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Kickstarted: my conversation with Kickstarter co-founder Perry Chen.

We would like [Kickstarter] to be a fundamental tool for the liberation or the acceleration of our own creativity. I think that, when we’re younger — whatever that means — we have ideas all the time. We embrace our ideas. We say, ‘Oh, I’m going to do this. I’m going to throw this event with a friend. I’m going to have this play, this movie, this thing.’ You have not yet been taught the realities of life, that, “You can’t do that because of this and that or the other thing.” Very often, that other thing is money. Over time, because of the constraints, with money being the biggest one (or the most common one) we start to squash down our ideas.

We don’t have to squash down our ideas because of the harsh realities of the real world. From a very emotional level, that’s the dream.

That’s the dream!

"Q: What advantage did going on Kickstarter give you?

A: Kickstarter is really cool because basically you can chat with the community, talk directly to the customer and find out what they want, what they are thinking, and impress them."

— Aww.

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In the news: Donuts.

Look, we all want donuts. If you say you don’t want donuts, you’re either lying or you haven’t spent time with the Giant Donuts NYC project, wherein we have been promised delicious miniature donuts made from The Donut Robot. (It is a real thing, check it out.)

Anyhow, just one of the many awesome Kickstarter projects to be featured in the news this week! You can (and should) see more at our news round-up on the blog today.

"Games need to become a project-based ecosystem rather than a company-based ecosystem. Rather than company men, game designers must become true creatives, and Schafer’s Kickstarter success is a promising first salvo for that future."

— Kill Screen’s Jamin Warren wrote a great piece on Double Fine’s recent success. You should read the whole thing here.

"Did the Kickstarter campaign bring a lot of attention to this project?

Aaron: Yeah, it definitely did bring us a lot of attention. I think we had a good story, and I think a lot of people latched onto that because we weren’t jaded people — we were really just trying to do something and we were just coming up short. It got us a lot of attention, and it built a connection with the community, and you can’t really put a monetary value on something like that. And it got us in the eye of the neighborhood and the people around here, and we’ve made some lasting friendships and connections out of that."

— NY Eater chats with Aaron and Andy of the Littleneck Clam Shack project. (You can still check out their project here.) SSoooooo, who wants to be our date to this place tonight?

"I had no idea that this far into my comic’s lifespan, I would have an opportunity to reach a new height of exposure like this, but it still ultimately comes down to the fact that I’ve been doing this for so long. I don’t update as consistently as some webcomics, my art isn’t as polished, but I’ve still churned out over a thousand pages in a single story.

Apart from that, I would say that the best thing is to have a way of marketing yourself away from the Kickstarter site… Because Kickstarter is only a tool that helps you collect money, it’s not an end unto itself. You need to identify who the potential backer for your project is before you start, and if you can’t do that, it’s probably not going to succeed."

—

There’s some great advice hidden in this Q&A with Order of the Stick creator Rich Burlew and Comics Alliance. Read it here. Other favorite lines include:

…my email inbox is a swirling eldritch nightmare that threatens to burst the fragile digital bonds that restrain it from devouring me in my sleep. Other than that, though, it’s all going very well.

Check out the project here.

timelightbox:

KICKSTARTER: Brian Shumway’s Happy Valley

It’s beyond cliché to say, “You can never go home again.” For the last 10 years, photographer Brian Shumway has been doing his best to turn this time-honored adage on its head, returning to his native Utah, a place known as “Happy Valley” to create a visual and emotional exploration of his own childhood and adolescence by photographing his siblings and their children.

Intrigued? — Read more about his project here on LightBox, and be sure to donate to his project on kickstarter.

Make sure to read this piece on Brian’s incredible photography project. It’s great.

"I also think Kickstarter should be used less like a fundraiser and more like a bake sale. People shouldn’t feel like they’re ‘donating.’ They should feel like they’re getting something of value in exchange for their hard earned cash… like a cookie."

— Julia Nunes, in conversation with American Songwriter. Nicely put, Miss Nunes! Read the rest of the Q&A here.

"Now, when you’re a tech columnist, you get e-mail pitches every day from P.R. people hoping you’ll write about their clients’ products. But in the last few months, I’ve started getting something really strange: pitch letters about products on Kickstarter. Products that aren’t even products, just concepts. Weirder yet, these pitches aren’t coming from the creators of those products. They’re coming from ordinary citizens."

— Financing the Stuff of Dreams Through Kickstarter. A fantastic piece by NY Times tech columnist David Pogue, be sure to check it out.

"But what’s exciting is, because of the success that the amateur class has had (and I use the word ‘amateur’ very lovingly here), and the amount of money they’ve been able to generate, it’s made the professionals more interested. Suddenly, pros are looking at this thing thinking, ‘Maybe I want into that,’ because it seems genuine. And it seems cool, and it seems honest. So you can see how, eventually, the two suddenly intermingle. And consequently you have the really pro, established filmmaker sitting next to the guy who maybe idolizes them. It could be somewhere on the site right now — Hal Hartley’s project sitting next to some kid’s who saw Trust when he was fifteen years old and realized that’s what he wanted to do with his life. And they sit side by side, and that’s really kind of the point: It’s just about making things, no matter who you are."

— Yancey talked to Cinespect about Kickstarter, Sundance, and the future of independent cinema. It’s a great conversation — read the whole thing here.

The NY Times Year in Ideas

This past weekend, Kickstarter had the tremendous honor of being included in the New York Times Magazine’s annual Year in Ideas. The article mentioned three specific Kickstarter projects: Allison Weiss makes a record, Emily Richmond sails around the world, and Scott Thomas’ Designing Obama. All three do a fantastic job of exemplifying Kickstarter’s potential — if you’re new to the site, definitely check those out. And don’t forget to play around on the Discover Projects page, too.

Kickstarter on NPR

Yesterday Kickstarter cofounder Perry Chen and project creator Emily Richmond (she of sailing around the world fame) were on NPR’s “Next Big Thing” to discuss Kickstarter with Linda Wertheimer. The segment was called “Dreams For Sale,” and Perry and Emily did an excellent job. We especially enjoyed Emily describing chopping down coconuts with a machete for backers.

Click here to give them a listen.

Kickstarter in the New York Times

Kickstarter is featured in today’s New York Times in an article written by Jenna Wortham. The article gives Kickstarter a nice overview, and focuses on a few specific projects, including Earl Scioneaux’s Electronola and Emily Grander’s 365 Postcards, and Emily Richmond’s solo circumnavigation, Sarah Sharp’s 50 States, and Grand Opening’s Wedding Chapel, where the photos were taken, are also mentioned. All are incredible projects deserving of the spotlight (so many projects are).

Obviously this is a huge honor, and we’re thrilled to be covered. We do have one correction: the article states that Kickstarter pledges are not tax deductible. Some pledges are tax deductible: if the project creator is a 501c3 that is registered as such with Amazon Payments, pledges would be deductible. It’s up to each eligible project to handle.

But anyway: thanks to all the backers and creators for participating in the piece, and thanks for everyone’s support.

EDITED TO ADD: The Times just added a second Kickstarter piece, this one on their Bits blog that talks about Polyvinyl’s Kickstarter success. Awesome!

April Smith’s Big Day

As we mentioned earlier in the week, Kickstarter’s own April Smith is on this weekend’s Lollapalooza bill in Chicago, and she took the stage earlier today. During her performance, a friend in the audience texted this:

So cool! Thanks April.

And continuing in April’s big day, Billboard ran a great profile on her today as well, and in a video piece, April performs her Dexter-inspired song and talks about Kickstarter! See it here:

Congratulations to April. Well done. And if you haven’t supported her project yet, you can check it out here.

Hey, we got some press!

Huffington Post

Web Worker Daily

Gamasutra