Kickstarter is a website that lets you contribute money toward getting people’s business ideas started. The idea is pretty simple – someone comes up with an idea they’d like to implement but they don’t have the money. They post the idea on Kickstarter with a video and a description of what they’d like to do, and ask for the money needed to start the project. Individuals offer to contribute toward the total. Depending on the amount pledged, contributors are awarded with different gifts. If the total required to get the project started is contributed by the end date set for the project, then the project gets the money and the gifts are awarded. If the project isn’t fully funded, then nobody pays, but there are no rewards, either.
I’ve pledged on a handful of projects, both successful and not. My first project was for a roleplaying game called “Human Contact”, which is by an author whose other game I already own. He posted about the project on his web site, and I thought is was an interesting idea, so I contributed. With the funding from Kickstarter, he was able to write the new book and have a first batch printed, for both rewarding contributors and for future resale.
I guess I’m getting pickier, since there are a few criteria that I have recently started to look for when pledging on Kickstarter. First, it has to be obvious what the money is going to be used for. For this reason, most video game projects get thrown out the window almost immediately, since they never seem to mention why they need money or what they’re going to do with it. There have been a few neat-looking projects that never specify what their funding is for, and so I don’t contribute. I think that’s pretty important to know.
Another recent project that I’ve helped fund is the eephus league baseball scorebook revival project, which is a project that is printing classic baseball scorebooks. These things always fascinated me back in my little league days, and I’ve said that this would be a way that I could get back into being interested in baseball.
The Loog Guitar is another neat project that will be fully funded before its end date, and something that I’m looking forward to. It’s a kit that lets you build a 3-string guitar, and comes with basic lessons for playing. There is a lot of thought put into this project, which you can see just by looking at the box it comes in, which converts into a fairly nice (for cardboard) guitar case with interchangeable components depending on which of the three styles of guitar you choose.
I’ve also helped some local folks fund the remodling of their art space. The reward on this wasn’t as important for me as the others. I mean, the guitar is interesting but part of the reward for pledging is the guitar itself. In the case of Little Berlin, it was mostly simple satisfaction from helping out.
There are a few other projects I’ve funded, and some I didn’t for one reason or another that were also really neat. In general, Kickstarter is a great idea. I’d like to see more interesting projects funded this way, both the kind that are actual projects and the kind that are community developments. Just think about how interesting/rich things could be if more small (or large!) public works were personally funded.
