Author: Glenn Fleishman

Scaling True Fans from 10 to 1,000,000

Kevin Kelly wrote a wonderful essay in 2008 called “1,000 True Fans.”
It clearly was one of the inspirations for Kickstarter, which launched
just over a year after the essay appeared. Read the whole essay for the
richness of Kelly’s thesis, but the nut of it is that with 1,000 true
fans of your work as a creator, you can probably make a living from that
work.

Kelly notes that ​the
number isn’t exact. Bloggers in 2008 might need substantially more fans
because the average financial contribution is relatively low, while
people in other fields might need 500. Kickstarter adds precision to
that: rather than focusing on making a living, rewards-based
crowdfunding lets people with any number of true fans potentially
translate those supporters into funders for projects that have a
financial target in line with that quantity of dedicated supporters.

Upcoming Schedule

We’ve got our line-up set and recorded for the next few weeks, so I thought I’d give everyone a peek at what’s coming (subject to change, but likely in this order): May 1st: Holly Rowland of Topatoco talks about fulfilling webcomic artists’ dreams, and the company’s new division, Make That Thing, which manages Kickstarter campaigns.… Continue reading Upcoming Schedule

Code Monkey Kickstarter

Jonathan Coulton and Greg Pak have combined their Internet and real-world superhero abilities into the most amazing thing: a comic book written by Pak based on characters from Coulton’s song. They’re using crowdfunding to make it all happen and, just a few hours in, have nearly reached their goal; see their Kickstarter campaign. They have… Continue reading Code Monkey Kickstarter