Setting a funding goal you can actually deliver

A funding goal is not an ambition, it is a budget. It should be the amount below which you cannot deliver the thing you are promising, and every pound of it should be traceable to a line in a spreadsheet you could show a stranger.

Start with tooling. Injection moulds, jigs and fixtures are paid before a single unit exists, and they do not scale with volume. Then unit cost at your realistic first-run quantity, not at the ten-thousand-unit price your supplier quoted to win the business.

Add certification and compliance for every market you intend to ship to. Add shipping, and then add duties, which first-time creators forget with remarkable consistency. Add the platform fee. Add a contingency you would be embarrassed to admit is only ten per cent, because it will be used.

The number you end up with is usually larger than the one you had in mind. That is not a reason to lower it: a campaign that funds at a number too small to deliver is worse than one that does not fund at all, because now you owe several hundred people a product you cannot make.

If the honest number is too big for a first campaign, make something smaller. Ship it, build an audience that has actually received a parcel from you, and come back for the ambitious one with a track record behind you.