First, I'm speaking generally, because I'm not particularly fond of the idea of renting out the community here as a focus group. I know nothing offensive is meant by asking the question, but there are a lot of people who'd be very happy having people here spin their wheels to make a few bucks. Historically, the "right" way to handle this has been to have a project website or use social media and offer to discuss it there.
Anyway, that's become something of a trend on Kickstarter that I've noticed. There was recently a failed campaign for software I knew about, and the video confused me.
For what little it may be worth, after tossing a few dollars into many, many Kickstarter projects (more than I'm willing to talk about...), what I think many creators miss is that...well, I don't know how to say this nicely, so I'll be extra mean to make the point: I don't care about
the creator, except my confidence that the money will be well-spent.
The pitch I always want to see is something like:
- This is the project.
- I, the viewer with wallet open, should care about the project because...
- I can trust the creator to:
- Finish the project. I've been waiting three years for a short book to finish.
- Produce something I'll enjoy. There are a lot of people who want money, after all.
- Spend the money wisely. A project I actually like and have given money to in the past wanted to buy some high-end computers for...I dunno, some reason.
- Communicate something other than "thanks for the cash, suckers!" while we wait for an invisible ship date.
- Tell the story. I am never going to tell someone else about a project unless the project has a good story. I don't mean the plot of a book, but why this book, why now, why this creator, why this technique. I may not tell people about a project to get them to contribute, but I very well might tell them about it if there's something interesting to tell.
- If that doesn't seem long enough...
- It's plenty long, trust me. I probably have another dozen to get through.
- Walk us through the budget, schedule, and story.
Also important to me, though maybe not to everybody, is that a crowd-funding pitch should be a human interaction. I basically move on if...
- The project is run by a "company." Write a business plan, get a loan, and pay it back out of the profit like an adult.
- Celebrities are spearheading the campaign. Celebrity involvement, fine. Celebrity-run, why do you not already have the money?
- No or (frankly) boring campaigns supported in the past. Oh, you bought a macrame hat and a candle holder made out of typewriter parts all in the past month? Why no, that doesn't look like you're trying to quickly establish an identity at all...
- There are no project updates or the updates are about how much money has been raised so far. Fundraising is exciting for the recipient, not the donor, and not knowing the difference doesn't speak well for putting out an interesting product.
- A human being isn't telling me the things on the first list.
- Special case: You call yourself a film-maker but don't have a video for the pitch. I mean, come on.
My experience (again, I've seen a lot of projects go by, but it's only my opinion) has been that the items on that list generally indicate that the project isn't about the audience, just the money.
Me, I'd lose the tinny Muzak and pop-ups. Just talk to the camera (which clearly exists) for a couple of minutes about the actual project. If you really want music, hit up the
Free Music Archive,
Magnatune, or
Musopen for something appropriate (and free/cheap) and add the track quietly.
