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The Universe Before The Coming Of Kickstarter

Posted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 10:33 pm
by SoftTempest
How on earth (and perhaps elsewhere in outer space) did anything ever get funded before the advent of Kickstarter? I can just see Copernicus or Galileo launching his telescope project on Kickstarter and promising that his product will allow people to see for themselves that the earth really revolves around the sun and not vice versa (telescoping tissue paper holder prototype, and 7% funded with 1 day left on campaign). I can see Shakespeare trying to sell Romeo and Juliet (video: backers, backer, wherefore art thou, backers?) and wondering: "To be or not to be, that is the question for my Kickstarter funding goal as he tries to publish Hamlet. I can see the Wright Brothers asking people to back them after their video shows a sub-two-minute flight crash-landing. I can see extraterrestrials pitching their UFO project and all the scoffers saying "shucks, ain't no such thing as Area 51." Kickstarter is really kicking in the teeth of Wall Street investment bankers and patent lawyers, and also the local banker on Main Street who delights in asking about "your assets to secure this high-interest loan, please?" I wonder if Kickstarter would have gotten over-funded as a campaign on Kickstarter to the extent that Zach Brown's Potato Salad or the Coolers Cooler did. Your thoughts?

Oh, our website (under construction, with a makeover pending stratospheric overfunding of our Kickstarter ;) ) is http://www.halloweenchronicles.com

Re: The Universe Before The Coming Of Kickstarter

Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2014 7:08 pm
by sbriggman
Haha interesting thoughts. I guess people had to rely more on family/friends and give away equity. You think back to when apple first started with the homebrew computer club... steve and steve just were trying to get backing by their friends so they could create more computers. Kind of makes me think they would be the ideal type of Kickstarter project.

Re: The Universe Before The Coming Of Kickstarter

Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2014 10:59 am
by Lite001
What if someone had a rival Crowd-funding campaign and tried to promote via Kickstarter? Highly unethical but would it be technically illegal?

Re: The Universe Before The Coming Of Kickstarter

Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2014 2:04 pm
by SoftTempest
Kickstarter's Staff would probably nix it by disapproving of it as a project (now that they are back to vetting projects before allowing them to launch). But, then again, given that they are $$ savvy, they'd probably approve it and just take their 5% cut. Actually, to be very honest, we are in the process of building such a crowdfunding app, but only restricted to Games and Publishing. Maybe, down the line, we'll allow Technology. But, no private charity like GoFundMe and Indiegogo allow. Too vulnerable to scams.