 “I like the test and failing mindset because again, that gives you the right mindset to focus on the fact that, yes some things you do are going to suck, no matter what. There’s no artist that I can think of, regardless of context, that has not put out one or two bombs… That’s the process of learning and figuring out what your art is. You’re going to bomb. Just learn. Every time you bomb, learn from it.”

23:08 “A failure now doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t turn out being something fantastic a couple years down the line.”

• joining Cyanide and Happiness
  • was already working with artists in free time with Art, Love, Magic
    • mentorship model will artists who were already full-time
    • got on their board and learn high level organizational view
  • also grinded with small metal band
  • was doing blog about business for musicians
    • royalties, copyright, band stuff
  • built skills for job he didn’t know existed
  • talked to artists for Cyanide and Happiness
    • no training, they just told him to make their business grow
  • went to school with one of the guys who started Cyanide and Happiness

25:43 “You have to be able to push through all that fear and whatnot. Yeah, there will be a few nights where I can’t sleep because I have no ideas what’s it’s going to do, and are we going to go bankrupt, but that’s kinda what growth feels like… The more you can your uncomfortableness and hangups, the better you’re going to grow.”

• launching the first Kickstarter
  • went through it like an event
  • Underground – mini festival with 80 artists and two stages
    • 1,200 person event
    • used lessons from festival to launch Kickstarter
  • launched campaign like an event
  • dig deep and see who has been successful
  • public knowledge from successful campaigns
    • what worked and didn’t work for other Kickstarters
    • goals, funding levels, using the right language/offerings
  • ran over budget even with $770k raised
    • overpromised and added too much complexity
    • went for TV quality without the budget
  • rude awakening of how campaigns can go bad
• not seeing the rough patches and behind the scenes of success
  • losing months of animation time
    • having to hire 10 people in one month to get back on schedule
  • having to restart Toy Story 2

30:44 “Even when there’s a lot of public facing ‘Oh, this is going great.’ Again, struggle, and difficulty, and uncomfortableness, it’s a constant in life.”

31:46 “It’s very easy to get down on yourself and focused on the moment of ‘This thing is bad right now.’ But when it comes down to it, the majority of people watching anything or any piece of art you do are not going to know and see all the struggle… A majority of the audience won’t notice that, and the few of them that do, that’s fine. You put a piece of art out there. Nothing’s perfect, but you put a piece of art out there that makes people happy.”

• C&H card game: Joking Hazard
  • random panel generator came first
  • Exploding Kittens raising over $8m
  • spent year testing game out at parties
  • people started asking when they could buy it
• what changed between first and second Kickstarter
  • had a much larger team for second
  • went from 2 to 14 employees
  • had Facebook advertising
  • modified based upon what they learned from first Kickstarter
  • raised $3.2m
  • surpassed first campaign in a week
  • started asking themselves more complicated questions
  • fan interaction system
    • gave users extra cards for doing things on social media
    • made an event out of the Kickstarter
    • added a lot more work and involvement with fans
• considering other funding methods
  • had a few offers for Joking Hazard and adventure game
  • came down to money vs. control
  • when your bosses are advertisers, you’re at their whim

38:28 “It came down to the trade off of money versus control… As an artist, if you are not independently wealthy, you’re money’s coming from somewhere. It’s either coming from advertisers or investors or customers. It’s coming from someone. And whoever that money’s coming from, that’s your customer. That’s who you have to make happy. And when it came down to it, we trusted our fans as our bosses… more than we would a major card game publishing company or a major network for the show. We wanted to be able to do what we want and in a voice that our fans connected with, with no control. We didn’t want people to limit us.”

• weighing the consequences of your choices

40:49 “Money is control… It’s a pendulum and you trade that off. If you’re accepting no money from everyone else, it limits what you can pull off, but you can also do a rock opera about taking naps. But again, there’s customers that want to pay for that and there’s fans that do that. That’s awesome man. It’s all about choosing who you want your customer to be.”

• Kickstarter for point and click adventure: Cyanide & Happiness Adventure Game
  • make a game using their own writing style
  • disappointed in the results
  • harder to sell
  • tried getting too fancy
• lessons from third Kickstarter
  • go back to simplicity of achievement stretch goals
  • more time for promotional materials
  • would have had playable demo to build up hype
  • limited by trying to launch soon and fast
• getting feedback from people in the industry
  • hidden landmines you won’t know about
    • ex: Australia having different import standards for wood
• wanting to have full control vs. getting help from others

47:00 “There are things that can completely screw you and no matter how smart, and how sharp, and how focused you are, to raise substantial amounts of money or do anything that is sufficient is scope, you’re going to need other people in on it.”

• writing his book on crowd funding
  • James Ashby of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal gave them insights that saved 10’s of thousands of dollars
  • many created came and asked them about how they did it
  • did some low key consulting
  • after Joking Hazards he realized there was a lot more to crowdfunding than a couple of blog posts
  • people were willing to talk about their own campaigns
  • helping artists become independent
• common crowdfunding questions
  • two most common questions:
    • How do I get more people for campaign that has launched?
    • How do I know when my campaign is ready to launch?
  • majority of work has to be done before campaign starts
  • early part of campaign is where you raise the most money
  • if you can raise 40% of your funds in the first 72 hours, you have a 98% chance of success
  • Kickstarter/Indiegogo promote projects that do well early

51;26 “If you have a strong email list of people who are engaged about your product, and you launch with a 40% funding, you’re going to be fine.”

51:40 “The stronger ground game you have from day one, not only does that give people confidence that it is a non-scam product, but it will also give you a boost from all the major platforms.”

• building an active fanbase
  • you have to interact with fans
  • you are competing with everything on the internet
  • pulling people away from pattern of passivity takes interaction

53:20 “It does take a long time to build a very devoted fan base but once you get to the point of having the thousand true fans who will buy anything you put out, you’re golden. The reason so many people are looking for quick fixes and buying email lists and whatnot is because it’s hard to be reliably successful. But that’s why it’s so important and why it takes so long to build a properly devoted fan base list.”

• 1,000 True Fans by Kevin Kelly

54:47 “Word of mouth is and always has been the primary way people discover art, people discover new things. ‘Oh hey, have you seen this new comedian? They’re great.’ ‘Oh cool, I’ll check them out.’ You can put a lot of time in advertising, SEO, and whatnot, and those things do help, but nothing helps to the extent of finding a person who goes ‘Oh my god, I love everything Kevin does. His artwork is amazing. You’ve got to see this.’ You know what I mean? The person that gets so passionate and crazy they have to start forcing people to see this artwork. That level of fanaticism is worth all the fun little Facebook ad kits and tricks in the world.”

• building C&H fan base in the beginning vs. now
  • started at end of MySpace and beginning of Facebook
  • grew through sharing and branding
  • making things easy to share
  • returns from social media have dropped
  • platforms grew by putting content up for free
    • mutually beneficial relationships for growth
    • amount of organic reach (sharing without paying) decreased
  • pivot from passive social media use to fan engagement based marketing
  • getting email list outside of social media
  • 12m Facebook fans, but only reaches 800k-1m fans
    • reaching whole list would cost thousands of dollars

57:55 “That is a huge huge threat to any arts organization. If you don’t own the conversation with your fans… you will eventually be charged to access and talk to your fans.”

58:29 “If we had our own separate email list we’d be in a much stronger and much safer space.”

• C&H numbers on social media
  • Facebook – 12m fans
    • only turned into $84k in last crowdfunding campaign
  • social media numbers are vanity metrics
  • Facebook can take away your audience at any time for any reason
• realizing they needed a mailing list
  • FB donations had to come from paid ads
  • had a pre-launch at Rooster Teeth and Gen Con
    • had secret website for launch
    • had 2k signups, almost all of which bought the game
    • converted at 15%
  • Facebook conversions were at 1.5-2%
  • doubling down on email list

1:03:48 “If there’s one thing and only one thing you pay attention to, it’s to have your customers ready before your launch, because not only does that mean you’re more likely to have a successful launch, but it also means you put in the time to talk to your customers. You have a relationship with them. You know what makes them happy and you know what they want in your product.”

1:04:11 “If you already know what people who will buy will need, then you can throw on ads, then you can talk to press, then you can do cross-promotion, because then you already know how to meet your fans’ needs. Because if you’re trying to figure that out live during your campaign, you’re just going to be flailing around trying everything, failing publicly as opposed to failing privately and learning your lessons there.”

• other lessons for crowdfunders
  • focusing your message
  • research on how to sell your message

1:05:31 “If you can’t describe in one sentence what your product is, who it’s for, and why it needs to exist, then you are not going to be able to get press, you’re not going to be able to build a fan base, you’re going to be wasting your money on ads and any form of communication because, when it comes down to it, you have to know what you stand for, you have to know why you stand for it, otherwise people aren’t going to figure it out themselves… The attention span on the internet is really simple, and if you aren’t able to  very clearly and concisely say ‘I am about X,’ people aren’t going to put in the time and the effort to learn about your product if you don’t already know your product well enough.”

1:06:30 “A message is what you’re selling, right?  If just are selling a product, go on Amazon, it’s a bigger platform, that’s fine, but when you’re buying through crowdfunding, you’re buying a story, you’re buying a part of the development process. It’s a much more personal sale and you need to know what you’re trying to sell if people are actually going to buy.”

• most interesting crowdfunding things he’s seen
  • Kickstarter to make potato salad by Zack Danger Brown
    • raised $75k for funny story
  • Field Skillet
    • didn’t believe or need much press
    • connecting with people was more important
    • picture heavy with clear design aesthetic
    • good at conveying the point of the project
  • Kung Fury

1:11:29 “Getting big press is very much the symptom of knowing your fan base well. If you already know how to make a whole bunch of people happy, the press will follow… At the core, press isn’t going to be interested if you can’t make other people interested.”

• challenges he faced writing book
  • land minds across different types of projects
  • different platforms have different challenges
• talking to different types of audiences
  • giving you tools to do research for your audience
  • how to do research and find out what you don’t know
• biggest hurdle for crowdfunders
  • people wanting immediate help instead of planning for future crowdfunding project
• favorite quote
  • “If [more] information was the answer, then we’d all be billionaires with perfect abs.” – Derek Sivers
  • creativity is based on movement
  • action is required to get things done
  • positive and negative consequences of taking action
• daily habits
  • 10 minutes of meditation a day
  • 10 ideas a day via James Altucher
    • process and habit of building ideas
• recommendations
  • Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss
    • FBI negotiator on negotiation
    • figure out what people think is important
    • listen to his podcast interviews
• creative people
  • Shawn Coss – fellow C&H member who is also into many creative things
  • Vernon Chatman – his ability to make and sell way out there material
• definition of creativity

1:25:08 “Creativity is movement. Sitting around and thinking about ideas. I don’t know, it’s a fun thing but.. for me the most important part of creativity is the challenge and the actual process of creation as opposed to sitting around coming up with ideas. There’s so many people who will say ‘Oh, I’m such a creative person but when it comes to actually putting pen… to paper, I think that is the most important part. That’s the part that challenges you and that’s the part that makes you grow.”

• challenge
  • Garfield challenge – make the worst thing possible

1:26:36 “One of the things that happens to us as artists is when we’re trying too hard to make things perfect, our masterpieces. We get caught up in our subtalk and we starting doubting ourselves, and then ‘Oh is this good enough?’ Whenever you’re feeling stuck, purposely try to make the Garfield version of whatever you’re trying to do. Purposely make the worst art”

1:27:10 “It turns off all your brains’ defense mechanisms of judgement and trying to shut yourself down and thinking too much and at the same time, the act of creation, the movement will kind of revitalize your creative muscle because you’re creating again, not thinking about creating.”

Sixfigurecrowdfunding.com