It's no secret how much I love Kickstarter -- and the power behind this new economic model of having a worldwide internet opportunity to take a creative project to the people and let them decide how much love and money they want to contribute. Projects have 30 days to raise the asked for amount -- and some projects exceed in raising far above their initial request. (Projects that do not make their goal are not funded -- money is collected only when the project has reached its funding goal.) I first learned about Kickstarter in 2010 -- after they were recently opened for business and just getting big enough to attract the interest of the Economist Magazine. Here's a link to the Economist interview with Perry Chen -- the one that got me really excited about Kickstarter.
In May 2012, Om Malik from GIGAOM interviewed Perry Chen, and wow, what a difference a year has made in the continuing success of Kickstarter's unique model. Malik writes, "Kickstarter has received $100 million in pledges over the last year and has had a number of projects exceed the million-dollar-pledge mark this year for the first time. And now, Kickstarter is up to 23,000 successfully funded projects and more than 2 million backers. To date, more than $230 million has been pledged to products. Movies, music, city designs, watches, video games — Kickstarter has become an epicenter of creativity. It is funding everything from a pickle factory in Chicago that uses Bloody Mary marinade and wants to expand, to a live music-and-film series that would play in parks around Harlem."
I also highly recommend having a look at Chen's reflection about how Kickstarter found its origins and what Chen thinks of it as a company. Here's my favorite part:
"the idea is one thing, and kickstarter is another. kickstarter is the manifestation of the idea in one way, by one set of people. but the idea will outlive kickstarter. people will be funding and building community around their projects, on the web, in this general way, for a long long time. (and we plan for kickstarter to be around for generations).
and the absolute best thing has been the art that is being created. art, real art — things that people can’t get out of their head — is bursting out. to be connected to the creation of things like mysterious letters, the music box, girl walk, grassroots mapping, and tens of thousands of other projects is indescribable."
(Here's a local Tuscon Project up now on Kickstarter! They have five days left to get funded. Have a look and help them out! This is a great project to record the life and activities of a historic site in Tucson.)
If you are an artist, an author with an interesting idea, a graphic comic books artist, an inventor, a teacher, a musician, a cook -- anyone with a creative idea -- consider checking out Kickstarter. One of the recent successes was a horror anthology of women authors, called "Deep Cuts." edited by Angel Mcoy, E. S. Magill and Chris Marrs. And while horror is not my usual fare, I was really happy for the editors to have been able to successfully fund a project that normal channels weren't interested in doing.
So go ahead -- put it together, put it out there, and see what happens.
Here are earlier Kickstarter projects I have featured on the blog:
The Illuminated "Origins of the Species."
Amanda Palmer, Music and Art Project
