For those who don’t know, Kickstarter is a website where artists, musicians, designers, filmmakers, entrepreneurs, and a whole host of other creative people submit ideas for projects they need funded.

I think it’s a fascinating idea – people submit their pitch (everything on the site is screened and approved by the Kickstarter team), and tell you how much they need to raise in a given period of time. If they reach their goal, they get the money. If they fall short…nothing.

One of the cool aspects of the site is the people who pitch have to give you something in return for your donation. An example would be for a film, where $25 might eventually get you a DVD of the movie, but $1,000 could get your name in the credits.

A musician I like recently funded her album through the site. I was able to get vinyl copy of the album while helping make it possible.

I came across this one today which seems pretty cool – a guy who apparently homebrews is trying to turn it into a full-fledged business:

Short Snout Brewing

Here's another, a documentary about Detroit firefighters:

Burn

Feel free to post cool ideas you come across on the site, stories, projects you’ve funded and received something, or anything else interesting about Kickstarter…

hmmm

This thread is really encouraging. I was actually planning to post two projects on the site in the near future to help raise financing. I had never used the site before and I assumed most of the traffic would be from family/friends that were personally directed to it.

2p2 poster pryor15 funded a film Up Country on kickstarter. Some of the people he's worked with in the last year are running a current kickstarter campaign through Nov. 19, A Year Without Rent, to fund his project where he travels the country for a year, sleeping on couches while helping others make indy films.

Pretty cool, and quality rewards:

Pledge $500 or more

All the above, plus an Associate Producer credit (in the film and on IMDb), 10 free tickets to a screening, and the option to name one of the characters in the film.

Yes, this website has indeed made it more convenient and socially acceptable for my friends and acquaintances to ask me for money.

I figured I should mention the two projects I'm going to be trying to raise financing for. I'm curious how likely it will be to find enough contributors.

We're trying to raise a very minuscule budget of anywhere between $1k-$1.5k for a short film that we're hoping to shoot in January. We're still tallying up the smallest budget before attempting to raise the financing.

We're also going to be trying to raise about $500 for producing t-shirts in bulk. The shirts would be used to help promote a feature film that I recently completed while my team and I attend film festivals. (designs are below)

http://turningpointthemovie.blogspot.com/

So anyways, what is the likelihood of financing these projects via Kickstarter?

I funded this project for a Desktop Jellyfish Tank

Well now I really want pet jelly fish.

There's also a Protomen documentary in the works, (fully funded.) We were at their vinyl release concert that was taped.

My son had their lead singer, Panther, call me to wish me a happy birthday last week. A unique way for a broke college student to get Mom something she'll remember at the right price, aka free. How many Nana's can say rock singers call them with birthday wishes?

I've got an idea for a poker movie. Not sure how to raise funds for it (maybe Kickstarter?) but given that I lived in Vegas for 9 years and have heard of people like Mike Matusow, I'm the perfect person to write the gambling film that will put money into the pockets of poker players and give Hollywood the blockbuster it's been waiting for. Does anyone know Leo DiCaprio?

Are you a lawyer?

Here's another interesting story- a sci-fi writer left his fourth book of a series on a cliffhanger, then was dropped by his publisher. He used Kickstarter to raise enough money to take the time to write the fifth novel.

From what I've read, you need to draw people to the page yourself, otherwise it might get lost in the crowd - unless it somehow gets promoted to the Discovery Page or Curated Pages.

I heard about this when that Freddie Wong guy used it to fund "Video Game High School." He pulled in over 1/4 mil to fund it and bought (at the very least) some $50k+ camera (I think it was a Red Epic).

Note that this kid puts videos up and within a couple days gets millions of views, so your mileage may vary.

Another similar site that I just heard of is at www.indiegogo.com. That James Rolfe guy (Angry Video Game Nerd) has thus far raised almost $150k. Once again - he has a huge existing fanbase.

If you're just some random guy I don't know how effective this would be for funding anything.

I funded a product project on Kickstarter back in May or so (the Oona). They got on lifehacker/giz/etc and freaking exploded. It took them until about a month ago to get their first batch out, despite funding back in June.

Does it work well? I have had pretty bad luck with suction cups in the past.

Worked great on my iPhone 4, as long as I got the suction cups a little wet. Had it hold for 3+ hours without any issue. Suction cups are thick and high quality. Screws are all well machined and holes are perfectly tapped. Production quality is great.

On my Galaxy S2, the back is textured so it really can't hold. Probably gonna get a case and start using the Oona again.

I've just been using it as a stand on my desk for now. Never tried it as a mount in the car

I do too, now someone just needs to start a Kickstarter project for a device that feeds jellyfish and cleans fishtanks.

yes, definitely.

99% of your backers will be people you in some way drive to the site, unless you get featured. Very few do.

It's a ****load of work. No one's just wandering around looking to throw $$ at you.

More important than the $$ aspect of it (which is obviously nice) is the idea that a Kickstarter campaign helps you build an audience for your project and interact with said audience throughout the process. This has obvious ramifications for when your film/album/whatever is done and, you know, are ready to sell the damn thing.

This is everything that I assumed. I met a girl while standing in line at the AFI Film Festival last week and she claimed to have raised $12k for her thesis film through the site from anonymous people. To say the least, I was highly skeptical. After seeing the trailer for her film I was even more skeptical.

She's probably full of ****.

Having said that, I've successfully funded 2 projects, one of which broke a Twitter record (as far as anyone knows), and I've yet to receive a dollar from anyone even remotely related to me.

What do you mean by "Twitter record"?

How long did it take & how much work was it for you to dispense all the gifts that you provided in exchange for donations?

14 hours and $840 to go to fund the rest of the Year Without Rent. Good luck, pryor!

I have the biggest last day rally, by %, ever.

It takes a loooong time. Basically, any perk that you can do digitally, all at once, is a fantastic idea. Like, a digital download where you can just send everyone the same link.

I'm still doing perks. Then again, I have a project that lasts over a year.

This is one I plan on backing - a movie about the influence of the musician Elliott Smith

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