Speaker 1: Welcome to you Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry's over
Speaker 1: there and we're ready to kick this episode off. For
Speaker 1: just one dollar, you can contribute to Stuff you Should Know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: can they know we're a pre podcast. That's why I
Speaker 1: get less patient with complaints. Yeah right, it's a trade off. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's free. Get some ads here and there, love with it. No,
Speaker 1: but I'm just kidding. We don't fundraise or crowdsource or crowdfund. No,
Speaker 1: we just to put stuff out. We have corporate sponsorship.
Speaker 1: Not everybody does, though not all creatives do have corporate sponsorship.
Speaker 1: And so luckily, since what two thousand nine, there's been
Speaker 1: something to help people like that out, artists, creatives who
Speaker 1: want to get a project underway but can't do it,
Speaker 1: called Kickstarter that don't have the funds. I'm a big
Speaker 1: fan of Kickstarter. Yeah, it's pretty cool. I remember when
Speaker 1: it came out, I was like, this is gonna revolutionize
Speaker 1: um independent artists because one of the problems if you're
Speaker 1: an independent artist and you don't want to cow tow
Speaker 1: to the man is to just do your own thing,
Speaker 1: because it's the future is now as far as um
Speaker 1: accessibility to equipment, and you can you can make a
Speaker 1: movie right there in your in your own neighborhood and home. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's been a d I Y spirit. Well, yes, if
Speaker 1: you have the skills, it's important. Well there's always been
Speaker 1: that d I Y spirit. But it's just the accessibility.
Speaker 1: This equipment is like never before. Right, It's it's they've
Speaker 1: caught up to one another. Yeah, it's cheaper, it's you
Speaker 1: don't have to get film developed. You can edit off
Speaker 1: your laptop. Um, it's all there for the taking, except
Speaker 1: that it's still cost some money. Yeah, actors didn't come free. Nope,
Speaker 1: that's one thing. Wardrobe like craft services. Sure, you gotta
Speaker 1: have some peanuts and coffee, and that's just for you know,
Speaker 1: a movie. There's also like theaters. Um, there's music. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want mine. I want to do mine. I want
Speaker 1: to travel the world and photograph all the remaining rhinoceros
Speaker 1: rh I I don't know. I think rhinoceros is. It's
Speaker 1: a photo book. It's a photo project about the rhinoceros
Speaker 1: in felt and I want to do that. You can
Speaker 1: do that. That's an art project. You can get funded.
Speaker 1: You can if everybody thinks that that's a good idea,
Speaker 1: Which is the cool thing about Kickstarter, that's right, So Chuck,
Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit about this, right. Kickstarter is crowdfunding,
Speaker 1: which is a a play on crowdsourcing, which is originally
Speaker 1: basically just tapping into the hive mind. Yeah, thanks to
Speaker 1: the Internet. Right, there's a lot of people out there.
Speaker 1: If you take their collective brains or allans or thoughts
Speaker 1: or efforts together, put them together through the Internet, you
Speaker 1: can do massive, awesome things like Wikipedia's Originally there is
Speaker 1: an original, great example of crowd sourcing. That's right. Now,
Speaker 1: if you take all those people and say, hey, just
Speaker 1: hold on to your time, hold on to your volunteering,
Speaker 1: hold on to your effort, just give me money instead. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's crowdfunding, and Kickstarter is one of the better examples
Speaker 1: of it. But it's not the first. No. No, it's
Speaker 1: called micro patronage if you want to get specific, and
Speaker 1: it's been around since the mid nineties. Uh Kiva dot org. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've done a podcast on micro ending and we have
Speaker 1: our own Kiva team. We've got a killer Kiva team
Speaker 1: that just surpassed a hundred thousand loans and we're coming
Speaker 1: up on three million dollars in loans made. That's right.
Speaker 1: So if you if you're interested in helping out, I
Speaker 1: know we talked about it a lot, but it's been
Speaker 1: a little while. If you're interested in helping out a
Speaker 1: business owner, either in the United States or abroad, you
Speaker 1: can do so. Ats off you sure, Keiva dot org,
Speaker 1: slash teams slash stuff. You should know, that's right, and
Speaker 1: you can do it as as a team. It's just fun.
Speaker 1: So Kiva is one great example. Um donors two dot org.
Speaker 1: I remember when that started when teachers started posting projects
Speaker 1: where their school because schools are ridiculously underfunded and teachers
Speaker 1: had to like ask the public to help pay for
Speaker 1: a field trip or something. Yeah, you know, I've seen
Speaker 1: Waiting for Superman Man. I saw seen that. It's been
Speaker 1: on my list for years. Very rarely have I seen
Speaker 1: documentary that just got my hackles up like that one.
Speaker 1: It's really well done. Well that's because can anyone make
Speaker 1: an argument that education isn't worth funding and supporting? Uh No,
Speaker 1: But this, this, this does just a great job of
Speaker 1: like getting all sides of the issue out you got it.
Speaker 1: It's one of the best documentaries ever made. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: need you to see that. And that wasn't on my
Speaker 1: top documentary list because I haven't seen it. I got
Speaker 1: to see it. Oh, and also feedback on that. I
Speaker 1: want to say thank you very much to all the
Speaker 1: people who rode in with suggestions in answer to my
Speaker 1: complaint that I've seen all the good horror movies. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: apparently I was wrong. Boy, we got a lot of
Speaker 1: good suggestions. Yeah. I can't wait to see some of them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: most of them are foreign. It seems like, hey, they're
Speaker 1: making the takes the whole world. Takes a global village
Speaker 1: to scare jows. It does, uh, indie go go and
Speaker 1: sell a band or a couple of other other early
Speaker 1: crowdfunding sites um for music and movie making. I think
Speaker 1: indie go Go does lots of projects now, though it's
Speaker 1: not just movies anymore. Kickstarters emerged as like the go
Speaker 1: to site for what what's supposed to be creative projects. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: let's let's talk about this. Uh. In two thousand two,
Speaker 1: co founder Perry Chen said, I want to do this
Speaker 1: concert here in New Orleans, but it costs a lot
Speaker 1: of money to throw a big concert, and UM, let
Speaker 1: me talk to my partners Yancey Strickler and Charles Adler
Speaker 1: and see if we could and figure out a way
Speaker 1: how to do this. And they said, you know what,
Speaker 1: we know we can get people to donate a little
Speaker 1: bit of money to this thing, a lot of people.
Speaker 1: But how can we do that? You know? I think
Speaker 1: they met Perry Chan was waiting tables and was one
Speaker 1: of the other guys waiter and they struck up a
Speaker 1: conversation about it. I believe that's how kickstarter got started.
Speaker 1: That's pretty cool. Yeah, So they had the idea obviously
Speaker 1: based on um like we said, Indigo Go and some
Speaker 1: other h crowdfunding sites out there, to start kicks Starter
Speaker 1: in two thousand nine. But they said, you know what
Speaker 1: we're gonna do exclusively creative projects. You can't um raise
Speaker 1: money to like pay your rent or pay off your
Speaker 1: house or anything weird like that. And it wasn't you
Speaker 1: can't just do like a vague plan or something like that.
Speaker 1: It had to be here is what I'm going to accomplish,
Speaker 1: here's my project, here is the end result, this is
Speaker 1: what it's gonna be here's the timeline. I want to
Speaker 1: get this done within and this is my Kickstarter project. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is what I'm gonna hopefully go get funded my campaign. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's creative. Yes, that's right. And uh, they you know,
Speaker 1: they wanted to different differentiate themselves and be unique, and
Speaker 1: being creative only was one of the ways that they
Speaker 1: did that. Another way they did so was two And
Speaker 1: I thought this was a stroke of genius. It's all
Speaker 1: or nothing. Yeah, this this makes sense. Now unless you
Speaker 1: get of your funding, um, you're not going to get
Speaker 1: any funding. And Kickstarter is only going to collect of course,
Speaker 1: they make money by collecting a little piece of it
Speaker 1: five percent commission only if you reach that funding goal though,
Speaker 1: which uh sets it apart from the crowd And I
Speaker 1: think it's pretty genius. The whole reason is genius is this.
Speaker 1: If you are a creator and you have a project,
Speaker 1: and you get halfway to your goal, your monetary goal,
Speaker 1: and you take that money, you are obligated still to
Speaker 1: those people who gave you just half of the money
Speaker 1: you need to create something. But what you're going to
Speaker 1: create is inherently inferior to what you would have created
Speaker 1: had you had all the money. You figured out you
Speaker 1: needed for this project, Sue. If you if you can
Speaker 1: take less than all, you're going to set yourself up
Speaker 1: to make something that you're not proud of. Yeah, Or
Speaker 1: if you don't get funded, you might think, all right, well,
Speaker 1: maybe that wasn't the best idea, or you know, maybe
Speaker 1: go another route, or say maybe that wasn't the best idea,
Speaker 1: let me try something else, which is like a crowdsourcing
Speaker 1: aspect of Kickstarter. You're also saying to the to the
Speaker 1: hive mind, is this a good idea? Yeah? And the
Speaker 1: other cool thing about the percent or nothing is as
Speaker 1: a as a donor or an investor, you're not you
Speaker 1: know that what you're going to end up with is
Speaker 1: this finished movie or this finished record album or this
Speaker 1: finished photo project. It's not just gonna be like, well,
Speaker 1: I just lost that five dollars to something that was
Speaker 1: thirty funded and I don't even know where what I'm
Speaker 1: going to get out of it. Now, you know, you're
Speaker 1: just basically like through a five dollar bill into a
Speaker 1: buskers um guitar case or something, you know, which is
Speaker 1: something you should do to. Yeah, there's nothing inherently wrong
Speaker 1: with that, but the point of kickstarter is there's a
Speaker 1: project that this person has approached you on and you
Speaker 1: have said that is worth five dollars of my money,
Speaker 1: even if I don't get anything back. Sure, I feel
Speaker 1: good about this project. Not the fact that you're an
Speaker 1: artist in general or you're a musician in general. This
Speaker 1: is this project that I'm investing in. That's right. Another interesting,
Speaker 1: uh facet to kickstarter is that they do offer rewards.
Speaker 1: As a backer, They require people to offer rewards. So
Speaker 1: it's not just hey, you're gonna feel good about yourself
Speaker 1: for supporting the arts in my finished movie. Um, you're
Speaker 1: gonna get a copy of the D D D or
Speaker 1: the c D may be signed by the artist. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's a poster. Maybe it's a pin or a button
Speaker 1: for a two dollar donation, right, or maybe it's lunch
Speaker 1: with me if you kicking a hundred thousand dollars, or
Speaker 1: maybe there the executive producer if you kick in all
Speaker 1: the money. Right. Yeah, we're not all the money. But
Speaker 1: you know they have different tiers set up and different
Speaker 1: rewards that align with those tears. Yeah. The thing is
Speaker 1: that there's rules with this, like you can't offer a
Speaker 1: financial stake in the project or equity you can't say
Speaker 1: you kick in twenty five dollars. Now you'll get fifty
Speaker 1: bucks back when I sell this thing to you know,
Speaker 1: Carol co Film. You know where'd you come up with that?
Speaker 1: That's the go to of mine, Carol Go. Yeah, haven't
Speaker 1: they been out of business for like twenty years? They
Speaker 1: had a good logo glowed, I believe. And then the
Speaker 1: other So when this, when this stuff is all done
Speaker 1: and up on Kickstarter, the the basically the creative has
Speaker 1: said I'm responsible for two things. One, I will complete
Speaker 1: this project if I get funded. Fully, that means this
Speaker 1: project has to be done. I can't just take the
Speaker 1: money and rotten. No. Legally I think they can, yes,
Speaker 1: but I think the public shaming that would insue it
Speaker 1: would just not be worth it. That would be your
Speaker 1: only Kickstarter project exactly. And then secondly you have to
Speaker 1: fulfill whatever your rewards were. Right, and we'll get into
Speaker 1: the nuts and bolts about actually creating a Kickstarter project
Speaker 1: right after this. Okay, so we said it has to
Speaker 1: be a creative project. What does that mean, Josh? I
Speaker 1: think if I uh far at the Star Spangled banner
Speaker 1: on YouTube, that's a very creative project. I can't believe
Speaker 1: you just use the F word. Uh, you know what,
Speaker 1: you probably could get that funded pretty easily, could um.
Speaker 1: And the key is that Cooper would pay her that
Speaker 1: by himself. By himself, he would liquidate everything he has.
Speaker 1: Just as long as you did that, you were right.
Speaker 1: The thing is to get onto Kickstarter site, you have
Speaker 1: to get past the Kickstarter staff. And it's actually not
Speaker 1: just any Joe Schmo can come along and be like,
Speaker 1: I define creativity And as a matter of fact, there
Speaker 1: are definitions for what makes a creative project. And then
Speaker 1: on the other end of that is the staff that
Speaker 1: has to look over a proposal and say, yeah, this
Speaker 1: meets our standards. Yeah. They define it on their website
Speaker 1: as art, comics, dance, design, fashion, film, food, games, music, photography, publishing, technology,
Speaker 1: and theater and um. They they admit that it is
Speaker 1: an ever evolving definition because creative people are kind of
Speaker 1: wacky and they'll submit things that they that walk the
Speaker 1: line that they'll have to decide. Hey, this Chuck Bryant guy,
Speaker 1: he's gonna be a big podcaster. He wants to fart
Speaker 1: the star spangled banner um on the front lawn of
Speaker 1: the White House. Oh man, that sounds pretty good to me.
Speaker 1: You could very easily get onto the front lawn of
Speaker 1: the White House these days too. Yeah, you just jumped
Speaker 1: the fence. And so the thing is, I think in
Speaker 1: that sense, on that end of the spectrum, they're a
Speaker 1: lot more liberal. Like I don't think the Kickstarter staff
Speaker 1: is interested in saying that's art or I don't agree
Speaker 1: with that art, so that's not really art. What they're
Speaker 1: more concerned with is having basically becoming an as seen
Speaker 1: on TV website. So the author of this article is
Speaker 1: Dave Ruse. He puts it like, um, it's not it's
Speaker 1: it's a proposal for a project, not for a finnished product.
Speaker 1: So it's not hey, by my DVD, it's hey, invest
Speaker 1: in this project and you'll get a DVD when it's finished. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a huge distinction because if not, it would just
Speaker 1: be an online marketplace. And Kickstarter suffers a lot of
Speaker 1: criticism because it's evolved in that way. But apparently they're
Speaker 1: cool with that to a certain degree. Yeah, there was
Speaker 1: one case, Um, I think it's a couple of years ago, uh,
Speaker 1: for a watch band that held the iPod nano. I
Speaker 1: remember when that came out they wanted to raise fifteen
Speaker 1: thousand dollars and they raised a million dollars. That's the
Speaker 1: other cool thing about Kickstarter. I don't think we mentioned
Speaker 1: if you go over then great, good for you. Um.
Speaker 1: But basically what happened was your twenty five dollar donation
Speaker 1: got you that watch band that you can now get
Speaker 1: online or Apple stores for forty bucks. Uh. And they
Speaker 1: did take you know, they took some flak for that,
Speaker 1: saying isn't this just a way to buy something before
Speaker 1: it comes out? Pre order? Yeah? Pre order? Is that
Speaker 1: what it's called? Preorder this thing? Yeah? I know. Right now.
Speaker 1: I think the biggest um success they've had is that cooler,
Speaker 1: the coolest cooler. Have you seen that thing? Thirteen point
Speaker 1: to eight five million dollars and I think their original
Speaker 1: goal was like fifty Yeah. I mean I remember when
Speaker 1: I first saw the uh, the little ad for this
Speaker 1: thing on Facebook. It was awesome. I was like, man,
Speaker 1: that is one cool cooler. Yeah, it has like bluetooth waterproof,
Speaker 1: bluetooth speaker, has a ice crushing blender built in. It
Speaker 1: is a cooler to um. And again, like we said,
Speaker 1: like this is the crowdsourcing aspect of it, Like these
Speaker 1: people came up with the coolest cooler and the world said, yes,
Speaker 1: that product needs to come into existence, and they voted
Speaker 1: by saying, here is way more money than you need.
Speaker 1: And now yes, it's basically a pre order. Not only
Speaker 1: that this company now can sell out to whoever they
Speaker 1: want to and sell coolest coolers for the rest of
Speaker 1: eternity or somebody right, because it's not a gamble at all.
Speaker 1: It's already proven itself on the in the retail market,
Speaker 1: so there's no gamble whatsoever. So they can they can
Speaker 1: just keep making them themselves, or they can expand and
Speaker 1: attract outside capital. And it's all because Perry Chin and
Speaker 1: his fellow co conspirators created this website that has all
Speaker 1: these dimensions to it. Even though it's so simple, when
Speaker 1: placed into the context of the Internet, it has complications
Speaker 1: but also expansions. It's pretty cool. Even though there are
Speaker 1: products like that. Um over six products that are successfully
Speaker 1: funded are music, film, and video. So I that's a
Speaker 1: little I mean, that's that's true, but it's flip flops
Speaker 1: them apparently. So this article, I think it was two
Speaker 1: thousand eleven from what I saw, the most popular by
Speaker 1: far as as far as funded projects go as film
Speaker 1: and video, then music, then publishing, then art, and then games.
Speaker 1: Got you like, what was games mean? Well, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of role playing games that get created on Kickstart.
Speaker 1: It's another thing too, it's a it's a great um
Speaker 1: it's a great marketplace for non traditional stuff. Like yeah,
Speaker 1: you probably think of going on to Amazon to look
Speaker 1: for that, and you might find something too, But you're
Speaker 1: not going to find a game that doesn't exist yet
Speaker 1: on Amazon. I don't know. You just blew my mind.
Speaker 1: I got a few more stats for you. These are
Speaker 1: current as of today. UM one point three eight is
Speaker 1: that a billion billion dollars pledged to projects, almost seventy
Speaker 1: three thousand successfully funded projects. By the time this comes out,
Speaker 1: it will probably pass that UM eighteen point five million
Speaker 1: total pledges. I'm having trouble with my commas today, but
Speaker 1: that's basically the public saying we believe in donating small
Speaker 1: amounts of money to projects that we believe in. And
Speaker 1: I think that's great. I do too. I think it's
Speaker 1: a pretty neat concept. And so we were talking about, um,
Speaker 1: how odd Kickstarter can get. Sometimes there's like no dearth
Speaker 1: whatsoever of very weird kickstarters that have resulted in some
Speaker 1: pretty cool stuff like Zach Danger Brown's potato salad. Oh
Speaker 1: that guy. He was looking for some money to just
Speaker 1: make potato salad one day and got wildly funded, well
Speaker 1: past his goal and ended up holding potato stock in
Speaker 1: his town of Columbus, Ohio. And he made something like
Speaker 1: three fifty or four d and fifty pounds of potato salad.
Speaker 1: So like, if you donated, you could come and eat
Speaker 1: this potato salad. That was a hit. That was the kickstarter.
Speaker 1: If that's not conceptual art, I don't know what is.
Speaker 1: Is that how he categorized it. That's how I categorize it,
Speaker 1: because food is a category too. Maybe it was both
Speaker 1: a straddle of the line, the food art project. Uh
Speaker 1: they do. Um, there are some tips we can give you, though,
Speaker 1: um kickstarter successful kickstarter, kickstarters, kickstarters, what do they call themselves? Kickstarters, kickstarters,
Speaker 1: kickstart people, kickstart people. They say that, Um, obviously you
Speaker 1: have to start with a very catchy, unique, fun, and
Speaker 1: or inspiring IDEA potato salad is pretty inspiring. Um, well,
Speaker 1: that can be fun or catchy at least. Uh. They
Speaker 1: say you should have a good story, because what you're
Speaker 1: gonna do is you'r you don't have to, but you're
Speaker 1: encouraged to make a video pitching your idea. And if
Speaker 1: you've watched some of these, they're all usually just kind
Speaker 1: of off the cuff and tongue in cheek and fun
Speaker 1: and low budge. You know, you don't want to, like
Speaker 1: look like you have a lot of money, probably by
Speaker 1: making some big production um. And you want to appeal
Speaker 1: to someone if you've got a great story about why
Speaker 1: you're doing your project, and that's certainly gonna help you
Speaker 1: get funded. Yeah, And that's one of the things about
Speaker 1: Kickstarter two is that you hear about the potato salad
Speaker 1: thing that became basically an internet meme. It became so popular,
Speaker 1: the coolest cooler you could find out about on Good
Speaker 1: Morning America. You can really count the number of of
Speaker 1: Kickstarters on both hands. Maybe if you had a third hand,
Speaker 1: that would be helpful that you've heard about if you're
Speaker 1: not like a Kickstarter donor don't really go to Kickstarter,
Speaker 1: but that leaves seventy thousand and change that you've never
Speaker 1: heard of. And that's the thing with Kickstarter. You create
Speaker 1: your Kickstarter Projects page and the first thing you do
Speaker 1: is send it to family and friends say hey, want
Speaker 1: to invest in this, And then you take it out
Speaker 1: to your social media context. And then if if it
Speaker 1: is a really good idea, theoretically it should take off
Speaker 1: on its own. It should just spread by word about.
Speaker 1: Somebody should say this is really cool and I'm going
Speaker 1: to share it, And Kickstarter makes it easier for you
Speaker 1: to share. Well, I just sounded like I was pitching Kickstarter.
Speaker 1: I was just thinking, man, they should like it in
Speaker 1: touch with us. But that video aspect, that in and
Speaker 1: of itself is very sharable. So if you can come
Speaker 1: up with a cool video to put on your Kickstarter page,
Speaker 1: then that could easily be shared. And that's a really
Speaker 1: good way to to make the rounds on social media too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they say that, Um, every successful campaign begins with an
Speaker 1: anchor audience, is what they call it. Uh. It doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily mean you have to have a popular podcast, although
Speaker 1: we could probably get something funded if we wanted to,
Speaker 1: especially your idea. Yeah, exactly, the f word. Your anchor
Speaker 1: audience could be, uh, just your social circle, your friends
Speaker 1: in your family, uncle, Yeah, your rich uncle. I just
Speaker 1: got him first before I even went to Kickstarter. I
Speaker 1: see what happens. Um, but you should have a good
Speaker 1: anchor audience. If you're not on social media, if you
Speaker 1: don't have a solid support group in life, then unless
Speaker 1: you really catch on somehow, you're probably not gonna get funded. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: it's well, you should be relying on your idea and
Speaker 1: the catchiness of your pitch anyway. Yeah, but the fact
Speaker 1: that you have access to social media is probably a
Speaker 1: pretty big leg up over somebody who doesn't know how
Speaker 1: to use Twitter or Facebook at least. Um, You're not
Speaker 1: gonna be left alone in your experience though, because once
Speaker 1: you do get approved, you will be working with Kickstarter. Um,
Speaker 1: they're gonna have a representative get in touch with you,
Speaker 1: and they're gonna work with you and say, you know what,
Speaker 1: you might want to think about these rewards, or your
Speaker 1: rewards aren't great, or maybe you should have these price points,
Speaker 1: uh to tie into these rewards there there. They want
Speaker 1: you to succeed because they make their five percent if
Speaker 1: you succeed exactly. And then you know, I'm sure they
Speaker 1: want to encourage the arts too. That's how it started,
Speaker 1: you know. Uh. But we're gonna talk a little bit
Speaker 1: more about those reward levels and a little bit of
Speaker 1: math and some more controversies right with this break math
Speaker 1: maths and say say in England, and we used to
Speaker 1: say it here too until I think the nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: and then we started saying, why are we saying it
Speaker 1: like that when you say math that Hodgeman Hodgman always
Speaker 1: his math. Yeah, he's he's got a little bit of
Speaker 1: the British in him. He likes to think so um. Alright,
Speaker 1: So the math of rewards levels, they've done a little
Speaker 1: bit of tinkering just to kind of find out what
Speaker 1: succeeds and what doesn't. The pledges the most popular, about
Speaker 1: eighteen point four percent of pledges are in the twenty
Speaker 1: five dollar range. Fifty bucks is the next most close
Speaker 1: to UM. And you know that's if you set your
Speaker 1: levels like you can have a dollar be your lowest
Speaker 1: donation level. Yeah, if you want, but you you're going
Speaker 1: to count on You have to think about your audience.
Speaker 1: If you think I've got lots and lots of people,
Speaker 1: but they may not want to throw up a bunch
Speaker 1: of money, throw in a bunch of money, um, then
Speaker 1: maybe I should do the dollar level. Well. Plus also
Speaker 1: you should sit down and think about exactly how much
Speaker 1: you need to achieve your project. They say the minimum
Speaker 1: amount that you need, and you really need to sit
Speaker 1: down and crunch the numbers. This you need to crunch
Speaker 1: the numbers, know the minimum amount you need, because even
Speaker 1: if you threw a number out, you might find down
Speaker 1: the road like, oh and this isn't actually enough. So um,
Speaker 1: you want to take that number and then add they
Speaker 1: suggest at least the five percent commission that they're going
Speaker 1: to take from it. Oh yeah, I never thought about that, right.
Speaker 1: But say your project is to eat a Chipotle burrito,
Speaker 1: a chicken burrito and then describe its deliciousness on a graph.
Speaker 1: You need eight bucks for that. And some guy did that.
Speaker 1: He set his goal for eight dollars. He made way
Speaker 1: more than that. I think he he got like he
Speaker 1: exceeded his funding by, which is the record holders still.
Speaker 1: And he created a graph of the deliciousness of Chipotle
Speaker 1: chicken burritos and sent him out to like all two
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy donors. Yes see, naysayers will say that's
Speaker 1: just a waste of everyone's time and money sexual art,
Speaker 1: and you should donate that to some like important cause.
Speaker 1: But you know what, it's their money. If people want
Speaker 1: to donate a dollar for that, then that's they're right, right,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, that's true. A hundred dollar
Speaker 1: pledges have the biggest impact UM on total dollars raised.
Speaker 1: It they make up less than ten percent of pledges,
Speaker 1: and they recommend you get super creative with your prizes,
Speaker 1: make them really personalized. You know, if you're um, a
Speaker 1: filmmaker and any kind of creative artists like a musician,
Speaker 1: it would really help if you personally, we're offering something
Speaker 1: like a signed copy or maybe a phone call, uh
Speaker 1: leaving your your voicemail outgoing message or you know, something
Speaker 1: silly like that a lot of people would donate to.
Speaker 1: And you put that and it's like the highest possible
Speaker 1: goal and they say that you don't. You're probably not
Speaker 1: going to get one of those, but why not put
Speaker 1: it out there in case somebody does want to show out,
Speaker 1: like fifty grand or something on something silly like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and a good idea is a good idea because of
Speaker 1: successfully funded projects exceed their goals, So that means if
Speaker 1: you're onto something, then you're gonna get get that money
Speaker 1: plus some um. But there have been some controversies right
Speaker 1: there have So Veronica mar was canceled because a TV
Speaker 1: show that was canceled with stuff you shanellist Kristen Bell, right,
Speaker 1: and they brought it back. They said everybody wanted a movie,
Speaker 1: and uh, what's his name? Rob Thomas, the guy from
Speaker 1: from what Matchbox one? A different guy, the great uh
Speaker 1: Rob Thomas. He did the TV show Party Down, which
Speaker 1: is my like, I got you okay, top five all times? Cool,
Speaker 1: cool dude. Then so he basically said we're gonna make
Speaker 1: a movie and we're gonna use this Kickstarter thing to
Speaker 1: do it. And they did. They raised like five and
Speaker 1: five and a half million dollars for the movie just
Speaker 1: from Kickstarter. Uh and I think it's the fifth uh
Speaker 1: most funded project and Kickstarter history. Yeah, but there was
Speaker 1: some controversy with the way that they offered downloads. Apparently
Speaker 1: they use Flixer, which a lot of people were like,
Speaker 1: O don't use Flixer, I use iTunes or I use Amazon, Like,
Speaker 1: just give it to me through that. I gave you
Speaker 1: guys money to go make this movie. Give me the
Speaker 1: download the way I want to. So apparently he got
Speaker 1: in touch with them, the studio Warner Brothers. I think
Speaker 1: that's and they said, okay, well we'll make this right.
Speaker 1: Because he was saying refunds, I believe, because the idea
Speaker 1: was if you donated a certain amount, you got the
Speaker 1: movie within days of its theatrical release on your devisive choice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he had a pretty good blog post. And this
Speaker 1: is actually kind of a good indicator of what you're
Speaker 1: supposed to do on Kickstarter. You're supposed to post updates
Speaker 1: after you you reach your goal, Like that's not that
Speaker 1: you don't walk away and then come back when it's done,
Speaker 1: like you want to post updates about production, just keep
Speaker 1: people involved. He had a blog post um when all
Speaker 1: of this hubbub was going on, he said, you know what,
Speaker 1: like I'm really sorry, he said, more than anything else,
Speaker 1: I want this day to be perfect for you guys,
Speaker 1: because this is the day of the Veronica Mars movie
Speaker 1: that we've all wanted for so long. It gets released,
Speaker 1: so it's supposed to be a great day. So what
Speaker 1: if you guys need to just get in touch with
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers customer service and they'll set it right. So
Speaker 1: he he it's a good example of handling controversy through Kickstarter,
Speaker 1: but it also kind of underscores the ownership that people
Speaker 1: who invest in Kickstarter projects feel in the final product.
Speaker 1: Yeah for sure, Like they're like, hey, man, I'm an
Speaker 1: investor in your your movie. I should be treated better
Speaker 1: than this. Yeah. And along with Zach Brath, who raised
Speaker 1: about more than two million dollars for his most recent film,
Speaker 1: which I was here. Um, he got a lot of
Speaker 1: flak because he raised, like I said, over a couple
Speaker 1: of million bucks and then got another like eight million
Speaker 1: or so from Worldview Entertainment, a film financier, and a
Speaker 1: lot of people said, hey man, that ain't cool. Like
Speaker 1: you basically said, you know, you don't have the money
Speaker 1: to do this yourself, so you're gonna raise the money
Speaker 1: via Kickstarter because you don't want to give up your
Speaker 1: final cut or your casting decisions to some film financers. Right,
Speaker 1: Like we understand that, Like you're avoiding the man and
Speaker 1: doing it all yourself. So here's some money, and then
Speaker 1: you go to a film financer and uh, they can
Speaker 1: give you completion funds or finishing funds because all these
Speaker 1: people have already proven they're willing to pay money for
Speaker 1: it to see this made. And he basically said, you
Speaker 1: know what, I'm not making some different movie. I still
Speaker 1: have final cut. Um. I never said that wouldn't happen. Um.
Speaker 1: And so he defended himself, I think fairly successfully. But
Speaker 1: a lot of people on the independent creation level here
Speaker 1: about Zach Braff making a movie and they're just ticked
Speaker 1: off about the whole situation. They're like, kickstarters should be
Speaker 1: for the really the starving artist, not the guy who
Speaker 1: made a ton of money on Scrubs who could either
Speaker 1: throw in his own money or get financing. And he
Speaker 1: already had financing lined up, he said, and he bailed
Speaker 1: on it because they did want final cut. So I
Speaker 1: kind of get both sides on this one. You know, like,
Speaker 1: good for Zack Braff if he can find a way
Speaker 1: to do it without giving up final cut. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I mean he does. He does serve as a cautionary tale,
Speaker 1: like you don't change the terms after the kickstarters funded. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And he says that he didn't. He said the whole time,
Speaker 1: he said that he was going to take the kickstarter funds,
Speaker 1: some of his own money and then get um foreign
Speaker 1: distribution money to fill out the rest. And apparently that's
Speaker 1: what he said he did. Yeah, And again though people
Speaker 1: wanted to donate to see another Zach Braff directed, written,
Speaker 1: and directed film, then great. But that's a separate issue
Speaker 1: like if he if he wants to come to Kickstarter
Speaker 1: and use it, then yeah, he's not gonna if he
Speaker 1: shouldn't be, or if people disagree with that, they're not
Speaker 1: gonna fund it. If people do fund it, then has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with you, exactly. You know. So I
Speaker 1: found an interesting thing here from Cambridge University UM. They
Speaker 1: have some computer scientists that say they have found a way,
Speaker 1: may have found a way to uh direct your Kickstarter
Speaker 1: project to the right audience. They basically examined three months
Speaker 1: worth of worth of data from Kickstarter UM a researcher
Speaker 1: name just soon On and then plugged it into an algorithm.
Speaker 1: After they found two categories basically frequent investors and occasional investors.
Speaker 1: Occasional funders built an algorithm to say which projects attracted
Speaker 1: which type of funder, and what they came up with was,
Speaker 1: uh the following. If you are a frequent funder, you're
Speaker 1: more likely to UM fund projects where that displays good management,
Speaker 1: like if you, like you said, if you're frequently updating
Speaker 1: the page, if it's really well designed, UM and it
Speaker 1: makes sense kind of like someone who would invest in
Speaker 1: a company if they really look like they're buttoned up,
Speaker 1: they're more frequently going to invest um high stakes, they said.
Speaker 1: Frequent Kickstarter investors are more likely to invest in something
Speaker 1: with a high fundraising goal, not the eight dollar Chipotle graph,
Speaker 1: which makes sense as universal appeal um. They said, the
Speaker 1: local projects are more likely to get funded by UH
Speaker 1: infrequent investors. Long term investors are more likely to fund
Speaker 1: something with universal peel and if it's fast growing um,
Speaker 1: if they see a lot of people are investing the
Speaker 1: more frequent and most heavily investors heavy investors. Sure everybody
Speaker 1: wants to get in on that exactly. Um, But they
Speaker 1: did say in the end, it's really all about the quality.
Speaker 1: That's the one caveat of the project. At the end
Speaker 1: of the day, it still has to be a quality
Speaker 1: project or catch fire in a meme sort of way.
Speaker 1: Like meat soap. Exactly have you heard of that one?
Speaker 1: I already know what it is. Uh, And then there's
Speaker 1: one the Grizzly Coat. Well, what is meat soap. It's
Speaker 1: soap made from the fat rendered from meats. It smells
Speaker 1: like meat. It's basically bathing in meat meat. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then there's the grizzly coat, which is a coat with
Speaker 1: a hood that looks like a grizzly bear's head. It's
Speaker 1: pretty cool. Nice. Um, there's a lot of weirdness out
Speaker 1: there on Kickstarter. It's wonderful little marketplace of idea exchange. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, if if I didn't have my if I
Speaker 1: didn't have my job doing what we do with our
Speaker 1: great uh company that we worked for, like paying the
Speaker 1: bills and keeping the lights on, I would definitely go
Speaker 1: this route. Like if it was around in the in
Speaker 1: the early nineties, I would have been all over this
Speaker 1: junk because I was out there on the streets making
Speaker 1: films panhandling for nothing and the result was indicative of that. Uh,
Speaker 1: you got anything else. If you want to know more
Speaker 1: about Kickstarter, go to kickstarter and follow all the rules
Speaker 1: you will be funded. You can also learn some more
Speaker 1: about it by typing Kickstarter into the search bar at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com and uh, that will bring
Speaker 1: up this article. And I said article, So it's a
Speaker 1: listener mail time. Yeah, I'm gonna call this that won't
Speaker 1: play in Peoria. Remember during our m p A a podcast.
Speaker 1: I don't think I could remember the name of the
Speaker 1: city or something like that. So we had quite a
Speaker 1: few follow ups, and this one is from Nate Malore
Speaker 1: and Nate said, um, so, Nate works in a temper
Speaker 1: as a temper in a greenhouse, which is interesting. And
Speaker 1: um he said, he's fallen behind lately, but wanted to
Speaker 1: reply about the mp A podcast. Chuck was struggling to
Speaker 1: remember the phrase that Willer won't play in Peoria. Someone
Speaker 1: who has probably let you know this, But if none
Speaker 1: has enlighten you as to the origins, I will. I'm
Speaker 1: told it was in a book at some point in
Speaker 1: the late eighteen hundreds, but even before that, theater groups
Speaker 1: burlesque and vaudeville would use Peoria to workshop shows on
Speaker 1: the way to Chicago, as it is a fairly large
Speaker 1: city on the Illinois River. Um. When I was a kid,
Speaker 1: it was a test market. Even have you had Have
Speaker 1: you ever had a McDonald's pizza? I remember the Mick pizza?
Speaker 1: He says no. If no, then you're lucky because they're terrible. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's supposedly is representative of the Midwest, and according to
Speaker 1: my father, it was one of the most economically diverse
Speaker 1: cities in the Midwest, so Peory, I guess was just
Speaker 1: kind of that every place near Chicago, which explains the
Speaker 1: phrase exactly. Anyway, I love the show and your sister
Speaker 1: show stuff you missed in history class, which we also recommend,
Speaker 1: by the way, listen to every episode, even the pre
Speaker 1: Chuck era, except the ten or so I have to
Speaker 1: catch up with. So that is from Nate Malore and
Speaker 1: Nate's his ps. Every time you ind a commercial and
Speaker 1: say go to the search bar and type in stuff
Speaker 1: to get your whatever, it makes me want to go
Speaker 1: to whichever site you're plugging, type a bunch of random
Speaker 1: keys into the search bar and send you an email
Speaker 1: calling you jerks in my head using Josh's voice. That's
Speaker 1: what that means. I think it's that face value. Well, Nate,
Speaker 1: I think you've been in the tempting in that green
Speaker 1: household too long. What kind of greenhouse are you in there? Nate? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Is it in Humboldt County, California? Uh? Yeah, thanks a lot, Nate.
Speaker 1: That was very nice of you. If you want to
Speaker 1: get in touch of this, you can tweet to us
Speaker 1: at s Y s K podcast. You can join us
Speaker 1: on Facebook dot com slash stuff You Should Know. You
Speaker 1: can send us an email to Stuff podcast at how
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at
Speaker 1: our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com.
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, is
Speaker 1: it how stuff Works dot com.