Is a $10 (Potato Salad) Funding Goal Ethical?
Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 9:14 pm
Before I even get started, let me make two disclaimers: My wife is managing precisely such a $10 campaign right ow as I spill this digital ink (Her campaign is at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/67 ... fairy-tale). Also, I do not like potato salad. I would not eat it with a goat; I would not eat it in a boat. I do not like it, Sam I am. 
i like tuna salad an really like chicken salad, but that is another story for another day. When I first stumbled upon the Potato Salad campaign, I was reading on CNN.com, reading news headlines. So, a bit annoyed, I took a break from my political news updates and clicked over to KS. My better half had her own KS mobile game app project (Go Pharaoh) going around the same time as Zach Brown and she had spotted it but hadn't mentioned it yet---until I burst the "news" to her. Zach Brown had received about $17,000 in pledges by then. we, like everyone else in the universe, followed with rapt attention as the $10 funding goal reached $70,000 (before dropping to the mid-fifties, as in 57K). You all know the rest of that story, topped only by the phenomenal Coolest Cooler (I'm writing this from my garage, tinkering with our Igloo...).
So, is it ethical to have a $10 funding goal? When you really need perhaps twenty times that amount? I hope to hear other members and guests perspectives on this point. i know in my wife's (SoftStorms LLC) case, she run a campaign with a $7,500 funding goal for one week, raised $3,116 from just 10 backers, cancelled her campaign with a full five weeks left, relaunched days later with a $10 goal (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/67 ... fairy-tale) and has raised--you guessed it---virtually the same amount as her cancelled campaign from a different set of backers numbering just 10. She just couldn't deal with the possibility of a failed campaign. Plus, she devised a legitimate way to tailor her rewards to whatever amount is raised. Now, let the sound and fury begin.
i like tuna salad an really like chicken salad, but that is another story for another day. When I first stumbled upon the Potato Salad campaign, I was reading on CNN.com, reading news headlines. So, a bit annoyed, I took a break from my political news updates and clicked over to KS. My better half had her own KS mobile game app project (Go Pharaoh) going around the same time as Zach Brown and she had spotted it but hadn't mentioned it yet---until I burst the "news" to her. Zach Brown had received about $17,000 in pledges by then. we, like everyone else in the universe, followed with rapt attention as the $10 funding goal reached $70,000 (before dropping to the mid-fifties, as in 57K). You all know the rest of that story, topped only by the phenomenal Coolest Cooler (I'm writing this from my garage, tinkering with our Igloo...).
So, is it ethical to have a $10 funding goal? When you really need perhaps twenty times that amount? I hope to hear other members and guests perspectives on this point. i know in my wife's (SoftStorms LLC) case, she run a campaign with a $7,500 funding goal for one week, raised $3,116 from just 10 backers, cancelled her campaign with a full five weeks left, relaunched days later with a $10 goal (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/67 ... fairy-tale) and has raised--you guessed it---virtually the same amount as her cancelled campaign from a different set of backers numbering just 10. She just couldn't deal with the possibility of a failed campaign. Plus, she devised a legitimate way to tailor her rewards to whatever amount is raised. Now, let the sound and fury begin.