KickstarterForum.org

I just launched my first (and probably only) Kickstarter campaign and there hasn't exactly been an enthusiastic barrage of pledges from my friends and family. My dad plans on making a large pledge, but he is reluctant to do so early in the game when it will be so noticeable. He thinks because the pledge will obviously be from a family member, it will look bad and reflect poorly on my project.

I think it's perfectly respectable to accept pledges from family members (c'mon, who else is going to give me money?), and it might even instill confidence in potential backers if they think my project might actually be funded.

What do all you experienced Kickstarters think? Should my father pledge early or wait until later?

Thanks for your advice!

Friends and family members fall properly within the ambit of your core, natural "tribe" - those most likely to be willing to pledge to support you, based upon pre-existing relationships which antedate the launch of your crowd funding project.

It is far from an unknown practice for friends and family members to pledge to support crowd funding projects of all sorts. If someone loves you, and is willing to pledge for that reason, alone, then it is amongst the most persuasive of reasons. You can't develop a stronger, more relevant relationship with another human being than the relationship of love.

Plus, parents can pledge, purely as a matter of parental privilege. This is above and beyond parents being in possession of a personal freedom to pledge, one that is at least equal to anyone else's personal freedom to pledge.

To construe pledges by parents as "cheating" is to be disingenuous, at best. Indeed, the inherent nature of crowd funding is to grow one's crowd, one's tribe of people willing to support them with actual, tangible pledges. It would be antithetical to a crowd funding project's best interests to discriminate against parents, when arriving at determinations of who should or should not be "allowed" to pledge.

Kickstarter does not inhibit parents from pledging. If anything, parents probably have the most extensive history of supporting undertakings by their own children, whatever form such undertakings take. For parents, pledging to support Kickstarter projects would simply be a natural outgrowth of what they have already been doing, in many instances, for years or even decades on end.

You might want to consider not placing undue value in the opinions of others- and particularly if your crowd funding project is placed at greater risk of not meeting its stated funding goal.

Historically and traditionally, parents have held no monopoly upon either helping people or loving people. It's OK for parents to pledge to support crowd funding projects of complete strangers. By what strange alchemy of words is it OK for parents to pledge to support the projects of other people's children, but not their own?

To mislabel parents pledging to support their own child's crowd funding project as "cheating" is to misconstrue the nature of both cheating and crowd funding.

MackyMack wrote:(c'mon, who else is going to give me money?)

Ask the guy who wanted to make some potato salad that question.

People pledge for their own reasons. Don't be so quick to discount people.

Kicktraq lists your campaign cycle as a 30 day cycle. My suggestion is to front load it with your dad's pledge. Some momentum is better than none, whether it's momentum of backers or momentum in funding.

Thank you for your well thought out response, Charles! I appreciate it!

I tend to agree with you. I think my dad's concern that his pledge will lower the validity of my project is unfounded. His name won't even show up on the page, so people might even be fooled into thinking that someone believes in me who isn't biologically required to be supportive.

My mom has pledged and said she may even up her pledge a little bit later in the game. Of course its ok for your parents to support you!

Charles wrote:Kicktraq lists your campaign cycle as a 30 day cycle.

I need to figure out this Kicktraq thing. I'm very new to crowdfunding.

SomewhereOutThere wrote:My mom has pledged and said she may even up her pledge a little bit later in the game. Of course its ok for your parents to support you!

Moms are awesome, aren't they? My mom pledged on my project, too Thanks, Mom!

MackyMack wrote:

Charles wrote:Kicktraq lists your campaign cycle as a 30 day cycle.

I need to figure out this Kicktraq thing. I'm very new to crowdfunding.

I am pretty new to this as well, and I have found Kicktraq to be very useful, as well as fun and interesting. It's a whole new world we are stepping into! I was not aware of all this when I started my project. Originally it wasn't meant to need funding and was just something fun for me to do to make people smile, but hopefully I can spread that all over the world (two continents and counting!)

MackyMack wrote:I need to figure out this Kicktraq thing. I'm very new to crowdfunding.

Here's the Kicktraq link to your project:

http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/172549459/macks-guide-to-cheap-travel-in-a-poor-economy/

Your project page video is terrible. Your Facebook page for your concept is much better executed than your Kickstarter project page. It has vastly greater visual interest associated with it.