We did it! Time to talk stretch goals (Patreon)

38 hours after launching our crowdfunding campaign, we made it to our $19,900 goal. 

One hour later, we cleared $20,000. 

An hour after that, we hit our first stretch goal. 

You can see how it all unfolded in (somewhat) real time in the post I updated for the first 48 hours of the campaign: https://www.animefeminist.com/editorial-crowdfunding-campaign-live-update-post/ 

Drafting the opening copy of that post was the last thing I did on the eve of the campaign before falling asleep - at 3am. I woke up again at 5am and was working again from 6am, making sure the campaign copy, all images, our website redirect, YouTube video description, and a bunch of other details were all in placed and ready to be switched on at 8am my time. 

In retrospect, it's no surprise that I couldn't stay awake until 2am to provide an 18-hour update, or that my alarm wasn't convincing enough to get me out of bed at that time. I did, however, wake up for long enough to take a screenshot, as I detailed in this post: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/anime-feminist-levels-up/x/19479576#/updates/4

It was our first plateau, and even through my sleep-bleariness it worried me (though obviously not enough to wake me up). 

But there was no need - by the time I woke up we were at 80%, and after 25 hours we'd hit 90%. Worries over. 

Or so I thought...

Then the crawling began. Just in time for the last 10%, which would cover my pay for the campaign. 

That day was painful. I had gone from thinking of reaching 100% in 24 hours as a wild dream scenario to desperately wanting it. Once we missed that deadline, and our free art print offer ended, momentum dropped sharply. Unsurprising... but unnerving all the same. 

I started to worry that the world had moved on, that those who had planned to contribute had done so, and that I'd spend the next 27 days scraping for the money I'd earned for my work raising 90% in 25 hours - or, worse, failing to do so and ending with an under-funded campaign. 

So I hustled. 

I asked the team to share the campaign with personal pleas. 

I posted on my Facebook begging my anime contacts to share the campaign with their personal endorsements. 

In the darkest moments, I started work on a new editorial, a short social video, anything to give me some fresh, persuasive content I could use to get the campaign over the line before bedtime. 

And while I was hustling, our backers increased, the gap to our goal dropped, and we ended up in sight of the final $1,000. 

Once we hit that point I knew it would be a much easier sell, and I started a gif thread we could use to keep updates in people's feeds until we reached the goal:  https://twitter.com/AnimeFeminist/status/1069293236492124160  

Even within that thread there were a few more nervewracking plateaus. Those were the times I went back to my idea of creating a last-ditch editorial or video. I was determined to hit the goal within 36 hours, or at least within 48, and get a great headline we could use to promote ourselves in more mainstream publications. "The feminist anime website that raised $20,000 in 24 hours" had a great ring to it. 

In the end, we jumped from $420 to go (yes, seriously) to clearing our goal. It happened so fast I didn't actually know how to process it. 

I knew I should send out a round of updates on our social media channels. 

I knew I should issue the appropriate messages of thanks, so that people would understand how grateful I was. 

I knew I should celebrate in some way, express my delight, call someone to share the experience with me... 

Instead, I burst into tears. I hadn't expected it to affect me so strongly, but I was utterly overwhelmed. 

I turned my attention to necessary updates, but only really wanted to talk about about what it meant for me personally to have achieved this very visible accomplishment at this particular time in my life. Channelling such intense feelings into a bubbly PR message felt impossible, which is why so many of them went up today. 

I put up a thread on Twitter ( https://twitter.com/AnimeFeminist/status/1069371964790398977 ) which I then repurposed for updates on Facebook and Indiegogo so that everyone has the numbers, the basic story, and my gratitude. 

But I want patrons to get more than other information sources, hence being so much more personal. I trust you not to screenshot and spread around the things I say here, which allows me to be a little more open with you than I can be through other avenues. That's why your update has been the latest of all. 

A full night's sleep helped a lot, and I put up a tweet thread earlier about stretch goals:  https://twitter.com/AnimeFeminist/status/1069542299938562049  

It's looking increasingly like we'll hit our $25,000 stretch goal with room to spare, so now I'm planning our next few tiers up. I'm playing around with a few ideas, but it'll take a while to get the right motivational mix of exciting and less-exciting goals. 

I desperately want to pay one of the team to do a social media audit and overhaul, for example, looking for ways we could enhance our brand voice and build our following (and hopefully also our patronage). That would be an enormously useful service, and could have a big impact on our Patreon's success, but it's not necessarily going to enthuse our base the way publishing books or producing videos will. 

So this is a challenge... but, frankly, a piece of cake compared to raising $20,000 for two pretty pedestrian-sounding goals in our first ever crowdfunding campaign. I'm a marketer at heart, and these are the kinds of challenges I love. 

Besides, after two years of having to quash project ideas with "We can't afford it" or "Not until we're accessible," it's a pleasure just to be able to finally think in this way about AniFem projects. A lot of distant ambitions are starting to feel not only possible, but within reach. 

For example, I'm now determined to hit a $10,000 monthly income in 2019 and offer at least one of my team a full time, salaried job with excellent benefits. This used to feel like one of my wilder dreams... but with a community as strong, engaged, and ethical as the crowdfunding campaign has proven ours is, being able to reward my hard-working team with secure employment has never felt more possible. 

Thank you all for helping us get to this point. Now the pressure's completely off, I'm looking forward to the rest of the campaign as we plan, share, and deliver on our stretch goals.