u/TrotBrands

We created a patent pending plant pot built with new materials and new features focused around root health. We don’t have a huge budget like these other players on Amazon, etc. looking to see if we can explore TikTok influencers or popular accounts as an approach to getting our product out there and visible to the relevant consumer base.

New to this entirely - looking for any advice, hacks, resources, etc.

My wife and I have been designing and developing an innovative new plant pot as a side project while working full-time jobs.

We launched on Kickstarter today.

The last week has honestly been kind of ridiculous.

It felt like every hour we'd notice one more thing:

"That sentence could be better."

"That image needs to be re-edited."

"That graphic doesn't quite look right."

We must have revised the Kickstarter page dozens of times. Every night turned into 1 or 2 AM, and every morning started with another list of things to tweak.

Eventually we just had to rip the Band-Aid off and hit Launch.

Now I'm sitting here with my mind racing, pacing... I can't even check the status because I don't want to get into that habit of obsessing over progress.

I need some advice - for those of you who've launched a business, product, or something you've poured months into... How did you actually switch your brain off afterward?

I'm realizing I've been so consumed by this project that I genuinely don't remember how to relax. I also don't know if I should be going hard after social media or ads or what... any thoughts??

Looking for opinions from people actively managing social media accounts.

I've noticed a lot of advice lately suggesting that brands should prioritize short-form video over static content, but I'm curious how true that is in practice.

I'm working on content for a product launch and have been testing two approaches:

1. Educational carousel posts that explain concepts, features, and benefits.
2. Short-form videos built around those same topics using voiceovers, simple animations, motion graphics, and visual storytelling.

The videos are essentially animated versions of the carousel content—not influencer-style videos, trends, or talking-head content.

A few questions:

• If you were starting with a relatively small audience, where would you invest most of your effort today?

• Are Reels meaningfully outperforming carousels for organic reach, or is that becoming overstated?

• Do Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts require different creative approaches, or do you generally adapt the same core content?

• How much influence do captions, hashtags, posting times, and keywords actually have compared to the content itself?

Interested in hearing what's working for people right now, especially if you've seen meaningful organic growth without relying heavily on paid advertising.

Also, if anyone has experience auditing early-stage product accounts and would be willing to take a quick look at our content approach, I'd be grateful for any feedback. I'm happy to share examples in the comments if helpful.

A couple weeks ago, we shared our project here and received a lot of thoughtful advice and encouragement from this community. We took a lot of it to heart, so first off, thank you.

We're back looking for a little more guidance as we head into the final stretch before launch.

For those who saw the original post, here's a quick update. And for the majority who probably aren't familiar with our situation, here's a quick summary:

My wife and I started what was supposed to be a small side project about 7 months ago.

Neither of us works on this full time. We've been funding the project ourselves while trying to balance it alongside our careers, which means both time and money have been pretty limited resources from the start.

That product is a patent-pending plant pot designed around a few innovation features/materials.

We're now less than two weeks away from launching (June 29).

One encouraging milestone: Kickstarter selected the project as a "Project We Love," which gave us some confidence that we might be onto something.

The challenge we're wrestling with now is visibility.

We have a modest Instagram following and no meaningful advertising budget. Most of our effort right now is focused on organic content and trying to tell the story in a way that gets people interested enough to learn more.

One thing we're actively trying to figure out right now is content strategy.

Most of our Instagram content so far has been static carousels explaining the product and the engineering behind it. We haven't posted a ton, since we are saving a lot of the content to roll out once the campaign is live...but now is the time where we are questioning our content approach.

Lately, we've started experimenting with turning those same concepts into short-form videos using voiceovers, simple animations, product renders, and motion graphics. They're not necessarily product demonstrations or talking-head videos, but more like animated versions of the carousels with a bit more life and storytelling.

Our assumption is that Reels will generate more reach than static carousels, but we're not sure if that's actually true in practice.

For those of you who have built audiences organically:

- If you had to choose, would you focus on carousels or Reels right before launch?

- Does your content strategy differ between Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts, or do you generally repurpose the same content across all three?

- How much attention do you pay to captions, hashtags, keywords, posting times, and other platform-specific tactics? Are any of those actually meaningful drivers of reach, or is the content itself doing most of the work?

One thing I'm struggling to evaluate objectively is whether we're communicating the product well enough through our content.

We've spent so much time with the product that it's difficult to tell whether the story is clear to someone seeing it for the first time.

For those of you who have launched products before, what tends to make you stop scrolling and actually investigate a new business further?

Appreciate any thoughts. This community has already helped us once, and we're grateful for any advice as we head into the final stretch before launch.

We just received a "Projects We Love" badge from Kickstarter for our upcoming campaign, and we're trying to understand what that realistically means as we head into launch.

A little context:

This is our first Kickstarter campaign

We're launching SafeGrow™ Pots, a patent-pending EVA foam plant pot designed to improve plant health while being lightweight, shatterproof, and safer around pets and kids. We've been working on it for about 7 months and are scheduled to launch in roughly 2 weeks.

We were thrilled to receive the Projects We Love designation, but we're trying to separate what it means in practice versus what it means on paper.

For founders who have launched with a Projects We Love badge:

• Did you notice a meaningful increase in Kickstarter traffic or conversions?
• Did it help with press outreach or social proof outside of Kickstarter?
• Is there anything you wish you had done differently to leverage the badge before launch?
• Did Kickstarter provide any additional visibility beyond the badge itself?
• Are there any common misconceptions new creators have about Projects We Love?

We're currently focused on building momentum leading into launch and would love to hear any lessons learned from creators who have been through it.

Thanks in advance!

My wife and I have spent the last year bootstrapping a physical consumer product while both working full time jobs (she’s a nurse and I work in product development engineering).

EDIT: A few people asked what the product actually is. We’ve been developing a new type of plant pot built around lightweight EVA body with hidden internal features focused on improving root aeration, drainage, moisture balance, durability, and portability. Basically trying to rethink the traditional ceramic/terracotta plant pot from both a materials and functionality standpoint.

We recently got approved for Kickstarter after WAY more work than we ever expected:
manufacturing, tooling revisions, supplier negotiations, CAD work, shipping/fulfillment research, branding, campaign building, content creation, etc.

Honestly, the process has been pretty humbling.

What we’re struggling with now is the part we have almost zero experience in:
actually getting the product in front of the right people.

Everywhere online we hear:

• “run ads”
• “build organic social”
• “hire influencers”
• “do PR outreach”
• “build a community”
• “email marketing”

…but as first-time founders without a huge budget, it’s hard to tell what actually matters versus what just sounds good on startup Twitter/LinkedIn.

For those of you who launched physical products or small consumer brands:

• what ACTUALLY moved the needle early on?
• where did your first traction come from?
• what was a waste of time/money?
• if you had a limited budget, where would you focus first?

We’re trying to stay lean and scrappy and avoid making expensive beginner mistakes.

Would genuinely appreciate any advice from people who’ve been through it.

About a year ago, my wife and I started working on a challenge we never would’ve guessed would consume our lives for the next year… building a new type of plant pot.

My wife is a nurse and I work full time in New Product Development engineering, but despite already working in product development professionally, I honestly had no appreciation for how much work goes into building a physical product startup when you don’t have a full corporate team behind you.

Over the last year we’ve had to learn:

• CAD improvements
• KeyShot rendering
• DFM/manufacturing realities
• tooling revisions
• shipping + fulfillment
• supplier negotiation
• Kickstarter campaign building
• video editing
• branding/content creation
• media outreach

At the beginning we genuinely thought:
“we can probably build this Kickstarter campaign in a few weeks.”

Six months later… we JUST released the pre-launch page.

Honestly, the entire process has been pretty humbling. Building the product itself turned out to be only half the battle. Now that we finally have an approved Kickstarter campaign, we’re trying to figure out what the actual effective path forward looks like from here.

Is it paid ads?
Personal outreach?
Social media?
Press/media coverage?
Community building?

All of the startup buzzwords sound great in theory, but for a physical consumer product without the budget to hire some big marketing agency or consulting firm, we’re realizing there’s no obvious roadmap.

As we get closer to launch, we figured we’d start sharing more of the process here while continuing to learn in real time.

Would genuinely love any advice from people who’ve gone through launching physical consumer products before. We are very much figuring this out as we go.

About a year ago, my wife and I started working on a product we never would’ve guessed would consume our lives for the next year... a plant pot... 

The idea originally started after our pesky cat kept knocking over plants and breaking pots in our apartment. At first it just felt like a frustrating everyday problem, but the more we looked into the category, the more surprised we became by how little the traditional plant pot has actually evolved.

Most still struggle with the same issues:
poor airflow to roots, inconsistent drainage, root rot from trapped moisture, messy saucers, heavy fragile materials, cracking/chipping during moves, etc.

So we took on the challenge of trying to design a NEW type of plant pot that addressed ALL of those pain points together instead of solving just one isolated problem.

For some background, my wife is a nurse and I work in NPD engineering full time, but despite already working in product development professionally, I honestly never appreciated how much work goes into bootstrapping and handling every aspect of development yourself without a full corporate team behind you.

Over the past year we’ve had to learn:

• better CAD skills
• KeyShot rendering
• DFM/manufacturing realities
• tooling revisions & timing
• shipping + fulfillment strategy
• 3PL pricing
• supplier negotiation
• The Kickstarter world (this feels like it could be broken into 100 bullet points)
• video editing
• branding/content creation
• media outreach

At the beginning we genuinely thought:
“we can probably knock out a Kickstarter campaign in a few weeks.”

Six months later… we JUST released our pre-launch page lol

The amount of work involved in building a physical consumer product from scratch is honestly insane. And now that we finally got Kickstarter approval, we’re realizing we’ve entered yet another area we have almost zero experience in....
brand building, selling, and figuring out how to actually get a product we deeply believe in in front of the right audience.

That said, it’s also been one of the most fun and rewarding things we’ve ever done. Honestly, I care more about this project than my normal day-to-day work at this point haha (hopefully no one I work with sees this).

As we prepare to launch the official SafeGrow™ Pots Kickstarter campaign later this month, we figured we’d start sharing more of the process here as we continue learning in real time and hopefully learning from all of you as well.

This entire experience has completely humbled us, so we come here with no pride, ego, or assumption that we know what we’re doing. We’ll gladly take any advice, feedback, guidance, or hard truths anyone is willing to share.

We are all ears.

Please bear with me — we're new to Reddit just like we're new to Kickstarter, so please don't come at me for accidental self-promotion or using our brand name as our Reddit username (I've already been told we messed up with that, but we can't change it). We genuinely need help/feedback, and everyone keeps telling us, "Go ask Reddit," so... here we are.

My wife and I are a married couple with basically zero entrepreneurship background. Over the past year, we've been bootstrapping and building a physical consumer product completely ourselves while balancing our normal full-time jobs.

We finally got our Kickstarter approved last week. It's exciting, but also a little overwhelming trying to figure out what the "right" next steps are from here.

Before we get bombarded with deep stats on Meta ads, conversion funnels, and follower analytics that honestly feel a bit overwhelming at this stage, the first thing we're trying to better understand is how to approach the pre-launch page itself.

We genuinely feel we created something pretty innovative in an otherwise stagnant category through both material choice and feature implementation, but I'm concerned the value/improvement over traditional products may come across as underwhelming if people only see 2–3 images and a couple short sentences before launch.

For people who have launched physical products successfully:

• What's the most effective approach to the pre-launch page?
• How much content/writing should we include?
• What's the appropriate balance of appealing graphics vs trying to educate people on why the product matters?

Would really appreciate any advice from people who've already been through this.