It's only failure when you finally give up

Failed. Four months ago my campaign to raise funds to build a mobile phone app HappiJar ran out of time. It did not reach the intended target of £15,500. It's hard for me to say 'I failed' but I did. I failed at Kickstarter. I refused to go back to the drawing board and reboot my quest one more time. The thought of it doing it again still makes me feel queasy today.

Sharing my idea to the world was not scary for me. The process of my ideas being rejected by others just taught me about how and how not to promote my idea to people. So why did I not just return to the eternally optimistic timeline of Kickstarterland with my new found knowledge? Because I thought that I'd lose friends. That's why.

E-Begging. Rattling a tin for the future benefit of my ideas and dreams; felt like begging. Worse than that, some friends may have [possibly will have] taken a request to pledge on my idea as a personal attack on the importance of their own future plans. "What mate? You want to build a widget? Do it then... but don't ask me for any money. I have dreams and plans of my own. I think I'll invest in them instead". And they do.

Why? So why do we do it? To feel complete? Marketing guru Seth Godin believes that you cannot consider yourself an artist until you 'ship' your art. So what this means is that you could be the most talented inventor with a beautiful style and mind - but until you share your 'art' you cannot call yourself an artist. That could be one reason. Another reason is that crowd funding platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo have hundreds, thousands and millions of potential investors just waiting to become part of something big. Money may not be burning holes in their pockets, but a compelling feature of the 'crowd' is that you are more likely to find fans of your idea or product. And we all know that good ideas spread right?

Experience. For me it was a little more basic. I needed the experience, a challenge and ultimately a goal to shoot for. What I didn't realise was the toll it takes on your work, health and relationships. Most of us entrepreneurial types [and I use this term loosely] are stubborn and overwhelmingly passionate about our ideas. We have to be to survive the knock backs and disappointments. What I come to realise first hand was that an entrepreneurs support network is as essential to our survival as air and water are. When our foundations shake and fracture, when our loved ones finally begin to lose faith in our resolve, purpose and sanity, it feels like our confidence and mojo are being stolen away when we need them the most. So pursuing an idea or crowd funded project is a gamble; and we wage our most important life assets on it.

Confidence. So please trust me when I say; someone who has mustered the will, confidence and the self belief to act upon their dreams will not be put off by a temporary state such as 'failure'. BUT. But, what will bring them to a grinding halt is the belief [not necessarily the realisation] that their loved ones no longer have confidence in their abilities to succeed. It's like kryptonite. 

Will I ever go back to crowd funding with HappiJar? I hope we don't have to.  Kickstarter enabled me to find a bunch of fans and one of them joined me as partner in the venture. Together we are self funding the project and have already begun constructing the app with artists, programmers and DJ's. It's going to be awesome. Still though, the road ahead is a long and perilous one. I don't know if I will get the support I need from everybody like when I was crowd sourcing my idea... but so long as certain key individuals are near me when I need them the most. I am Iron Man.  

Note: I decided to leave this page as it was when I raising funds. If you want to go and see our website which it building a following in readiness for our launch this year - then click on this www.happijar.com

It would be great to hear from you.

Glen

HappiJar

Day Twenty-Three- 15% The Irresistible Force Meets the Immovable Object

Since the beginning - even at concept design stage [see concept sketches below], we have been inundated with positive comments about what HappiJar could do for lots of people.

No one was imagining that HappiJar would become one of those 'must have' apps like your camera or email. The open mindedness of those we revealed the design to was astounding. HappiJar became an irresistible force and we felt compelled to push it forward into the world.

It took us about 3 months to pull together the Kickstarter campaign, then we launched it. Since then we have not stopped for a minute.

After launch we hovered around the Twitter hashtag - Kickstarter. We appeared to have joined a very long line of other Kickstarter's who were also raising funds for their projects, and there seemed to be a back lash. If you do a very quick online search you will find articles from bloggers and writers who are sick of giving to their friends, 'begging' for a miserly £5 or more to help fulfil their dreams. This is understandable that some of us might feel this way.

But there is a another side to the story. Constantly asking for friends to share links to your projects and talk to others about it; takes it's toll too. Chasing a dream requires a herculean effort, and I defy anyone who has attempted this before to complain when they see another taking on his or her quest.

Some dreams are small, and others are life changing. You will see every kind if you flick through some projects on a crowd funding site.

So here we are, 23 days into a 30 day campaign and it appears our project is fast becoming an Immovable Object! We are still searching for the stick of dynamite that will get this project rolling again.

One thing that has moved me more than I thought possible though was those who have openly shared my project and backed it against the odds. I really didn't expect the amount of help I have gotten so far.

Lots to do this week again.

Day Twenty-Two - 15% Being happy is about giving.

First draft for our new Kickstarter introduction. You like?

Our app is going to blow your socks off. Smart science and philosophical folk have for many years, studied and tested the affects of what gratitude has on our general well being and happiness. Entire nations are investing millions of pounds into research grants just to find out how to make you all happy with the least amount of effort.

Which is quite funny really, as a little effort is all it requires to feel happier. Gratitude plays a large part in our ability to live and appreciate what is happening around us. Be mindful, and then thankful for the all the great stuff that we experience enhances our outlook on life. We can trick ourselves into being more positive just be simply logging into life more!

It has been said that only 33% of our overall variation in life satisfaction [happiness to you and me] can be attributed to genetics alone. Another 20% linked directly to how we were brought up and 'hard wired' to view the world. I say 'hard wired', but I mean natural instinct.

Together 53% of our 'happiness' can be fixed to a certain degree. The rest? Well that's up for grabs. You can make yourself over 40% more satisfied with your life just be thinking positively. Amazing eh?

Next time you feel down, ask yourself: Do I really need to feel this way in this moment? The answer has to be no. Never.

HappiJar represents just one of the ways that you can proactively train your brain to unconsciously search for what it is that makes you grateful and as a result, happier!

Please carry out this experiment yourself to prove to that you have the power. Do you recall when you got your very first car? Exciting times. Do you also recall from then on every other car on the road seemed to be not only the same make and model but also the same colour? This is not the universe conspiring against you. This is your subconscious at work. You didn't notice them before until you had become mindful of it. This is the very reason why counting your blessings and being grateful for the little things in life is so powerful.

HappiJar provides you with a canvas to become more grateful.

Pay it forward. This is the effect of when someone thanks YOU for a particularly nice deed. It is human nature to feel massive contentment that your actions [indirectly or directly] have helped to make others happy. So as a result, it has been scientifically proven that you are many times more likely to go out and instigate your very own random act of kindness just to feel that buzz again! So let's get this 100% straight. Those of us who do nice things feel an urge to do more as a result of being appreciated and thanked.

To put this simply. The happiest of us, are the ones who do more for others. HappiJar allows you to not only record your own favourite 'things to do' but thank your close friends and family for being awesome - thus inspiring them to do even more good. Seriously. Who doesn't want that in their life?

Day Twenty-One - 15% Gratitude. I don't get it...

It's not the first time we have heard this. Probably four times since we have taken our design on the road.

"I don't get HappiJar.", "What is it supposed to do?",  "Really? Can it do that?" "I'd get bored using it I think".

As a designer, these questions horrified me. You see, if we had not communicated the idea and our end goal with clarity then we really had little to no chance of success on Kickstarter.

From our last blog post we already concluded that our pitch may not have been as focussed as it should. The 'angle' had not been fully explained. My mind is cast back to a business networking group and being told by someone who I greatly respect that "so long as they live, some people will never 'get it' Glen". The gratitude thing.

Image courtesy of
Londoneats.wordpress.com

They are likely to be the ones to benefit from the generosity of others, but never quite realise that 'paying this forward'  is essential for the wave of gratitude and happiness to propagate fully. Vis-à-vis - everyone prospers as a result.

So in reality, when I am told by another that "I don't get it..". I know exactly what kind of person I am dealing with straight away.

We still need to help ourselves with the Kickstarter pitch though - and this will happen over the weekend. We will never be able to convince an ungrateful person to suddenly begin journalling about or be thankful towards the things and the people they love in their lives. What we CAN do is remind those of us who 'get it' that practising gratitude on HappiJar is a great way to not only make ourselves feel awesome, but by paying it forward and spreading the happiness around - we get to see others smile too :)

Happiness is like strawberry jam. You can't spread it around without getting a little on yourself too.

Have a great Friday!

Day Twenty - 15% I'm Awesome. Back Me.

We missed our blog post yesterday. As you might have guessed we are thinking really hard on how to increase the coverage of our project on kickstarter and make our target.

It's only fair that after reading numerous articles on what makes a great kickstarter campaign and what not to do - [many of which we discovered before our project began] that 10 days away from either an epic come back or the slow slide to failure and a big rethink... we regale you with experiences as they happen. Hence this blog.

Here are what most articles on running successful campaigns say and we have added our own points too;

1. Personality. Introduce yourself. Stumbling upon a campaign is not good enough. you also need to convert a few visitors to sharers and backers. Include yourself in the first paragraph and or the video. Probably both. Use the naturally infectious enthusiasm for your idea to convince people that you are worth a few quid pledge. We decided to use the main video to introduce the product as best as we could. Comments have been really favourable so far. It has been described as clean, professional and happy :) and we have had over 250 video views! Conversion to pledges has not been so impressive though. The general view though.. is that my personality has not shone through. Which is a shame because I am delightful. 
2. The Angle. Choose your pitch wisely. You are not on Kickstarter to peddle t-shirts. Unless of course you are on kickstarter to peddle t-shirts. Then please - peddle away. No, for example if your product will resolve a problem that we all face on a day to day basis, then highlight that. The rest is just smoke and mirrors. Be specific on why your project simply must. Not. Fail. Or the world will implode etc. Our project has been designed to help people feel more grateful and happier as a result. A major hurdle for us is that we as humans never really think about happiness until we don't have it. Then - we as people will not naturally resort to anything technological to help out. It's a hard sell. So how did we solve that problem?  Wellll.... to be honest I don't think we have. Our angle has always been SURPRISE!! Really? Yes, an app can help you do this - look how cute it is and why hasn't this been funded already. You can tell that our angle needs adjustment.
3. Network. It goes without saying that meeting people face to face is far more powerful. That's why everybody recommend that you introduce yourself in person on the video. Going out to your local community and impressing yourself upon people as an enthusiastic entrepreneur who can't but help save you from [insert angle/pitch/problem] is very powerful. It builds an awareness for the product that might have otherwise been lost on a Kickstarter page. Many people you meet on the street will never have heard of Kickstarter. How did we resolve this? I am very good at taking my business on the road. I love to meet new people and chat. Which is kinda rare for an introverted engineer like me. What I found was that I could win people over, but I struggled to get them to provide me with feedback or backing. Lots of colleagues have backed, but not in the numbers we need so far. A lot of time and effort goes into meeting face to face - the return on investment is not quite as compelling though.
4. Family. It is fast becoming a well known fact that you bring your crowd with you to Kickstarter. Your friends, family, close acquaintances, your pets. Anyone. The harsh reality is that convincing your friends to part with the minimum donation is one thing, but getting them to spread the word can be slightly trickier. EVEN if you are good at your job at promoting your 'idea', this might not transfer as well through others mouths. You must consider pre-writing tweets and status updates for your buddies so they don't have to remember all your enthusiastic rantings. Give them a fighting chance to spread the word on your behalf. We have done this and seen lots of like and shares as a result. Not enough though. What we noticed was that when it comes to asking for help - most of us are scared to do it. Therefore we don't expect it of others either. Human nature. There is also a fine line between badgering people and asking your mates to 'do a good thing' for you. I found myself 'pledge swapping' [that's promising to pledge on friends charitable endeavours in return for a pledge on mine], phoning friends individually, emailing them and explaining what it was I wanted them to do...  
5. Tell Me I'm Great. Reviews and articles written on your behalf by magazines, newspapers, businesses and personal blogs are apparently a large source of potential backers. I have yet to see this. The problem I faced was, I teed up a number of articles to be written ahead of launch day, but they could not help until they saw the page on Kickstarter. It was then I realised that having a landing page would have been a great asset. The projects bare essentials and a link to send interested writers to. As it turns out, many of the websites I wrote to never came through with their promises, or just didn't return my website messages, emails or phone calls. It is then you realise that raising funding to make people happy isn't enough today. You have to be a story! A real bit of news for people to read.

Writing this guide and experience log has been quite useful for me. I will be changing my Kickstarter page slightly to display my personality more [which is that I am delightful] and describe my angle with more focus [which is gratitude needs to be practiced. What better tool than a mobile phone]. 

Thanks again for reading. 

Day Eighteen - 15% I need HappiJar

I hit the wall today. If HappiJar was an actual working app then I would have emptied it of all my happy encounters and then some by this afternoon... I had visions of me vibrating myself through the ground whilst shaking out all my HappiButtons lol.

I guess all the hard work and energy I've poured into this campaign has just started to catch up and ask hard questions of my faith that we can get funded in time.

I'm sure that all Kickstarter project managers go through this. But how many make it out the other end successfully? Not many I'm willing to wager.

We gained 2 more backers and opened up a few more opportunities by talking to networks and pouring my heart out to whoever would listen. Normally in situations like this I would never contemplate failure. I am and will forever be a fighter to the end. Yet my mind is considering how best to deal with a soul crushing defeat.

12 days left. 15% Funded. A come back here would be epic on a grand scale. Minstrels would sing songs about us and the tales would be infectious.

I love a good fight, but what feel I have stumbled upon is the long tortuous digestion of my idea within the stomach of the almighty Sarlac Pit [Return of the Jedi].

Is there a return? Of course there is. So long as there are a few hours left, we can still do this. Let's see what tomorrow brings.

Happiness and gratitude. Happitude.

Day Seventeen - 15% Updates!

Today has been a nexus of changes. 

1. Lots of advice from strangers on Facebook and Twitter who are trying to will us on to victory.
2. New t-shirt reward made up. Hoping to drag in a few more backers who want some physical gifts.
3. Clothing designer [ex-Kickstarter] is designing us a one-off tee for our project :)
4. 2 new artists HappiButton sets. THEY ARE GORGEOUS! Check em out.

If our backer activity graph is going to be flat-lining until our Kickstarter time is up, then we are going down FIGHTING!! We have 2 weeks left and 24 hrs in each day. Are we sleeping? No... we are terminators. 

...But there is no coming back. 

Lessons Learned:

1. Seriously. If you spot a great Kickstarter project and NEED to collaborate with them. Go after it!
2. Keep chatting to your friends and backers. You need all the support you can get.

Day Sixteen - 15% Learning to Pitch - even when drunk

Classic day. Managed to grab me some business networking in the afternoon and in the evening.

As the day wore on I became more and more drunk. Even managed to pitch my idea to a bunch of really nice guys in a pub at 11pm. Hey - they got it!

Learned a lot about why I am doing this. It turns out that even when drunk I am still smiley, positive and ON IT! I love what I do and am excited to think that one day we will be rolling this phone app out to everyone.

Not quite sure it will be with Kickstarter though... if the stats continue to flat-line like they have.

Also we now have a cocktail designed for our social gathering in 2 weeks. We just don't know what to call it yet.

Lessons Learned:

1. Keep looking towards the little wins. Trust that things always work out for the best.
2. Always have a business card, or QR Code handy with your Kickstarter URL on it... you just never know...

Day Fifthteen - 15% Growing new Networks

No backers today. Just had to get that out there. Now on to the positivity again.

I met with two people today, one friend and one a new contact who was interested in my activities and HappiJar. I also received a phone call from a professional crowd fund project manager. It was great to hear from the experts on what to do and the options available to us to get this party started.

So many new ideas to digest that's it feel like being cast into a nexus of energy and I'm trying to catch some of it on my tongue #faceburn.

Contacted the venue to speak to them about how to host a great social for HappiJar in two weeks time. This could be awesome.

We are moving forward with our collaborative endeavours together with other companies, charities and Kickstarter projects - but nothing to show for our work as of yet. More shares, more RT's, and Facebook mentions... but no more backers.

Lessons Learned:

1. This is a white knuckle ride if you are not fortunate enough to get funded in the first week. Be prepared for the highs and lows and an out and out street fight to keep you project rolling...
2. Opportunities will come and go. Just do your best to take advantage of as many as you can and keep a diary of your little wins. Like a blog perhaps ;)

HUGE things need to happen this weekend, but with so many balls in the air - we are beginning to wonder if we are jugglers or project manager? Or both. 

Day Fourteen - 15% Charity. It begins Online.

Another backer? I'm afraid to say that it was due to a bit of arm twisting... but they all count eh? Eh?

We are still waiting on some good news from the t-shirt manufacturers and the creative collaborators... but in the meanwhile we did move along a couple of other potential happy encounters!

A talented TV voice over artist is on board and agrees to record their own rendition of my poetic offering - https://soundcloud.com/glen-cooper-4/be-present-take-a-bow

Which means we can put together a feel good [hopefully viral] YouTube video to go with our Kickstarter campaign. Got a good feeling about that. Speaking of which, how about we take another look at our 30 second Star Wars video. Seems a shame to waste an opportunity like this ;)

Finally we manage to make contact with a lovely charity so we could give offer them our support through free advertising using HappiJar. They love our idea and once we have final confirmation from their founder - we will announce the charities name and the new button design! Making progress.

Lessons Learned:

1. Pick up the phone, speak to people. Make things happen. Rattle some cages.

Lots of loose ends. I feel dirty.

Day Thirteen - 14% Chasing. Again.

The long hard slog continues.

Today was all about chasing emails, messages and making a phone call to a well known chocolate manufacturer. Why? Well we are looking for more commercial backers for the phone app too. We believe that the happiness brand we are creating with this project will appeal to certain 'feel good' brands :)

We also finally decided to go with a t-shirt reward for our campaign! Please check our project updates for more information. This is exciting stuff :D

Also against all the odds, a live Kickstarter project has agreed to collaborate with us! This is seriously good news and again, all the details are in our project updates.

Lessons Learned:

1. Be prepared to add to your project rewards at a moments notice. Hassle people for their input continuosly. This could put a flatlinning project back on track. Worth a go!!
2. Don't Stop. Believing! Lol... keep pushing hard and things will happen. Also do not underestimate the power of localism and your close networks. 

We are optimistic that we can begin to turn our steady backer growth into a torrent. We just need a bit of luck and some more 'share the loving'. 

Day Twelve - 14% Bank Holiday Juggling

Our first and last bank holiday Monday! We also had one backer too!

There was no way that I was going to get any rest today. My better half was sick [poor baby], I had a photo puppet film to create, emails to answer, tweets to re-tweet and projects to research. Oh and help my very good friend to complete our website. So here's what I got up to, in detail:

1. I built a 30 second Star Wars spoof in PhotoPuppet on my iPad JUST so I could impress the creators of one of my favourite Kickstarter projects; Crowd Funding Alliance X-Wing Squadron. With my master piece I was hoping to get a bit of late promotion for my campaign... unfortunately I am still waiting to hear from them. This is not news to me though. Most of my Kickstarter experience so far has been thinking up creative ways to make contact with people and never hearing back from them. 
2. I also managed to contact two of my really nice connections via LinkedIn to tell them all about what it was I was doing. It was met with a mixed response. They love me, but don't like what Kickstarter is doing. Bit late for that, but I had a fantastic chat with them anyway. Always good to catch up with friends.
3. Whilst on LinkedIn I also managed to finally give a friend a well deserved recommendation in the hope that he would spread the word about HappiJar as a favour. Let's just say we'll check back on that one at a later date ;)
4. One of my best friends uploaded our website and we are now represented using our domain www.happijar.com! This is fantastic and major kudos to him for helping me :) Please check it out.
5. Finally made the decision to research and draw up budget costings for some more physical rewards to balance out the digital ones. I finally relented after yet another request for me to consider it. So far I have approached a local t-shirt company to help us design and draw up a plan. More on that soon.
6. Local business social group have written a new article about our project in their blog. Apparently it will be published tomorrow - so we got that to look forward to :)
7. I spent 3 hours combing Kickstarter projects for possible collaborators... more about that soon - but one find was quite exciting. Think HappiButtons with not only limited edition artwork, but sound clips attached too!

Lessons Learned:

1. Grow a very thick skin. Preferrably one with many additional arms and heads. You'll want a built in computer monitor too and smart phone recessed into your chest.This is what a successful Kicksterter probably looks like.....
2. Keep surfing Kickstarter. If you don't find any help you may atleast get inspired by someone elses pitch enough to make yours stronger too. 

Busy, busy. Keep sharing.

Day Eleven - 14% Easter Sunday

Hey guys and girls. Today saw another two backers give us a lending hand, which is ace :)

We decided to review our past emails and try to catch up on a few connections and reach out to three other Kickstarter projects which were in full swing. We hope to launch a collaborative project and drum up some some more business for all of us in the coming week. No bites as of yet.

During our research, I found a rather interesting iPad app - called PhotoPuppet. I sat up until 1 am toying with another idea to get our name out there. More about that tomorrow.

Oh and currently if you search for us in the Technology projects on Kickstarter, we are about 90th! Not good enough I'm afraid. But we are 2nd if you search for 'Phone App'!

Lessons Learned:

1. If the going gets flat... then think differently. You never know where your creativity will take you.
2. Keep your eyes peeled for possible collaborators who are close to or already reached their project fund total and try to help them reach their stretch goals by working together. This will also be quite a bonus for you. hopefully!
3. Thank your backers and treat them to a personal message. They may choose to raise their pledge if you are open and honest with them.

Lots to do tomorrow - Bank Holiday! No rest for the wicked \m/

Day Ten - 14% Take a Fricking Bow!

Day Ten and we today we broke our 3 days of no additional backers with two amazing pledges. Thank you! As expected, today I was able to surf the social networks pushing the name HappiJar into conversations and hoping against all hopes that we managed to get a run of re-tweets, shares and as a result - more pledges.

Some of it appeared to have paid off :)

Our expectations for an Easter bank holiday weekend was that we wouldn't see much by way of traffic to our project page. So I decided to kick off something to help bring in the punters next week.... check this out please as we need some help.



We are looking for an movie editing and voice over genius to collaborate with us to turn this into a video that goes viral. That's all.

Lessons Learned:

1. Quiet times need not be times to put down your project. These are the times to get busy and let your creativity come up with new ideas on how to promote your campaign!
2. Keep a watchful eye on your social media campaign and be responsive. 

Have a great Easter Sunday and see you later for another update :)

Day Nine - 13% Can An App Really Make You Happy?

AHA! A title to get our teeth into! I thought that today I'd tell you a little bit about the inner workings and the philosophy behind HappiJar so you could judge for yourself whether or not an app can truly make you happy or not.

Up until about 6 months ago I had never read much on the subject of happiness or asked myself if I was happy. To me it was much like the question "have you ever fallen in love?". Your instinctive answer might be, yes of course! But we do find that we have to think about it first. Everybody has fallen in love or felt happiness - right? So why do we pause for thought?

In my past I have written a blog post or two about 'contentment', perhaps even broached the subject of happiness, but only because I felt urged to formulate an opinion on it. I believed that this would help galvanise me against feeling down in the future. If I'm honest, part of me did this just so I could have a witty answer ready for when someone inquired about my happiness. Which they did. Lots. Must have something to do with looking so intense all the time.

If it wasn't for friends and family continuously asking me if I was happy or not - I probably would have never given it a second thought. For me, happiness had always been about being lost in the moment. Designing or talking about ideas. I could and have spent hours talking to anyone about ideas. They are gorgeous little creatures which infest our lives. Crawling in and out of our dreams, books, music, conversations [mainly beer addled ones] waiting for the perfect opportunity to take root and emerge into the light.

So What Has Changed In Me?
Late last year I stumbled upon a rather interesting concept which was new to me. Gratitude. Being grateful appeared to be a super fast highway into feelings of appreciation for things, people and places; which then led neatly onto contentment and happiness. This realisation struck me as not the only answer to becoming happier - but also an outward indicator that a person was being mindful. Contentment comes from within and it can reveal itself in many different ways should we be searching for it. Perhaps in the way that someone plays a musical instrument, or rides a bike, or even the way someone lovingly prepares food for their family. These moments begin to define us and other people relate to these as the actions of someone who has found not only an inner peace, but also a way to express it. Not matter how fleeting our 'moments' are - they all are worth reflecting upon.

Why a Gratitude App?
Gratitude is just one path to happiness, and I chose this path only because it could be practised easily. Lucky for you and me is that it can also be replicated in the simple functions of a mobile phone too. Big smiles.

When I finally decided that designing a phone app was the way forward I considered that my most important challenge was this; build an app which people wanted to use. Not needed to use. Wanted.

The bitter sweet reality to gratitude and therefore happiness was that no one would openly admit that they needed an app of all things to correct their happiness quotient or make them feel more grateful. Yet practising gratitude has been scientifically proven to help us become more thankful for the small things in life. An interesting problem, and one which I my engineering brain was curious to find an answer for.

How will HappiJar Be Any Different?
Well forget graphs, forget online communities of strangers who repeat gratitude to one another for support and sympathy. There are apps, groups and social networks out there that do this very well already. My vision for gratitude and HappiJar is deeply rooted in the humble but effective personal pleasure of journalling.

Record your thankful thoughts and blessings as photographs, voice messages or text. Anticipate and reflect upon them at a later date. Share the thanks with those who mean everything to you. Enjoy the ever changing beautiful button designs by artists the world over. 

This year is likely to see many new apps which deal with mental health and issues surrounding our happiness. They are simply following the same trends as the emergence of physical health apps. Most of us will have down loaded a walking or running app at one time I'm sure. But through all the bells and whistles and training plans, none of them, not a single one can actually walk for us. Or run FOR us. We still have to do our part. An app will not 'make' us be happy. It can however help train us to be more grateful, mindful and appreciative. Therefore it can help us become happier.

How Does That Work?
Do you remember buying your first new car? Saving your money, pouring over the glossy brochures, gazing at the lush interiors and dreaming about how you would feel sitting in you brand new car. Once your decision was made do you also remember walking down the street or driving into work, only to see that every other car on the road was not only the same make and model car that you dreamed about, but the identical colour too! Focussing on one good outcome is a generally accepted way of making it happen in real life. The law of attraction works this way too.

If we concentrate and become more mindful of the great things that happen to us which may have otherwise gone unnoticed - then more good things to be thankful for will reveal themselves to us.

My job is simple. Build you an app that you love to use and want to share. The rest is just human nature.

Please share our links with your friends and if you can, pledge support on Kickstarter. Currently you have a unique opportunity to help us sculpt the way that HappiJar delivers on it's promise to help you become more grateful.

Have a great Easter Holiday folks. Roll on social media Saturday and hopefully some more backers.

Day Eight - 13% Call from out of the blue

After what seemed like months of social networking, networking, and talking with people about our project, we began to see a very small change for the better.

The number of twitter followers crept up, Facebook shares are up, we had a phone call from an inspirational speaker on motivation who wanted to hear more about our project and why I was doing it. Topping that all off, 3 articles are being written for us on HappiJar, and our quest to make the world a happier and more grateful place.[one already published here]

Can't quite believe it all.

All this and 48 continuous hours of with no pledging! This has got to be the most enlightening, exciting and soul destroying experience anyone will ever encounter.

Lessons Learned

1. Make a list of the leads that you make during the day and chase. Them. Down. The mountain will NOT be coming to Mohammed.
2. Liven up your Facebook page feed and new posts each day. Link this to Twitter. Take photos of related events on Instagram, and share them with the hash-tag #KickStarter. 

We also released our first project update on Kickstarter! Check it out!

Day Seven - 13% Happy Entrepreneurs

A large amount of potential and new connections were picked up today. We went along to a networking meeting in London and met with a gaggle of wannabe entrepreneurs who all had a penchant for happy start-ups. Quite fun really.

Some of the visitors had already seen our pitch on KickStarter, and one in particular didn't quite get it. That was frustrating, but forced me to look at our pitch thrice again.

We have had over 100 video views and only a handful of KickStarter member pledges... why?? Was it because they don't 'get' us?

Going to think on that whilst I re-tweet and like more stuff....

Lessons Learned:

1. Speak to as many people about your project as possible. Try to find meetings which you have something in common with the crowd and go along to make new friends. 
2. Lots of video plays doesn't necessarily mean lots of pledges. Re evaluate your pitch all the time and hone it in if you feel that you are not getting the message across still. Ask potential backers and promoters for advice.

24 hours, lots of work and still no more backers...

Day Six - 13% Old Aquaintances

An early morning backer today brought our total up to £2095. This was an old acquaintance who had remained in contact with us and chose to help us along. Massively grateful for all our networks - and this is fast becoming our 'sudden realisation to success'.

Today also brought to us a new twitter follower who is cheering our progress along from the sidelines - quite a celebrity too! I won't mention their name but we are very humbled by their interest :)

Again, this came about from a best friend tweeting about us to his distance connections. Who'd a thought?

Lessons Learned

1. Do your networking BEFORE you launch. Building new connections is possible during a campaign, but not necessary if you already have a good following of people willing to share your project.
2. Celebrity status followers are not the key to success. But they help spread the word. Fast!

GAME ON!!

Day Five - 12% High Alert Day!

Today was THE best.

We had 6 backers in 24 hours who pledged £988 between them! Hitting 12% felt good I've go to tell you. This meant that our possibility of hitting our target just went up from around 40% to 65%! Well according to a blog post it did... [The Untold Story Behind Kickstarter Stats].

There was a rather awesome pay forward event during the day which is worth mentioning. My best friend posted our project on his Facebook timeline, and as a result, one of his connections saw the project and we received a rather big pledge! Amazing turn of events.

Lessons Learned:

1. Insist that your bestest friends post and re-post the project. You never know who they know or how much they will love your idea!
2. Keep plugging away. Emails, tweets, likes and re-posts. You have to continuously approach new people with your idea and get their feedback!
3. Google Alerts. A fantastic find. I now have Google alerting me to articles and news on happiness across the world. When I get it, I repost it on my Facebook page. Sorted!

Super fantastic day!!

Day Four - 7% Day of Rest

Finding myself circling like a greedy vulture over the posts of my Facebook groups and those of my 400 twitter followers, I decided to take a few hours off and relax with my fiancée's family.

Great food and company, followed by a 'ahem' short game of monopoly and my mind wasn't on the fact that it had almost been 48 hours without a single pledge.

When I got home I found that we had received well wishing emails from various happiness experts, doctors and psychologists, oh and a sprinkling of tweets which had been re-tweeted.

Lessons Learned

1. Take a break. If only for an afternoon. You have signed up to a long quest, so save your energy for when it matters most.
2. Mind games. KickStarter funding will play havoc with your head if you let it. Don't let it take hold and treat each new email wishing you luck as a blessing and an energy pill.

Looking forward to see what tomorrow brings...

Day Three - 7% Social Sharing Day

Thank you Facebook. Today we saw multiple shares and likes and re-tweets across the board. Yes we only managed to secure pledges totalling £13, but they were both from friends. Ready and willing to help out because it was me :) and they believe in our happiness project..

I finished the day with a run and a new optimism that even though we weren't going to be one of 'those' projects that got funded in 48 hours. We might just get there through love and admiration.

Lessons Learned

1. Top friends are top fans too! Much has been said about how to get funded on KickStarter. The common theme has always been to reach certain funding targets through your own personal networks. It seems strange to me that it has to be this way... but monkey see monkey do.
2. Facebook rocks! You need to ask friends to share your project. SHARESHARESHARESHARE!

Looking forward to Sunday and day four with a renewed confidence.

Day Two - 6% Networking

Today was a busy one. I managed to visit a business social gathering that I help to host once a month.

The thought of sharing the good news about my launch with some of my business acquaintances, and anyone else with ears for that matter was quite exciting. I now had a real site to send people to!

HappiJar was well received by most, lots of connections made and we even had a glut of social media shares which took us to almost 100 Facebook likes on the KickStarter project page! Good work! I was also able to connect with a HappiJar fan who promised to forward on my link to some more people who would very much be interested in our campaign.

No additional pledges though. Not to be disheartened though, I got home and planned my social media Saturday and chased up some emails. Then thought about why backers were not crashing the servers trying to pledge their support for HappiJar... are they insane!

Lessons Learned:

1. You can take a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. So much so that it can be quite painful hearing about how great your project is, but not great enough to back. Grow a pair Glen and stay focussed.
2. Networking might not bring you tens or hundreds of pledges. But it could bring you more and even further reaching connections :)

Go to bed, with a slightly sore head and hope of a better tomorrow.

Day One - 6% Launch day

The build up to launching project HappiJar on KickStarter was far from brief and really quite painfully eventful... BUT I don't want to talk about the tribulations - not yet anyway. Especially since today was a happy day!

I'd like to to regale you with a rather awesome first day to our 30 day KickStarter campaign which resulted in pledges totalling £1004!!

We had 3 backers, one from America who discovered our project in the Recently Launched section of the site - THANK YOU KICKSTARTER!! Another was a friend of ours who we backed recently. So a bit of you scratch my back if I scratch yours there. But, our final backer was a corporate one with a massive pledge :)

Dancing and happiness ensued.

Lessons learned

1. Browse for other KickStarter projects before you launch. If you find any that you love, then show them some pledge love. Just like I did. I'm getting a cool reward AND they returned the favour. Nice.
2. Search for and contact possible corporate backers EARLY. Send emails out before you hit the big green rocket button. You may not hear back from them directly, but you might just get a healthy pledge as a result. 

Roll on Day Two!