Mercurius Politicus posted about a fascinating antecedent of modern crowdfunding a few month: a 17th-century writer who raised funds to back a trip by foot from London to Scotland without begging along the way and then to produce a written account. The deal for subscribers seems to have been a copy of the book, although… Continue reading Crowdfunding’s Long History
Category: Crowdfunding
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.
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
Episode 17: Everything in Moderation with Craig Mod (part 1)
Click above to listen in your browser or download the podcast directly (MP3, 29 MB, 59 minutes). Subscribe to the show’s podcast feed to get every episode automatically. Craig Mod writes essays that have the power to change the way you look at everything around you. At regular but somewhat distant intervals, he posts a… Continue reading Episode 17: Everything in Moderation with Craig Mod (part 1)
Episode 15: Serial Artistry with Zach Weinersmith
Click above to listen in your browser or download the podcast directly (MP3, 34 MB, 71 minutes). Subscribe to the show’s podcast feed to get every episode automatically. Zach Weinersmith, the artist behind Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal,takes nerdy Web comics to their logical extreme, and has developed ahuge following among science geeks. We talk about… Continue reading Episode 15: Serial Artistry with Zach Weinersmith
Episode 13: No-Host Bar Dot Net with Dalton Caldwell
Click above to listen in your browser or download the podcast directly (MP3, 41 MB, 84 minutes). Subscribe to the show’s podcast feed to get every episode automatically. Dalton Caldwell is the head of App.net(sometimes called ADN for App Dot Net), which some think is a Twittercompetitor, but it isn’t quite. It seems to be… Continue reading Episode 13: No-Host Bar Dot Net with Dalton Caldwell
Episode 12: Où est la plume de ma Kickstarter? with Taylor Levy and Che-Wei Wang
Click above to listen in your browser or download the podcast directly (MP3, 23 MB, 48 minutes). Subscribe to the show’s podcast feed to get every episode automatically. Taylor Levy and Che-Wei Wang run CW&T,an art and design studio that produces an array of items ranging frompurely commercial to completely aesthetic. The way they string… Continue reading Episode 12: Où est la plume de ma Kickstarter? with Taylor Levy and Che-Wei Wang
Episode 11: Expose Yourself to Art with Jesse Genet and Stéphan Angoulvant
Click above to listen in your browser or download the podcast directly (MP3, 26 MB, 53 minutes). Subscribe to the show’s podcast feed to get every episode automatically. Lumi makes a fabric-dye that becomes permanent when exposed to bright full-spectrum light, as from the sun. But that’s not why the founders, Jesse Genet and Stéphan… Continue reading Episode 11: Expose Yourself to Art with Jesse Genet and Stéphan Angoulvant
Episode 6: What’s the Frequency, Andrea? with Andrea Seabrook
Click above to listen in your browser or download the podcast directly (MP3, 17 MB, 34 minutes). Subscribe to the show’s podcast feed to get every episode automatically. Andrea Seabrook spent more than a decade at National Public Radio, and covered Congress for a good part of that time. She left NPR to start something… Continue reading Episode 6: What’s the Frequency, Andrea? with Andrea Seabrook
Episode 1: Pac-Man Fever with Lisanne Pajot and James Swirsky
Click above to listen in your browser or download the podcast directly (MP3, 24 MB, 50 minutes). Subscribe to the show’s podcast feed to get every episode automatically. Filmmakers Lisanne Pajot and James Swirsky discovered the richstories behind independently produced videogames, and turned some preliminary interviews into first one Kickstarter campaign, and then another. The… Continue reading Episode 1: Pac-Man Fever with Lisanne Pajot and James Swirsky