November 25, 2014 • 36 mins
With billions of dollars raised, Kickstarter has singled itself out as the go-to site for creative crowdfunding. But not without some controversy along the way. Learn all about how this artistic business model operates in today's episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to you Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry's over
there and we're ready to kick this episode off. For
(00:21):
just one dollar, you can contribute to Stuff you Should Know. Yeah,
can they know we're a pre podcast. That's why I
get less patient with complaints. Yeah right, it's a trade off. Yeah,
it's free. Get some ads here and there, love with it. No,
but I'm just kidding. We don't fundraise or crowdsource or crowdfund. No,
(00:42):
we just to put stuff out. We have corporate sponsorship.
Not everybody does, though not all creatives do have corporate sponsorship.
And so luckily, since what two thousand nine, there's been
something to help people like that out, artists, creatives who
want to get a project underway but can't do it,
(01:06):
called Kickstarter that don't have the funds. I'm a big
fan of Kickstarter. Yeah, it's pretty cool. I remember when
it came out, I was like, this is gonna revolutionize
um independent artists because one of the problems if you're
an independent artist and you don't want to cow tow
to the man is to just do your own thing,
because it's the future is now as far as um
(01:29):
accessibility to equipment, and you can you can make a
movie right there in your in your own neighborhood and home. Right. Yeah,
there's been a d I Y spirit. Well, yes, if
you have the skills, it's important. Well there's always been
that d I Y spirit. But it's just the accessibility.
This equipment is like never before. Right, It's it's they've
(01:50):
caught up to one another. Yeah, it's cheaper, it's you
don't have to get film developed. You can edit off
your laptop. Um, it's all there for the taking, except
that it's still cost some money. Yeah, actors didn't come free. Nope,
that's one thing. Wardrobe like craft services. Sure, you gotta
have some peanuts and coffee, and that's just for you know,
(02:11):
a movie. There's also like theaters. Um, there's music. Yeah,
I want mine. I want to do mine. I want
to travel the world and photograph all the remaining rhinoceros
rh I I don't know. I think rhinoceros is. It's
a photo book. It's a photo project about the rhinoceros
(02:31):
in felt and I want to do that. You can
do that. That's an art project. You can get funded.
You can if everybody thinks that that's a good idea,
Which is the cool thing about Kickstarter, that's right, So Chuck,
let's talk a little bit about this, right. Kickstarter is crowdfunding,
which is a a play on crowdsourcing, which is originally
(02:52):
basically just tapping into the hive mind. Yeah, thanks to
the Internet. Right, there's a lot of people out there.
If you take their collective brains or allans or thoughts
or efforts together, put them together through the Internet, you
can do massive, awesome things like Wikipedia's Originally there is
an original, great example of crowd sourcing. That's right. Now,
(03:13):
if you take all those people and say, hey, just
hold on to your time, hold on to your volunteering,
hold on to your effort, just give me money instead. Yeah,
that's crowdfunding, and Kickstarter is one of the better examples
of it. But it's not the first. No. No, it's
called micro patronage if you want to get specific, and
it's been around since the mid nineties. Uh Kiva dot org. Yeah,
(03:38):
we've done a podcast on micro ending and we have
our own Kiva team. We've got a killer Kiva team
that just surpassed a hundred thousand loans and we're coming
up on three million dollars in loans made. That's right.
So if you if you're interested in helping out, I
know we talked about it a lot, but it's been
a little while. If you're interested in helping out a
business owner, either in the United States or abroad, you
(03:59):
can do so. Ats off you sure, Keiva dot org,
slash teams slash stuff. You should know, that's right, and
you can do it as as a team. It's just fun.
So Kiva is one great example. Um donors two dot org.
I remember when that started when teachers started posting projects
where their school because schools are ridiculously underfunded and teachers
(04:20):
had to like ask the public to help pay for
a field trip or something. Yeah, you know, I've seen
Waiting for Superman Man. I saw seen that. It's been
on my list for years. Very rarely have I seen
documentary that just got my hackles up like that one.
It's really well done. Well that's because can anyone make
an argument that education isn't worth funding and supporting? Uh No,
(04:44):
But this, this, this does just a great job of
like getting all sides of the issue out you got it.
It's one of the best documentaries ever made. Yeah, I
need you to see that. And that wasn't on my
top documentary list because I haven't seen it. I got
to see it. Oh, and also feedback on that. I
want to say thank you very much to all the
people who rode in with suggestions in answer to my
complaint that I've seen all the good horror movies. Oh yeah,
(05:06):
apparently I was wrong. Boy, we got a lot of
good suggestions. Yeah. I can't wait to see some of them. Yeah,
most of them are foreign. It seems like, hey, they're
making the takes the whole world. Takes a global village
to scare jows. It does, uh, indie go go and
sell a band or a couple of other other early
crowdfunding sites um for music and movie making. I think
(05:28):
indie go Go does lots of projects now, though it's
not just movies anymore. Kickstarters emerged as like the go
to site for what what's supposed to be creative projects. Yeah, well,
let's let's talk about this. Uh. In two thousand two,
co founder Perry Chen said, I want to do this
(05:49):
concert here in New Orleans, but it costs a lot
of money to throw a big concert, and UM, let
me talk to my partners Yancey Strickler and Charles Adler
and see if we could and figure out a way
how to do this. And they said, you know what,
we know we can get people to donate a little
bit of money to this thing, a lot of people.
But how can we do that? You know? I think
(06:10):
they met Perry Chan was waiting tables and was one
of the other guys waiter and they struck up a
conversation about it. I believe that's how kickstarter got started.
That's pretty cool. Yeah, So they had the idea obviously
based on um like we said, Indigo Go and some
other h crowdfunding sites out there, to start kicks Starter
(06:31):
in two thousand nine. But they said, you know what
we're gonna do exclusively creative projects. You can't um raise
money to like pay your rent or pay off your
house or anything weird like that. And it wasn't you
can't just do like a vague plan or something like that.
It had to be here is what I'm going to accomplish,
(06:53):
here's my project, here is the end result, this is
what it's gonna be here's the timeline. I want to
get this done within and this is my Kickstarter project. Yeah,
this is what I'm gonna hopefully go get funded my campaign. Yeah,
but it's creative. Yes, that's right. And uh, they you know,
they wanted to different differentiate themselves and be unique, and
(07:15):
being creative only was one of the ways that they
did that. Another way they did so was two And
I thought this was a stroke of genius. It's all
or nothing. Yeah, this this makes sense. Now unless you
get of your funding, um, you're not going to get
any funding. And Kickstarter is only going to collect of course,
they make money by collecting a little piece of it
five percent commission only if you reach that funding goal though,
(07:38):
which uh sets it apart from the crowd And I
think it's pretty genius. The whole reason is genius is this.
If you are a creator and you have a project,
and you get halfway to your goal, your monetary goal,
and you take that money, you are obligated still to
those people who gave you just half of the money
(07:59):
you need to create something. But what you're going to
create is inherently inferior to what you would have created
had you had all the money. You figured out you
needed for this project, Sue. If you if you can
take less than all, you're going to set yourself up
to make something that you're not proud of. Yeah, Or
if you don't get funded, you might think, all right, well,
(08:22):
maybe that wasn't the best idea, or you know, maybe
go another route, or say maybe that wasn't the best idea,
let me try something else, which is like a crowdsourcing
aspect of Kickstarter. You're also saying to the to the
hive mind, is this a good idea? Yeah? And the
other cool thing about the percent or nothing is as
a as a donor or an investor, you're not you
(08:43):
know that what you're going to end up with is
this finished movie or this finished record album or this
finished photo project. It's not just gonna be like, well,
I just lost that five dollars to something that was
thirty funded and I don't even know where what I'm
going to get out of it. Now, you know, you're
just basically like through a five dollar bill into a
(09:04):
buskers um guitar case or something, you know, which is
something you should do to. Yeah, there's nothing inherently wrong
with that, but the point of kickstarter is there's a
project that this person has approached you on and you
have said that is worth five dollars of my money,
even if I don't get anything back. Sure, I feel
good about this project. Not the fact that you're an
(09:25):
artist in general or you're a musician in general. This
is this project that I'm investing in. That's right. Another interesting,
uh facet to kickstarter is that they do offer rewards.
As a backer, They require people to offer rewards. So
it's not just hey, you're gonna feel good about yourself
(09:46):
for supporting the arts in my finished movie. Um, you're
gonna get a copy of the D D D or
the c D may be signed by the artist. Maybe
it's a poster. Maybe it's a pin or a button
for a two dollar donation, right, or maybe it's lunch
with me if you kicking a hundred thousand dollars, or
maybe there the executive producer if you kick in all
the money. Right. Yeah, we're not all the money. But
(10:07):
you know they have different tiers set up and different
rewards that align with those tears. Yeah. The thing is
that there's rules with this, like you can't offer a
financial stake in the project or equity you can't say
you kick in twenty five dollars. Now you'll get fifty
bucks back when I sell this thing to you know,
Carol co Film. You know where'd you come up with that?
(10:34):
That's the go to of mine, Carol Go. Yeah, haven't
they been out of business for like twenty years? They
had a good logo glowed, I believe. And then the
other So when this, when this stuff is all done
and up on Kickstarter, the the basically the creative has
said I'm responsible for two things. One, I will complete
(10:54):
this project if I get funded. Fully, that means this
project has to be done. I can't just take the
money and rotten. No. Legally I think they can, yes,
but I think the public shaming that would insue it
would just not be worth it. That would be your
only Kickstarter project exactly. And then secondly you have to
(11:14):
fulfill whatever your rewards were. Right, and we'll get into
the nuts and bolts about actually creating a Kickstarter project
right after this. Okay, so we said it has to
be a creative project. What does that mean, Josh? I
(11:36):
think if I uh far at the Star Spangled banner
on YouTube, that's a very creative project. I can't believe
you just use the F word. Uh, you know what,
you probably could get that funded pretty easily, could um.
And the key is that Cooper would pay her that
by himself. By himself, he would liquidate everything he has.
(11:57):
Just as long as you did that, you were right.
The thing is to get onto Kickstarter site, you have
to get past the Kickstarter staff. And it's actually not
just any Joe Schmo can come along and be like,
I define creativity And as a matter of fact, there
are definitions for what makes a creative project. And then
(12:17):
on the other end of that is the staff that
has to look over a proposal and say, yeah, this
meets our standards. Yeah. They define it on their website
as art, comics, dance, design, fashion, film, food, games, music, photography, publishing, technology,
and theater and um. They they admit that it is
(12:38):
an ever evolving definition because creative people are kind of
wacky and they'll submit things that they that walk the
line that they'll have to decide. Hey, this Chuck Bryant guy,
he's gonna be a big podcaster. He wants to fart
the star spangled banner um on the front lawn of
the White House. Oh man, that sounds pretty good to me.
You could very easily get onto the front lawn of
(13:00):
the White House these days too. Yeah, you just jumped
the fence. And so the thing is, I think in
that sense, on that end of the spectrum, they're a
lot more liberal. Like I don't think the Kickstarter staff
is interested in saying that's art or I don't agree
with that art, so that's not really art. What they're
(13:20):
more concerned with is having basically becoming an as seen
on TV website. So the author of this article is
Dave Ruse. He puts it like, um, it's not it's
it's a proposal for a project, not for a finnished product.
So it's not hey, by my DVD, it's hey, invest
in this project and you'll get a DVD when it's finished. Yeah,
(13:45):
that's a huge distinction because if not, it would just
be an online marketplace. And Kickstarter suffers a lot of
criticism because it's evolved in that way. But apparently they're
cool with that to a certain degree. Yeah, there was
one case, Um, I think it's a couple of years ago, uh,
for a watch band that held the iPod nano. I
remember when that came out they wanted to raise fifteen
(14:06):
thousand dollars and they raised a million dollars. That's the
other cool thing about Kickstarter. I don't think we mentioned
if you go over then great, good for you. Um.
But basically what happened was your twenty five dollar donation
got you that watch band that you can now get
online or Apple stores for forty bucks. Uh. And they
(14:28):
did take you know, they took some flak for that,
saying isn't this just a way to buy something before
it comes out? Pre order? Yeah? Pre order? Is that
what it's called? Preorder this thing? Yeah? I know. Right now.
I think the biggest um success they've had is that cooler,
the coolest cooler. Have you seen that thing? Thirteen point
to eight five million dollars and I think their original
(14:51):
goal was like fifty Yeah. I mean I remember when
I first saw the uh, the little ad for this
thing on Facebook. It was awesome. I was like, man,
that is one cool cooler. Yeah, it has like bluetooth waterproof,
bluetooth speaker, has a ice crushing blender built in. It
is a cooler to um. And again, like we said,
(15:13):
like this is the crowdsourcing aspect of it, Like these
people came up with the coolest cooler and the world said, yes,
that product needs to come into existence, and they voted
by saying, here is way more money than you need.
And now yes, it's basically a pre order. Not only
that this company now can sell out to whoever they
(15:35):
want to and sell coolest coolers for the rest of
eternity or somebody right, because it's not a gamble at all.
It's already proven itself on the in the retail market,
so there's no gamble whatsoever. So they can they can
just keep making them themselves, or they can expand and
attract outside capital. And it's all because Perry Chin and
(15:58):
his fellow co conspirators created this website that has all
these dimensions to it. Even though it's so simple, when
placed into the context of the Internet, it has complications
but also expansions. It's pretty cool. Even though there are
products like that. Um over six products that are successfully
(16:22):
funded are music, film, and video. So I that's a
little I mean, that's that's true, but it's flip flops
them apparently. So this article, I think it was two
thousand eleven from what I saw, the most popular by
far as as far as funded projects go as film
and video, then music, then publishing, then art, and then games.
(16:48):
Got you like, what was games mean? Well, there's a
lot of role playing games that get created on Kickstart.
It's another thing too, it's a it's a great um
it's a great marketplace for non traditional stuff. Like yeah,
you probably think of going on to Amazon to look
for that, and you might find something too, But you're
(17:09):
not going to find a game that doesn't exist yet
on Amazon. I don't know. You just blew my mind.
I got a few more stats for you. These are
current as of today. UM one point three eight is
that a billion billion dollars pledged to projects, almost seventy
three thousand successfully funded projects. By the time this comes out,
(17:32):
it will probably pass that UM eighteen point five million
total pledges. I'm having trouble with my commas today, but
that's basically the public saying we believe in donating small
amounts of money to projects that we believe in. And
(17:53):
I think that's great. I do too. I think it's
a pretty neat concept. And so we were talking about, um,
how odd Kickstarter can get. Sometimes there's like no dearth
whatsoever of very weird kickstarters that have resulted in some
pretty cool stuff like Zach Danger Brown's potato salad. Oh
(18:15):
that guy. He was looking for some money to just
make potato salad one day and got wildly funded, well
past his goal and ended up holding potato stock in
his town of Columbus, Ohio. And he made something like
three fifty or four d and fifty pounds of potato salad.
So like, if you donated, you could come and eat
(18:35):
this potato salad. That was a hit. That was the kickstarter.
If that's not conceptual art, I don't know what is.
Is that how he categorized it. That's how I categorize it,
because food is a category too. Maybe it was both
a straddle of the line, the food art project. Uh
they do. Um, there are some tips we can give you, though,
um kickstarter successful kickstarter, kickstarters, kickstarters, what do they call themselves? Kickstarters, kickstarters,
(19:03):
kickstart people, kickstart people. They say that, Um, obviously you
have to start with a very catchy, unique, fun, and
or inspiring IDEA potato salad is pretty inspiring. Um, well,
that can be fun or catchy at least. Uh. They
say you should have a good story, because what you're
gonna do is you'r you don't have to, but you're
encouraged to make a video pitching your idea. And if
(19:26):
you've watched some of these, they're all usually just kind
of off the cuff and tongue in cheek and fun
and low budge. You know, you don't want to, like
look like you have a lot of money, probably by
making some big production um. And you want to appeal
to someone if you've got a great story about why
you're doing your project, and that's certainly gonna help you
get funded. Yeah, And that's one of the things about
Kickstarter two is that you hear about the potato salad
(19:50):
thing that became basically an internet meme. It became so popular,
the coolest cooler you could find out about on Good
Morning America. You can really count the number of of
Kickstarters on both hands. Maybe if you had a third hand,
that would be helpful that you've heard about if you're
not like a Kickstarter donor don't really go to Kickstarter,
but that leaves seventy thousand and change that you've never
(20:13):
heard of. And that's the thing with Kickstarter. You create
your Kickstarter Projects page and the first thing you do
is send it to family and friends say hey, want
to invest in this, And then you take it out
to your social media context. And then if if it
is a really good idea, theoretically it should take off
on its own. It should just spread by word about.
(20:35):
Somebody should say this is really cool and I'm going
to share it, And Kickstarter makes it easier for you
to share. Well, I just sounded like I was pitching Kickstarter.
I was just thinking, man, they should like it in
touch with us. But that video aspect, that in and
of itself is very sharable. So if you can come
up with a cool video to put on your Kickstarter page,
then that could easily be shared. And that's a really
(20:57):
good way to to make the rounds on social media too. Yeah,
they say that, Um, every successful campaign begins with an
anchor audience, is what they call it. Uh. It doesn't
necessarily mean you have to have a popular podcast, although
we could probably get something funded if we wanted to,
especially your idea. Yeah, exactly, the f word. Your anchor
audience could be, uh, just your social circle, your friends
(21:21):
in your family, uncle, Yeah, your rich uncle. I just
got him first before I even went to Kickstarter. I
see what happens. Um, but you should have a good
anchor audience. If you're not on social media, if you
don't have a solid support group in life, then unless
you really catch on somehow, you're probably not gonna get funded. Yeah. Well,
it's well, you should be relying on your idea and
(21:42):
the catchiness of your pitch anyway. Yeah, but the fact
that you have access to social media is probably a
pretty big leg up over somebody who doesn't know how
to use Twitter or Facebook at least. Um, You're not
gonna be left alone in your experience though, because once
you do get approved, you will be working with Kickstarter. Um,
they're gonna have a representative get in touch with you,
(22:04):
and they're gonna work with you and say, you know what,
you might want to think about these rewards, or your
rewards aren't great, or maybe you should have these price points,
uh to tie into these rewards there there. They want
you to succeed because they make their five percent if
you succeed exactly. And then you know, I'm sure they
want to encourage the arts too. That's how it started,
you know. Uh. But we're gonna talk a little bit
(22:27):
more about those reward levels and a little bit of
math and some more controversies right with this break math
maths and say say in England, and we used to
say it here too until I think the nineteenth century,
and then we started saying, why are we saying it
(22:47):
like that when you say math that Hodgeman Hodgman always
his math. Yeah, he's he's got a little bit of
the British in him. He likes to think so um. Alright,
So the math of rewards levels, they've done a little
bit of tinkering just to kind of find out what
succeeds and what doesn't. The pledges the most popular, about
eighteen point four percent of pledges are in the twenty
(23:11):
five dollar range. Fifty bucks is the next most close
to UM. And you know that's if you set your
levels like you can have a dollar be your lowest
donation level. Yeah, if you want, but you you're going
to count on You have to think about your audience.
If you think I've got lots and lots of people,
(23:32):
but they may not want to throw up a bunch
of money, throw in a bunch of money, um, then
maybe I should do the dollar level. Well. Plus also
you should sit down and think about exactly how much
you need to achieve your project. They say the minimum
amount that you need, and you really need to sit
down and crunch the numbers. This you need to crunch
(23:54):
the numbers, know the minimum amount you need, because even
if you threw a number out, you might find down
the road like, oh and this isn't actually enough. So um,
you want to take that number and then add they
suggest at least the five percent commission that they're going
to take from it. Oh yeah, I never thought about that, right.
But say your project is to eat a Chipotle burrito,
(24:16):
a chicken burrito and then describe its deliciousness on a graph.
You need eight bucks for that. And some guy did that.
He set his goal for eight dollars. He made way
more than that. I think he he got like he
exceeded his funding by, which is the record holders still.
And he created a graph of the deliciousness of Chipotle
(24:37):
chicken burritos and sent him out to like all two
hundred and seventy donors. Yes see, naysayers will say that's
just a waste of everyone's time and money sexual art,
and you should donate that to some like important cause.
But you know what, it's their money. If people want
to donate a dollar for that, then that's they're right, right,
you know what I'm saying, that's true. A hundred dollar
pledges have the biggest impact UM on total dollars raised.
(25:00):
It they make up less than ten percent of pledges,
and they recommend you get super creative with your prizes,
make them really personalized. You know, if you're um, a
filmmaker and any kind of creative artists like a musician,
it would really help if you personally, we're offering something
like a signed copy or maybe a phone call, uh
(25:23):
leaving your your voicemail outgoing message or you know, something
silly like that a lot of people would donate to.
And you put that and it's like the highest possible
goal and they say that you don't. You're probably not
going to get one of those, but why not put
it out there in case somebody does want to show out,
like fifty grand or something on something silly like that. Yeah,
(25:44):
and a good idea is a good idea because of
successfully funded projects exceed their goals, So that means if
you're onto something, then you're gonna get get that money
plus some um. But there have been some controversies right
there have So Veronica mar was canceled because a TV
show that was canceled with stuff you shanellist Kristen Bell, right,
(26:07):
and they brought it back. They said everybody wanted a movie,
and uh, what's his name? Rob Thomas, the guy from
from what Matchbox one? A different guy, the great uh
Rob Thomas. He did the TV show Party Down, which
is my like, I got you okay, top five all times? Cool,
cool dude. Then so he basically said we're gonna make
(26:29):
a movie and we're gonna use this Kickstarter thing to
do it. And they did. They raised like five and
five and a half million dollars for the movie just
from Kickstarter. Uh and I think it's the fifth uh
most funded project and Kickstarter history. Yeah, but there was
some controversy with the way that they offered downloads. Apparently
(26:53):
they use Flixer, which a lot of people were like,
O don't use Flixer, I use iTunes or I use Amazon, Like,
just give it to me through that. I gave you
guys money to go make this movie. Give me the
download the way I want to. So apparently he got
in touch with them, the studio Warner Brothers. I think
that's and they said, okay, well we'll make this right.
(27:13):
Because he was saying refunds, I believe, because the idea
was if you donated a certain amount, you got the
movie within days of its theatrical release on your devisive choice. Yeah,
and he had a pretty good blog post. And this
is actually kind of a good indicator of what you're
supposed to do on Kickstarter. You're supposed to post updates
after you you reach your goal, Like that's not that
(27:34):
you don't walk away and then come back when it's done,
like you want to post updates about production, just keep
people involved. He had a blog post um when all
of this hubbub was going on, he said, you know what,
like I'm really sorry, he said, more than anything else,
I want this day to be perfect for you guys,
because this is the day of the Veronica Mars movie
that we've all wanted for so long. It gets released,
(27:54):
so it's supposed to be a great day. So what
if you guys need to just get in touch with
Warner Brothers customer service and they'll set it right. So
he he it's a good example of handling controversy through Kickstarter,
but it also kind of underscores the ownership that people
who invest in Kickstarter projects feel in the final product.
Yeah for sure, Like they're like, hey, man, I'm an
(28:16):
investor in your your movie. I should be treated better
than this. Yeah. And along with Zach Brath, who raised
about more than two million dollars for his most recent film,
which I was here. Um, he got a lot of
flak because he raised, like I said, over a couple
of million bucks and then got another like eight million
(28:39):
or so from Worldview Entertainment, a film financier, and a
lot of people said, hey man, that ain't cool. Like
you basically said, you know, you don't have the money
to do this yourself, so you're gonna raise the money
via Kickstarter because you don't want to give up your
final cut or your casting decisions to some film financers. Right,
Like we understand that, Like you're avoiding the man and
(29:01):
doing it all yourself. So here's some money, and then
you go to a film financer and uh, they can
give you completion funds or finishing funds because all these
people have already proven they're willing to pay money for
it to see this made. And he basically said, you
know what, I'm not making some different movie. I still
have final cut. Um. I never said that wouldn't happen. Um.
(29:23):
And so he defended himself, I think fairly successfully. But
a lot of people on the independent creation level here
about Zach Braff making a movie and they're just ticked
off about the whole situation. They're like, kickstarters should be
for the really the starving artist, not the guy who
made a ton of money on Scrubs who could either
(29:43):
throw in his own money or get financing. And he
already had financing lined up, he said, and he bailed
on it because they did want final cut. So I
kind of get both sides on this one. You know, like,
good for Zack Braff if he can find a way
to do it without giving up final cut. Yeah, but
I mean he does. He does serve as a cautionary tale,
like you don't change the terms after the kickstarters funded. Yeah,
(30:07):
And he says that he didn't. He said the whole time,
he said that he was going to take the kickstarter funds,
some of his own money and then get um foreign
distribution money to fill out the rest. And apparently that's
what he said he did. Yeah, And again though people
wanted to donate to see another Zach Braff directed, written,
and directed film, then great. But that's a separate issue
(30:28):
like if he if he wants to come to Kickstarter
and use it, then yeah, he's not gonna if he
shouldn't be, or if people disagree with that, they're not
gonna fund it. If people do fund it, then has
nothing to do with you, exactly. You know. So I
found an interesting thing here from Cambridge University UM. They
have some computer scientists that say they have found a way,
may have found a way to uh direct your Kickstarter
(30:50):
project to the right audience. They basically examined three months
worth of worth of data from Kickstarter UM a researcher
name just soon On and then plugged it into an algorithm.
After they found two categories basically frequent investors and occasional investors.
Occasional funders built an algorithm to say which projects attracted
(31:14):
which type of funder, and what they came up with was,
uh the following. If you are a frequent funder, you're
more likely to UM fund projects where that displays good management,
like if you, like you said, if you're frequently updating
the page, if it's really well designed, UM and it
(31:34):
makes sense kind of like someone who would invest in
a company if they really look like they're buttoned up,
they're more frequently going to invest um high stakes, they said.
Frequent Kickstarter investors are more likely to invest in something
with a high fundraising goal, not the eight dollar Chipotle graph,
which makes sense as universal appeal um. They said, the
(31:55):
local projects are more likely to get funded by UH
infrequent investors. Long term investors are more likely to fund
something with universal peel and if it's fast growing um,
if they see a lot of people are investing the
more frequent and most heavily investors heavy investors. Sure everybody
wants to get in on that exactly. Um, But they
(32:17):
did say in the end, it's really all about the quality.
That's the one caveat of the project. At the end
of the day, it still has to be a quality
project or catch fire in a meme sort of way.
Like meat soap. Exactly have you heard of that one?
I already know what it is. Uh, And then there's
one the Grizzly Coat. Well, what is meat soap. It's
soap made from the fat rendered from meats. It smells
(32:40):
like meat. It's basically bathing in meat meat. Uh. And
then there's the grizzly coat, which is a coat with
a hood that looks like a grizzly bear's head. It's
pretty cool. Nice. Um, there's a lot of weirdness out
there on Kickstarter. It's wonderful little marketplace of idea exchange. Yeah.
(33:04):
I mean, if if I didn't have my if I
didn't have my job doing what we do with our
great uh company that we worked for, like paying the
bills and keeping the lights on, I would definitely go
this route. Like if it was around in the in
the early nineties, I would have been all over this
junk because I was out there on the streets making
films panhandling for nothing and the result was indicative of that. Uh,
(33:30):
you got anything else. If you want to know more
about Kickstarter, go to kickstarter and follow all the rules
you will be funded. You can also learn some more
about it by typing Kickstarter into the search bar at
how stuff works dot com and uh, that will bring
up this article. And I said article, So it's a
listener mail time. Yeah, I'm gonna call this that won't
(33:53):
play in Peoria. Remember during our m p A a podcast.
I don't think I could remember the name of the
city or something like that. So we had quite a
few follow ups, and this one is from Nate Malore
and Nate said, um, so, Nate works in a temper
as a temper in a greenhouse, which is interesting. And
(34:15):
um he said, he's fallen behind lately, but wanted to
reply about the mp A podcast. Chuck was struggling to
remember the phrase that Willer won't play in Peoria. Someone
who has probably let you know this, But if none
has enlighten you as to the origins, I will. I'm
told it was in a book at some point in
the late eighteen hundreds, but even before that, theater groups
burlesque and vaudeville would use Peoria to workshop shows on
(34:38):
the way to Chicago, as it is a fairly large
city on the Illinois River. Um. When I was a kid,
it was a test market. Even have you had Have
you ever had a McDonald's pizza? I remember the Mick pizza?
He says no. If no, then you're lucky because they're terrible. Uh.
It's supposedly is representative of the Midwest, and according to
(34:59):
my father, it was one of the most economically diverse
cities in the Midwest, so Peory, I guess was just
kind of that every place near Chicago, which explains the
phrase exactly. Anyway, I love the show and your sister
show stuff you missed in history class, which we also recommend,
by the way, listen to every episode, even the pre
Chuck era, except the ten or so I have to
(35:21):
catch up with. So that is from Nate Malore and
Nate's his ps. Every time you ind a commercial and
say go to the search bar and type in stuff
to get your whatever, it makes me want to go
to whichever site you're plugging, type a bunch of random
keys into the search bar and send you an email
calling you jerks in my head using Josh's voice. That's
(35:42):
what that means. I think it's that face value. Well, Nate,
I think you've been in the tempting in that green
household too long. What kind of greenhouse are you in there? Nate? Yeah?
Is it in Humboldt County, California? Uh? Yeah, thanks a lot, Nate.
That was very nice of you. If you want to
(36:04):
get in touch of this, you can tweet to us
at s Y s K podcast. You can join us
on Facebook dot com slash stuff You Should Know. You
can send us an email to Stuff podcast at how
stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at
our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com.
For more on this and thousands of other topics, is
(36:25):
it how stuff Works dot com.
Welcome to you Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry's over
there and we're ready to kick this episode off. For
(00:21):
just one dollar, you can contribute to Stuff you Should Know. Yeah,
can they know we're a pre podcast. That's why I
get less patient with complaints. Yeah right, it's a trade off. Yeah,
it's free. Get some ads here and there, love with it. No,
but I'm just kidding. We don't fundraise or crowdsource or crowdfund. No,
(00:42):
we just to put stuff out. We have corporate sponsorship.
Not everybody does, though not all creatives do have corporate sponsorship.
And so luckily, since what two thousand nine, there's been
something to help people like that out, artists, creatives who
want to get a project underway but can't do it,
(01:06):
called Kickstarter that don't have the funds. I'm a big
fan of Kickstarter. Yeah, it's pretty cool. I remember when
it came out, I was like, this is gonna revolutionize
um independent artists because one of the problems if you're
an independent artist and you don't want to cow tow
to the man is to just do your own thing,
because it's the future is now as far as um
(01:29):
accessibility to equipment, and you can you can make a
movie right there in your in your own neighborhood and home. Right. Yeah,
there's been a d I Y spirit. Well, yes, if
you have the skills, it's important. Well there's always been
that d I Y spirit. But it's just the accessibility.
This equipment is like never before. Right, It's it's they've
(01:50):
caught up to one another. Yeah, it's cheaper, it's you
don't have to get film developed. You can edit off
your laptop. Um, it's all there for the taking, except
that it's still cost some money. Yeah, actors didn't come free. Nope,
that's one thing. Wardrobe like craft services. Sure, you gotta
have some peanuts and coffee, and that's just for you know,
(02:11):
a movie. There's also like theaters. Um, there's music. Yeah,
I want mine. I want to do mine. I want
to travel the world and photograph all the remaining rhinoceros
rh I I don't know. I think rhinoceros is. It's
a photo book. It's a photo project about the rhinoceros
(02:31):
in felt and I want to do that. You can
do that. That's an art project. You can get funded.
You can if everybody thinks that that's a good idea,
Which is the cool thing about Kickstarter, that's right, So Chuck,
let's talk a little bit about this, right. Kickstarter is crowdfunding,
which is a a play on crowdsourcing, which is originally
(02:52):
basically just tapping into the hive mind. Yeah, thanks to
the Internet. Right, there's a lot of people out there.
If you take their collective brains or allans or thoughts
or efforts together, put them together through the Internet, you
can do massive, awesome things like Wikipedia's Originally there is
an original, great example of crowd sourcing. That's right. Now,
(03:13):
if you take all those people and say, hey, just
hold on to your time, hold on to your volunteering,
hold on to your effort, just give me money instead. Yeah,
that's crowdfunding, and Kickstarter is one of the better examples
of it. But it's not the first. No. No, it's
called micro patronage if you want to get specific, and
it's been around since the mid nineties. Uh Kiva dot org. Yeah,
(03:38):
we've done a podcast on micro ending and we have
our own Kiva team. We've got a killer Kiva team
that just surpassed a hundred thousand loans and we're coming
up on three million dollars in loans made. That's right.
So if you if you're interested in helping out, I
know we talked about it a lot, but it's been
a little while. If you're interested in helping out a
business owner, either in the United States or abroad, you
(03:59):
can do so. Ats off you sure, Keiva dot org,
slash teams slash stuff. You should know, that's right, and
you can do it as as a team. It's just fun.
So Kiva is one great example. Um donors two dot org.
I remember when that started when teachers started posting projects
where their school because schools are ridiculously underfunded and teachers
(04:20):
had to like ask the public to help pay for
a field trip or something. Yeah, you know, I've seen
Waiting for Superman Man. I saw seen that. It's been
on my list for years. Very rarely have I seen
documentary that just got my hackles up like that one.
It's really well done. Well that's because can anyone make
an argument that education isn't worth funding and supporting? Uh No,
(04:44):
But this, this, this does just a great job of
like getting all sides of the issue out you got it.
It's one of the best documentaries ever made. Yeah, I
need you to see that. And that wasn't on my
top documentary list because I haven't seen it. I got
to see it. Oh, and also feedback on that. I
want to say thank you very much to all the
people who rode in with suggestions in answer to my
complaint that I've seen all the good horror movies. Oh yeah,
(05:06):
apparently I was wrong. Boy, we got a lot of
good suggestions. Yeah. I can't wait to see some of them. Yeah,
most of them are foreign. It seems like, hey, they're
making the takes the whole world. Takes a global village
to scare jows. It does, uh, indie go go and
sell a band or a couple of other other early
crowdfunding sites um for music and movie making. I think
(05:28):
indie go Go does lots of projects now, though it's
not just movies anymore. Kickstarters emerged as like the go
to site for what what's supposed to be creative projects. Yeah, well,
let's let's talk about this. Uh. In two thousand two,
co founder Perry Chen said, I want to do this
(05:49):
concert here in New Orleans, but it costs a lot
of money to throw a big concert, and UM, let
me talk to my partners Yancey Strickler and Charles Adler
and see if we could and figure out a way
how to do this. And they said, you know what,
we know we can get people to donate a little
bit of money to this thing, a lot of people.
But how can we do that? You know? I think
(06:10):
they met Perry Chan was waiting tables and was one
of the other guys waiter and they struck up a
conversation about it. I believe that's how kickstarter got started.
That's pretty cool. Yeah, So they had the idea obviously
based on um like we said, Indigo Go and some
other h crowdfunding sites out there, to start kicks Starter
(06:31):
in two thousand nine. But they said, you know what
we're gonna do exclusively creative projects. You can't um raise
money to like pay your rent or pay off your
house or anything weird like that. And it wasn't you
can't just do like a vague plan or something like that.
It had to be here is what I'm going to accomplish,
(06:53):
here's my project, here is the end result, this is
what it's gonna be here's the timeline. I want to
get this done within and this is my Kickstarter project. Yeah,
this is what I'm gonna hopefully go get funded my campaign. Yeah,
but it's creative. Yes, that's right. And uh, they you know,
they wanted to different differentiate themselves and be unique, and
(07:15):
being creative only was one of the ways that they
did that. Another way they did so was two And
I thought this was a stroke of genius. It's all
or nothing. Yeah, this this makes sense. Now unless you
get of your funding, um, you're not going to get
any funding. And Kickstarter is only going to collect of course,
they make money by collecting a little piece of it
five percent commission only if you reach that funding goal though,
(07:38):
which uh sets it apart from the crowd And I
think it's pretty genius. The whole reason is genius is this.
If you are a creator and you have a project,
and you get halfway to your goal, your monetary goal,
and you take that money, you are obligated still to
those people who gave you just half of the money
(07:59):
you need to create something. But what you're going to
create is inherently inferior to what you would have created
had you had all the money. You figured out you
needed for this project, Sue. If you if you can
take less than all, you're going to set yourself up
to make something that you're not proud of. Yeah, Or
if you don't get funded, you might think, all right, well,
(08:22):
maybe that wasn't the best idea, or you know, maybe
go another route, or say maybe that wasn't the best idea,
let me try something else, which is like a crowdsourcing
aspect of Kickstarter. You're also saying to the to the
hive mind, is this a good idea? Yeah? And the
other cool thing about the percent or nothing is as
a as a donor or an investor, you're not you
(08:43):
know that what you're going to end up with is
this finished movie or this finished record album or this
finished photo project. It's not just gonna be like, well,
I just lost that five dollars to something that was
thirty funded and I don't even know where what I'm
going to get out of it. Now, you know, you're
just basically like through a five dollar bill into a
(09:04):
buskers um guitar case or something, you know, which is
something you should do to. Yeah, there's nothing inherently wrong
with that, but the point of kickstarter is there's a
project that this person has approached you on and you
have said that is worth five dollars of my money,
even if I don't get anything back. Sure, I feel
good about this project. Not the fact that you're an
(09:25):
artist in general or you're a musician in general. This
is this project that I'm investing in. That's right. Another interesting,
uh facet to kickstarter is that they do offer rewards.
As a backer, They require people to offer rewards. So
it's not just hey, you're gonna feel good about yourself
(09:46):
for supporting the arts in my finished movie. Um, you're
gonna get a copy of the D D D or
the c D may be signed by the artist. Maybe
it's a poster. Maybe it's a pin or a button
for a two dollar donation, right, or maybe it's lunch
with me if you kicking a hundred thousand dollars, or
maybe there the executive producer if you kick in all
the money. Right. Yeah, we're not all the money. But
(10:07):
you know they have different tiers set up and different
rewards that align with those tears. Yeah. The thing is
that there's rules with this, like you can't offer a
financial stake in the project or equity you can't say
you kick in twenty five dollars. Now you'll get fifty
bucks back when I sell this thing to you know,
Carol co Film. You know where'd you come up with that?
(10:34):
That's the go to of mine, Carol Go. Yeah, haven't
they been out of business for like twenty years? They
had a good logo glowed, I believe. And then the
other So when this, when this stuff is all done
and up on Kickstarter, the the basically the creative has
said I'm responsible for two things. One, I will complete
(10:54):
this project if I get funded. Fully, that means this
project has to be done. I can't just take the
money and rotten. No. Legally I think they can, yes,
but I think the public shaming that would insue it
would just not be worth it. That would be your
only Kickstarter project exactly. And then secondly you have to
(11:14):
fulfill whatever your rewards were. Right, and we'll get into
the nuts and bolts about actually creating a Kickstarter project
right after this. Okay, so we said it has to
be a creative project. What does that mean, Josh? I
(11:36):
think if I uh far at the Star Spangled banner
on YouTube, that's a very creative project. I can't believe
you just use the F word. Uh, you know what,
you probably could get that funded pretty easily, could um.
And the key is that Cooper would pay her that
by himself. By himself, he would liquidate everything he has.
(11:57):
Just as long as you did that, you were right.
The thing is to get onto Kickstarter site, you have
to get past the Kickstarter staff. And it's actually not
just any Joe Schmo can come along and be like,
I define creativity And as a matter of fact, there
are definitions for what makes a creative project. And then
(12:17):
on the other end of that is the staff that
has to look over a proposal and say, yeah, this
meets our standards. Yeah. They define it on their website
as art, comics, dance, design, fashion, film, food, games, music, photography, publishing, technology,
and theater and um. They they admit that it is
(12:38):
an ever evolving definition because creative people are kind of
wacky and they'll submit things that they that walk the
line that they'll have to decide. Hey, this Chuck Bryant guy,
he's gonna be a big podcaster. He wants to fart
the star spangled banner um on the front lawn of
the White House. Oh man, that sounds pretty good to me.
You could very easily get onto the front lawn of
(13:00):
the White House these days too. Yeah, you just jumped
the fence. And so the thing is, I think in
that sense, on that end of the spectrum, they're a
lot more liberal. Like I don't think the Kickstarter staff
is interested in saying that's art or I don't agree
with that art, so that's not really art. What they're
(13:20):
more concerned with is having basically becoming an as seen
on TV website. So the author of this article is
Dave Ruse. He puts it like, um, it's not it's
it's a proposal for a project, not for a finnished product.
So it's not hey, by my DVD, it's hey, invest
in this project and you'll get a DVD when it's finished. Yeah,
(13:45):
that's a huge distinction because if not, it would just
be an online marketplace. And Kickstarter suffers a lot of
criticism because it's evolved in that way. But apparently they're
cool with that to a certain degree. Yeah, there was
one case, Um, I think it's a couple of years ago, uh,
for a watch band that held the iPod nano. I
remember when that came out they wanted to raise fifteen
(14:06):
thousand dollars and they raised a million dollars. That's the
other cool thing about Kickstarter. I don't think we mentioned
if you go over then great, good for you. Um.
But basically what happened was your twenty five dollar donation
got you that watch band that you can now get
online or Apple stores for forty bucks. Uh. And they
(14:28):
did take you know, they took some flak for that,
saying isn't this just a way to buy something before
it comes out? Pre order? Yeah? Pre order? Is that
what it's called? Preorder this thing? Yeah? I know. Right now.
I think the biggest um success they've had is that cooler,
the coolest cooler. Have you seen that thing? Thirteen point
to eight five million dollars and I think their original
(14:51):
goal was like fifty Yeah. I mean I remember when
I first saw the uh, the little ad for this
thing on Facebook. It was awesome. I was like, man,
that is one cool cooler. Yeah, it has like bluetooth waterproof,
bluetooth speaker, has a ice crushing blender built in. It
is a cooler to um. And again, like we said,
(15:13):
like this is the crowdsourcing aspect of it, Like these
people came up with the coolest cooler and the world said, yes,
that product needs to come into existence, and they voted
by saying, here is way more money than you need.
And now yes, it's basically a pre order. Not only
that this company now can sell out to whoever they
(15:35):
want to and sell coolest coolers for the rest of
eternity or somebody right, because it's not a gamble at all.
It's already proven itself on the in the retail market,
so there's no gamble whatsoever. So they can they can
just keep making them themselves, or they can expand and
attract outside capital. And it's all because Perry Chin and
(15:58):
his fellow co conspirators created this website that has all
these dimensions to it. Even though it's so simple, when
placed into the context of the Internet, it has complications
but also expansions. It's pretty cool. Even though there are
products like that. Um over six products that are successfully
(16:22):
funded are music, film, and video. So I that's a
little I mean, that's that's true, but it's flip flops
them apparently. So this article, I think it was two
thousand eleven from what I saw, the most popular by
far as as far as funded projects go as film
and video, then music, then publishing, then art, and then games.
(16:48):
Got you like, what was games mean? Well, there's a
lot of role playing games that get created on Kickstart.
It's another thing too, it's a it's a great um
it's a great marketplace for non traditional stuff. Like yeah,
you probably think of going on to Amazon to look
for that, and you might find something too, But you're
(17:09):
not going to find a game that doesn't exist yet
on Amazon. I don't know. You just blew my mind.
I got a few more stats for you. These are
current as of today. UM one point three eight is
that a billion billion dollars pledged to projects, almost seventy
three thousand successfully funded projects. By the time this comes out,
(17:32):
it will probably pass that UM eighteen point five million
total pledges. I'm having trouble with my commas today, but
that's basically the public saying we believe in donating small
amounts of money to projects that we believe in. And
(17:53):
I think that's great. I do too. I think it's
a pretty neat concept. And so we were talking about, um,
how odd Kickstarter can get. Sometimes there's like no dearth
whatsoever of very weird kickstarters that have resulted in some
pretty cool stuff like Zach Danger Brown's potato salad. Oh
(18:15):
that guy. He was looking for some money to just
make potato salad one day and got wildly funded, well
past his goal and ended up holding potato stock in
his town of Columbus, Ohio. And he made something like
three fifty or four d and fifty pounds of potato salad.
So like, if you donated, you could come and eat
(18:35):
this potato salad. That was a hit. That was the kickstarter.
If that's not conceptual art, I don't know what is.
Is that how he categorized it. That's how I categorize it,
because food is a category too. Maybe it was both
a straddle of the line, the food art project. Uh
they do. Um, there are some tips we can give you, though,
um kickstarter successful kickstarter, kickstarters, kickstarters, what do they call themselves? Kickstarters, kickstarters,
(19:03):
kickstart people, kickstart people. They say that, Um, obviously you
have to start with a very catchy, unique, fun, and
or inspiring IDEA potato salad is pretty inspiring. Um, well,
that can be fun or catchy at least. Uh. They
say you should have a good story, because what you're
gonna do is you'r you don't have to, but you're
encouraged to make a video pitching your idea. And if
(19:26):
you've watched some of these, they're all usually just kind
of off the cuff and tongue in cheek and fun
and low budge. You know, you don't want to, like
look like you have a lot of money, probably by
making some big production um. And you want to appeal
to someone if you've got a great story about why
you're doing your project, and that's certainly gonna help you
get funded. Yeah, And that's one of the things about
Kickstarter two is that you hear about the potato salad
(19:50):
thing that became basically an internet meme. It became so popular,
the coolest cooler you could find out about on Good
Morning America. You can really count the number of of
Kickstarters on both hands. Maybe if you had a third hand,
that would be helpful that you've heard about if you're
not like a Kickstarter donor don't really go to Kickstarter,
but that leaves seventy thousand and change that you've never
(20:13):
heard of. And that's the thing with Kickstarter. You create
your Kickstarter Projects page and the first thing you do
is send it to family and friends say hey, want
to invest in this, And then you take it out
to your social media context. And then if if it
is a really good idea, theoretically it should take off
on its own. It should just spread by word about.
(20:35):
Somebody should say this is really cool and I'm going
to share it, And Kickstarter makes it easier for you
to share. Well, I just sounded like I was pitching Kickstarter.
I was just thinking, man, they should like it in
touch with us. But that video aspect, that in and
of itself is very sharable. So if you can come
up with a cool video to put on your Kickstarter page,
then that could easily be shared. And that's a really
(20:57):
good way to to make the rounds on social media too. Yeah,
they say that, Um, every successful campaign begins with an
anchor audience, is what they call it. Uh. It doesn't
necessarily mean you have to have a popular podcast, although
we could probably get something funded if we wanted to,
especially your idea. Yeah, exactly, the f word. Your anchor
audience could be, uh, just your social circle, your friends
(21:21):
in your family, uncle, Yeah, your rich uncle. I just
got him first before I even went to Kickstarter. I
see what happens. Um, but you should have a good
anchor audience. If you're not on social media, if you
don't have a solid support group in life, then unless
you really catch on somehow, you're probably not gonna get funded. Yeah. Well,
it's well, you should be relying on your idea and
(21:42):
the catchiness of your pitch anyway. Yeah, but the fact
that you have access to social media is probably a
pretty big leg up over somebody who doesn't know how
to use Twitter or Facebook at least. Um, You're not
gonna be left alone in your experience though, because once
you do get approved, you will be working with Kickstarter. Um,
they're gonna have a representative get in touch with you,
(22:04):
and they're gonna work with you and say, you know what,
you might want to think about these rewards, or your
rewards aren't great, or maybe you should have these price points,
uh to tie into these rewards there there. They want
you to succeed because they make their five percent if
you succeed exactly. And then you know, I'm sure they
want to encourage the arts too. That's how it started,
you know. Uh. But we're gonna talk a little bit
(22:27):
more about those reward levels and a little bit of
math and some more controversies right with this break math
maths and say say in England, and we used to
say it here too until I think the nineteenth century,
and then we started saying, why are we saying it
(22:47):
like that when you say math that Hodgeman Hodgman always
his math. Yeah, he's he's got a little bit of
the British in him. He likes to think so um. Alright,
So the math of rewards levels, they've done a little
bit of tinkering just to kind of find out what
succeeds and what doesn't. The pledges the most popular, about
eighteen point four percent of pledges are in the twenty
(23:11):
five dollar range. Fifty bucks is the next most close
to UM. And you know that's if you set your
levels like you can have a dollar be your lowest
donation level. Yeah, if you want, but you you're going
to count on You have to think about your audience.
If you think I've got lots and lots of people,
(23:32):
but they may not want to throw up a bunch
of money, throw in a bunch of money, um, then
maybe I should do the dollar level. Well. Plus also
you should sit down and think about exactly how much
you need to achieve your project. They say the minimum
amount that you need, and you really need to sit
down and crunch the numbers. This you need to crunch
(23:54):
the numbers, know the minimum amount you need, because even
if you threw a number out, you might find down
the road like, oh and this isn't actually enough. So um,
you want to take that number and then add they
suggest at least the five percent commission that they're going
to take from it. Oh yeah, I never thought about that, right.
But say your project is to eat a Chipotle burrito,
(24:16):
a chicken burrito and then describe its deliciousness on a graph.
You need eight bucks for that. And some guy did that.
He set his goal for eight dollars. He made way
more than that. I think he he got like he
exceeded his funding by, which is the record holders still.
And he created a graph of the deliciousness of Chipotle
(24:37):
chicken burritos and sent him out to like all two
hundred and seventy donors. Yes see, naysayers will say that's
just a waste of everyone's time and money sexual art,
and you should donate that to some like important cause.
But you know what, it's their money. If people want
to donate a dollar for that, then that's they're right, right,
you know what I'm saying, that's true. A hundred dollar
pledges have the biggest impact UM on total dollars raised.
(25:00):
It they make up less than ten percent of pledges,
and they recommend you get super creative with your prizes,
make them really personalized. You know, if you're um, a
filmmaker and any kind of creative artists like a musician,
it would really help if you personally, we're offering something
like a signed copy or maybe a phone call, uh
(25:23):
leaving your your voicemail outgoing message or you know, something
silly like that a lot of people would donate to.
And you put that and it's like the highest possible
goal and they say that you don't. You're probably not
going to get one of those, but why not put
it out there in case somebody does want to show out,
like fifty grand or something on something silly like that. Yeah,
(25:44):
and a good idea is a good idea because of
successfully funded projects exceed their goals, So that means if
you're onto something, then you're gonna get get that money
plus some um. But there have been some controversies right
there have So Veronica mar was canceled because a TV
show that was canceled with stuff you shanellist Kristen Bell, right,
(26:07):
and they brought it back. They said everybody wanted a movie,
and uh, what's his name? Rob Thomas, the guy from
from what Matchbox one? A different guy, the great uh
Rob Thomas. He did the TV show Party Down, which
is my like, I got you okay, top five all times? Cool,
cool dude. Then so he basically said we're gonna make
(26:29):
a movie and we're gonna use this Kickstarter thing to
do it. And they did. They raised like five and
five and a half million dollars for the movie just
from Kickstarter. Uh and I think it's the fifth uh
most funded project and Kickstarter history. Yeah, but there was
some controversy with the way that they offered downloads. Apparently
(26:53):
they use Flixer, which a lot of people were like,
O don't use Flixer, I use iTunes or I use Amazon, Like,
just give it to me through that. I gave you
guys money to go make this movie. Give me the
download the way I want to. So apparently he got
in touch with them, the studio Warner Brothers. I think
that's and they said, okay, well we'll make this right.
(27:13):
Because he was saying refunds, I believe, because the idea
was if you donated a certain amount, you got the
movie within days of its theatrical release on your devisive choice. Yeah,
and he had a pretty good blog post. And this
is actually kind of a good indicator of what you're
supposed to do on Kickstarter. You're supposed to post updates
after you you reach your goal, Like that's not that
(27:34):
you don't walk away and then come back when it's done,
like you want to post updates about production, just keep
people involved. He had a blog post um when all
of this hubbub was going on, he said, you know what,
like I'm really sorry, he said, more than anything else,
I want this day to be perfect for you guys,
because this is the day of the Veronica Mars movie
that we've all wanted for so long. It gets released,
(27:54):
so it's supposed to be a great day. So what
if you guys need to just get in touch with
Warner Brothers customer service and they'll set it right. So
he he it's a good example of handling controversy through Kickstarter,
but it also kind of underscores the ownership that people
who invest in Kickstarter projects feel in the final product.
Yeah for sure, Like they're like, hey, man, I'm an
(28:16):
investor in your your movie. I should be treated better
than this. Yeah. And along with Zach Brath, who raised
about more than two million dollars for his most recent film,
which I was here. Um, he got a lot of
flak because he raised, like I said, over a couple
of million bucks and then got another like eight million
(28:39):
or so from Worldview Entertainment, a film financier, and a
lot of people said, hey man, that ain't cool. Like
you basically said, you know, you don't have the money
to do this yourself, so you're gonna raise the money
via Kickstarter because you don't want to give up your
final cut or your casting decisions to some film financers. Right,
Like we understand that, Like you're avoiding the man and
(29:01):
doing it all yourself. So here's some money, and then
you go to a film financer and uh, they can
give you completion funds or finishing funds because all these
people have already proven they're willing to pay money for
it to see this made. And he basically said, you
know what, I'm not making some different movie. I still
have final cut. Um. I never said that wouldn't happen. Um.
(29:23):
And so he defended himself, I think fairly successfully. But
a lot of people on the independent creation level here
about Zach Braff making a movie and they're just ticked
off about the whole situation. They're like, kickstarters should be
for the really the starving artist, not the guy who
made a ton of money on Scrubs who could either
(29:43):
throw in his own money or get financing. And he
already had financing lined up, he said, and he bailed
on it because they did want final cut. So I
kind of get both sides on this one. You know, like,
good for Zack Braff if he can find a way
to do it without giving up final cut. Yeah, but
I mean he does. He does serve as a cautionary tale,
like you don't change the terms after the kickstarters funded. Yeah,
(30:07):
And he says that he didn't. He said the whole time,
he said that he was going to take the kickstarter funds,
some of his own money and then get um foreign
distribution money to fill out the rest. And apparently that's
what he said he did. Yeah, And again though people
wanted to donate to see another Zach Braff directed, written,
and directed film, then great. But that's a separate issue
(30:28):
like if he if he wants to come to Kickstarter
and use it, then yeah, he's not gonna if he
shouldn't be, or if people disagree with that, they're not
gonna fund it. If people do fund it, then has
nothing to do with you, exactly. You know. So I
found an interesting thing here from Cambridge University UM. They
have some computer scientists that say they have found a way,
may have found a way to uh direct your Kickstarter
(30:50):
project to the right audience. They basically examined three months
worth of worth of data from Kickstarter UM a researcher
name just soon On and then plugged it into an algorithm.
After they found two categories basically frequent investors and occasional investors.
Occasional funders built an algorithm to say which projects attracted
(31:14):
which type of funder, and what they came up with was,
uh the following. If you are a frequent funder, you're
more likely to UM fund projects where that displays good management,
like if you, like you said, if you're frequently updating
the page, if it's really well designed, UM and it
(31:34):
makes sense kind of like someone who would invest in
a company if they really look like they're buttoned up,
they're more frequently going to invest um high stakes, they said.
Frequent Kickstarter investors are more likely to invest in something
with a high fundraising goal, not the eight dollar Chipotle graph,
which makes sense as universal appeal um. They said, the
(31:55):
local projects are more likely to get funded by UH
infrequent investors. Long term investors are more likely to fund
something with universal peel and if it's fast growing um,
if they see a lot of people are investing the
more frequent and most heavily investors heavy investors. Sure everybody
wants to get in on that exactly. Um, But they
(32:17):
did say in the end, it's really all about the quality.
That's the one caveat of the project. At the end
of the day, it still has to be a quality
project or catch fire in a meme sort of way.
Like meat soap. Exactly have you heard of that one?
I already know what it is. Uh, And then there's
one the Grizzly Coat. Well, what is meat soap. It's
soap made from the fat rendered from meats. It smells
(32:40):
like meat. It's basically bathing in meat meat. Uh. And
then there's the grizzly coat, which is a coat with
a hood that looks like a grizzly bear's head. It's
pretty cool. Nice. Um, there's a lot of weirdness out
there on Kickstarter. It's wonderful little marketplace of idea exchange. Yeah.
(33:04):
I mean, if if I didn't have my if I
didn't have my job doing what we do with our
great uh company that we worked for, like paying the
bills and keeping the lights on, I would definitely go
this route. Like if it was around in the in
the early nineties, I would have been all over this
junk because I was out there on the streets making
films panhandling for nothing and the result was indicative of that. Uh,
(33:30):
you got anything else. If you want to know more
about Kickstarter, go to kickstarter and follow all the rules
you will be funded. You can also learn some more
about it by typing Kickstarter into the search bar at
how stuff works dot com and uh, that will bring
up this article. And I said article, So it's a
listener mail time. Yeah, I'm gonna call this that won't
(33:53):
play in Peoria. Remember during our m p A a podcast.
I don't think I could remember the name of the
city or something like that. So we had quite a
few follow ups, and this one is from Nate Malore
and Nate said, um, so, Nate works in a temper
as a temper in a greenhouse, which is interesting. And
(34:15):
um he said, he's fallen behind lately, but wanted to
reply about the mp A podcast. Chuck was struggling to
remember the phrase that Willer won't play in Peoria. Someone
who has probably let you know this, But if none
has enlighten you as to the origins, I will. I'm
told it was in a book at some point in
the late eighteen hundreds, but even before that, theater groups
burlesque and vaudeville would use Peoria to workshop shows on
(34:38):
the way to Chicago, as it is a fairly large
city on the Illinois River. Um. When I was a kid,
it was a test market. Even have you had Have
you ever had a McDonald's pizza? I remember the Mick pizza?
He says no. If no, then you're lucky because they're terrible. Uh.
It's supposedly is representative of the Midwest, and according to
(34:59):
my father, it was one of the most economically diverse
cities in the Midwest, so Peory, I guess was just
kind of that every place near Chicago, which explains the
phrase exactly. Anyway, I love the show and your sister
show stuff you missed in history class, which we also recommend,
by the way, listen to every episode, even the pre
Chuck era, except the ten or so I have to
(35:21):
catch up with. So that is from Nate Malore and
Nate's his ps. Every time you ind a commercial and
say go to the search bar and type in stuff
to get your whatever, it makes me want to go
to whichever site you're plugging, type a bunch of random
keys into the search bar and send you an email
calling you jerks in my head using Josh's voice. That's
(35:42):
what that means. I think it's that face value. Well, Nate,
I think you've been in the tempting in that green
household too long. What kind of greenhouse are you in there? Nate? Yeah?
Is it in Humboldt County, California? Uh? Yeah, thanks a lot, Nate.
That was very nice of you. If you want to
(36:04):
get in touch of this, you can tweet to us
at s Y s K podcast. You can join us
on Facebook dot com slash stuff You Should Know. You
can send us an email to Stuff podcast at how
stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at
our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com.
For more on this and thousands of other topics, is
(36:25):
it how stuff Works dot com.
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