Kickstarter has raised more than a billion dollars in five years through crowdfunding, making its co-founder very wealthy. So what big deals has he got in the pipeline? And does he have any marketing ideas for our writer's money-making schemes?
This article is written by a current journalist, pitching ideas for a Kickstarter campaign to former music journalist and current CEO of Kickstarter, Yancey Strickler. Includes tips for a hit project as well as sneak peeks at what might be next for Kickstarter, definitely an interesting read.
Some highlights:
1. Keep it Simple
Idea three: just a load of crap that doubles as a bottle opener.
Yes! Yeah! You know, there's something interesting in this. One of the strangest, most prevalent things on Kickstarter are slim wallets. We have lot of those ... You have to deal with manufacturers, but the product itself is very simple. We've seen a few people start with a slim wallet and then go on to something else because they've got a sense of how it worked. So I have a sense that a bottle opener might be in a similar vein. It might be a seemingly cheap tchotchke sort of thing, but it might also be an educational tool for someone to learn how to make something. My own wallet is a Kickstarter wallet, in fact.
2. Connect with your Audience
A Planet Monkey T-shirt.
Well, maybe just document the 30 terrible designs you came up with before you found the one that was good. I think that stuff's always entertaining. Humanising it might be quite fun.
Finally, how I can promote my project?
A lot of tweeting. You're gonna want to make a video that's very strong and cross-post it on YouTube. Look for your audience. Maybe there are some monkey-related messageboards that you could be a part of. Is there a London zoo? Are there monkeys at London zoo? Maybe people outside London zoo are your core audience. You could just try to wear the first version of the T-shirt very proudly and hope that someone asks you how they can get one. Every day you should wear that shirt.
Sneak Peek:
Finally, a version of Kickstarter that only charges 4% commission.
It only charges 4%? You know, you could do that. Certainly we get a lot of competition, with people doing the exact same thing as us.
And I could fund it through you?
Uh, soon you could. I think. I don't know. I'm not sure what my answer to this one is. It's currently prohibited. Not because it's direct competition, but because we don't fund software businesses. I think that's gonna change at some point. Things change, you know?
Source: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/19/kickstarter-yancey-strickler-interview