I don't mean to pile on when it seems others have already made this point, but reading your response/reaction to the cancellation of your GB is... not a good take
Although I'm absolutely devastated right now, seeing this dream of mine, that has now been worked on for a little bit over a year, crash, after only a few days into the GB (this hurts even more, when looking at a lot of other, newer, relatively relevant sets in the community, that are currently just being completely rushed, without much work put into it),
There's a few things to break down here -
1a. "This dream of mine" - while I understand that this set in particular is something that you were and probably still are passionate about, for a group buy to work out there has to be a pretty significant group of interested individuals. While this set is (in my opinion) honestly kind of nice looking, I can also understand why it wouldn't have broad appeal and why interest might not be high enough for a successful meeting of MOQ.
1b. Building off the fact that is doesn't particularly have a broad appeal, this is something you need to learn to recognize as a designer from the start, and if you recognize this, it is something that can be changed without destroying your personal vision. At the end of the day you are marketing a product that needs to appeal to more people than just yourself or a handful of people, and if making changes that might not make you as happy personally is what's needed to bring the idea to life, even if it's not exactly what you hope for, that might be a necessary sacrifice.
2. "That has now been worked on for a little bit over a year" - Again, I am not trying to be mean here. But I don't know why this would take you a year to create unless you were working on it very passively in the background while life was busy. On top of this, the time it takes to create a set has little to no relevance to the quality of the set, otherwise you would not be in this situation. There's not any one reason a set succeeds or fails, but in this case I can assure you it had very little to do with the time invested.
3. "Looking at a lot of other, newer, relatively relevant sets in the community, that are currently just being completely rushed, without much work put into it" - There's a lot to unpack here. Firstly, it doesn't matter if a set is rushed if it has broader appeal and a better design than another. It will sell more if more people like it, regardless of the time put in. Are there sets that are absolutely rushed and low quality and sell more than they probably should because they contain buzzwords and hot topics and memes? Sure! Does that have anything to do with what happened here? Not at all. I would also be interested to know what sets in particular you feel are rushed, so we could break down for you what they did well and explain how you could follow similar patterns to have a better chance at success.
The attitude behind you saying this is disheartening because I feel like you are letting yourself feel defeated by external factors rather than realizing that your set didn't come to fruition because of choices you made (or didn't make) in your year long journey of creating. It's extremely easy to place the blame on others and outside projects, the hard thing to do is to sit down and realize that you are responsible for your own success at the end of the day. Some people get lucky, but most are successful through hard work, lots of research, long hours, and lots of passion.
It's incredibly unfair to say other sets are rushed yet successful while yours was unsuccessful for completely different reasons. You wouldn't like it if someone said that about your work, so you probably shouldn't say it about others especially as a blanket statement. In the future, I hope you take more time to do the following so your projects will have a better chance at success:
- Consider your audience and tailor your concepts to them (This does NOT mean you have to abandon your personal ideas and preferences - it means making compromises where you can to bring in more interest from a broader range of people)
- Have thick skin when facing criticism. It's hard to hear negative feedback or even neutral feedback, but you have to learn to take it on the chin and consider it from their perspective.
- Promote your set! I had barely even heard of this set until I heard that it was cancelled. Post on social media, share it on discord servers, release promotional renders, do teasers, progress updates, something more. If nobody has heard of your work, nobody will be interested. While your vendors will do their best to help with marketing, this only helps once you reach Group Buy stage which is way too late to be gathering interest for your project. People need time to decide they're interested and start saving up when your projects require so much capital on their end.
- Be professional - this means not taking others down with you when you get knocked down. Chin up, brush off the dust, and get back to the drawing board, fix up your idea, take feedback to heart, and make something that people will love (not just you and not just 20 people), market it well, and blast the group buy out of the water. Don't place blame on someone else or give up because "luck" wasn't on your side this time.
I don't even know if you plan on reading this, if you still plan to update this set, or any of that. But if you do, I hope some of this advice helps you in some way and that you take what everyone here has said to heart. Nobody wants you to fail, but if you stick with the attitude you had there, you'll be doomed to it.
Best of luck. Feel free to reach out if you ever need some one on one help with anything.
edited for typo :c
