February finished strong. My woodworking Kickstarter project finally crossed the finish line, funding at 156%, but most of those final pledges came in during the last 24 hours after weeks of radio silence. Classic. I was targeting a sellout raising 15k and only ended with a little over 1k, but unlike my last kickstarter, I budgeted correctly and every pledge was profitable. :)
The big lesson: the product looks a lot better in person than in photos, which is the same problem I had with the cookie cutters. Finding your niche audience is the whole game... and though I got the ball rolling with friends backing the project, strangers did find it and take a risk... this is validation... which was the real goal. After they are shipping I am going to post it on Etsy and experiment with marketing.
On the dev side, I got deep into building "Sector" — a minesweeper-meets-space-combat game — and hit a wall trying to get the asteroid-style arcade combat working. I did get an invitation to show it off in a local gaming event during(but not at SXSW) so I need to polish it up and get it ready to meet the public.
Speaking of SXSW, I also shipped updates to my South by Southwest event app, which I'm targeting for launch right before the festival. Last year I had 250+ people use it, this year I have more time to get the word out. :)
Health-wise, I've been doing every-other-day fasting leading up to my DEXA scan, walking 10,000+ steps a day, and actually making it to the gym consistently. Small wins.