50M views in three months, and the Kickstarter funded at 200%.

Light Pong was a two-person hardware startup with a light-based reaction game, no audience and no ad budget. I joined as the community and marketing manager and ran the short-form video myself, in the office, until the brand had an audience big enough to fund the product.

Film the game

Seven channels

A Discord community

Kickstarter at 200%

All organic, no ad spend behind it

50M+views in three months, all organic

Client: Light Pong, where I worked in-house
Sector: Consumer hardware
Built: Short-form video strategy, seven channels, a Discord and the community show
Status: In-house role, June 2021 to July 2023

The Light Pong channel

The problem

No audience, no ad budget, and a Kickstarter that had to clear its goal.

Two people, a light-based reaction game and a campaign that decided whether the product would exist. There was no money to buy the attention that takes.

The one asset was the game itself. It is fun to watch. So the plan was to film it constantly and build the audience before the campaign opened.

What I built

Film the game every day, then turn viewers into backers.

Everything was shot and edited in the office rather than briefed out, on a cadence that only worked because the product is good on camera.

01Shoot and cut the short-form in houseTikTok and Instagram clips of people playing the game, filmed and edited by me, posted daily.
02Keep one brand across seven channelsTikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Discord and the rest, so a viewer on any of them met the same product and the same voice.
03Run the community showIn The Office With Light Pong: short episodes with the people building and playing the game, produced and hosted by me, with the vlogs and live streams around it.
04Gather the most engaged people on DiscordA 400+ member Discord, fed with daily content, where the people who cared most ended up.
05Point the reach at the KickstarterThe campaign video, the launch content and the live demos, including the product display at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

What changed

50M views, 79K followers, $150K raised.

The short-form passed 50 million views and 79,000 followers inside three months. The Kickstarter closed at $150K, 200% of its goal, which is the number that mattered. The product got made.

The community show kept running through the delays and the manufacturing updates, so backers heard the news from the team instead of from a quiet campaign page.

50M+views in three months

79Kfollowers gained

$150Kraised on Kickstarter

200%of the funding goal

Build notes

Shot and edited in house, with no agency and no ad spend behind the reach
Seven channels, one voice, with Discord as the home for the most engaged
In The Office With Light Pong: short episodes with the team, produced and hosted by me
Live demos and the product display at Mobile World Congress 2022 in Barcelona
Numbers are from my resume at the time. This was an employment result, not client work

The accounts

Scope and limits

This was an in-house job, not client work, and the reach was organic on a product that is good on camera. It is the strongest audience-growth result I have, and the one least likely to transfer to a category that is boring to film. No ad spend sat behind these numbers, so there is no paid result here to show.

Next caseFive kinds of video from inside a hardware startup. Have a job like this? Let's talk

Matt Smith, Chicago. matt@visibilitybuddy.com