How to Crowdfund Your Dream

7/31/2019 How to Crowdfund Your Dream

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How to Crowdfund Your Dream

When writer-director Liz Manashil decided to produce her first feature film, she asked a simplequestion: Do you feel that romantic comedies represent events and characters that don't exist in

real life?

If your answer is yes, she's asking you to fundBread and Butter, a dark romantic comedy thatfocuses on the moving, authentic moments of courtship and love. HerKickstarter campaign,which features singing puppets and a moving invitation from the crew to help raise $35,000 forthe project, launched last week.

And she's not alone.

Content creators around the world have turned to crowdfunding sites to fund their projects, withremarkable results.

Since its launch in April 2009, more than 24,000 projects have been funded with over $260million onKickstarter.Indiegogo, a rival crowdfunding platform that offers additional flexibilityin fundraising terms and tools, has funded tens of thousands of campaigns through its site.Crowdfunding has exploded: Massolution, a market-research firm,forecaststhat $2.8 billion willbe raised globally in 2012, an 87 percent increase from 2011.

With the help of these sites, the usual groveling of friends-and-family panhandling has become amainstream fundraising strategy, and a badge of honor for scrappy upstarts seeking to bring theirconsumers along for the ride. And perhaps no one has taken crowdfunding more seriously thancontent creators.

"Kickstarter was a key experiment," says Hersh Rephun, Founder ofRaging Artists, a boutiquecreative agency based in Los Angeles, California. He and his team -- who spend their daysdeveloping creative properties, coding software, and writing and performing stand-up comedy --launched a campaignto raise money for The Gents, a comedy pilot they wrote, directed, acted inand produced. "Our objective is to remove the barriers to creativity. We wanted to see what roleKickstarter plays in that process."

The Gents, which Raging Artists describes as "The Office meets YouTube," raised $2,000 of its$33,000 target. But in the process, the team discovered something it considers far moreimportant.

"There's a huge gap for creatives on Kickstarter," says Justo Diaz, a former scientist and one ofthe four Raging Artists. "The site was likely established as an advocate for creativity, but it'sreally a platform for e-commerce. Kickstarter's tools measure the value of the following youbring to the site -- and you need that following in place before you launch your campaign."

In other words, crowdfunding is about crowdfinding.
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Issa Rae, producer, director and writer ofThe Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, an award-winning web series, is a case study in the value of a passionate audience. Sheappealedto her60,000 existing viewers to fund her first season, but partnered with other blogs and publicationsto help spread the word.It worked.Misadventures raised over $56,000 -- $26,000 more than itstarget.

"People treated the campaign like a movement for change," says Rae. "The campaign was biggerthan me."

The stakes are high for crowdfunded projects. According toone recent study, an estimated 41%of Kickstarter campaigns do not reach their funding target. Kickstarter, which recently publishedmore detailed statisticsabout its campaigns, pins its success rate at 44 percent. It also boasts that82 percent of projects that raised more than 20 percent of their goal were successfully funded.

These statistics shed light on the mathematics of crowdfunding and create an important thresholdfor teams to meet. Sites such asKicktraq, which describes itself as a "Kickstarter project tracking

swiss army knife of awesome," has developed algorithms to help measure the likelihood of acampaign's success on Kickstarter.

The pressure to succeed on Kickstarter is particularly high, because the site follows anall-or-nothing approach: A Kickstarter project must be fully funded before its time expires, or nomoney changes hands. Indiegogo, in contrast, allows its users to collect all of the money theyraise, even if they do not meet their target (though itassessesa steeper processing fee if thecampaign falls short of its goal).

Consumer products have fared particularly well in recent months. The Pebble E-paper watch,manufactured by Pebble Technology, recently becamethe most highly-funded Kickstarter

campaign to date, with over $10 million pledged against a goal of $100,000. The team benefitedfrom a passionate consumer base eager to see the device come to market -- and eager to sport oneon their wrists, for a donation of $99.

Kickstarter understands the value of tangible goods, and the site encourages users to productizetheir dreams by creating concrete rewards for donors. In the creative sphere, where campaignsoften focus on aspirations rather than physical goods, fundraisers must compete more creativelyfor dollars.

Manashil, for example, offers a diverse mix of 28 rewards for supporting her film. Pledge $300-$450, and a Chicago improv troupe will roast you (or a lucky friend) anytime, anywhere. Donate

$5,000-$10,000, andNew York Times best-selling author Karen Robards will write a characterbased on your name in her next novel. Pledge $10,000 or more, and Manashil will write acharacter for you to play into the movie.

These innovative approaches also serve a larger purpose: creating an emotional connection withthe crowd.
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That connection helps explain the success ofThe Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl. In hercampaign, Rae emphasized the philosophical objective behind the series: to offer an alternativeto what she believes is the mainstream media's limited portrayal of people of color, and topromote the web-series format as a legitimate form of entertainment. Her fans quickly rallied.

"For creative people, the real product on offer is your brand -- the reputation that you're funny,that you're passionate, that you can inspire people," says Praveen Angyan of Raging Artists.

That requirement is what the Raging Artists are obsessed with: the creative brand that ignites thecritical audience necessary for a crowdfunding campaign to succeed. The team is now buildingits own platform for creatives to connect, collaborate, share and review one another's work --and, in the process, build the following they need to commercialize their work.

"We want to be that critical intersection where YouTube ends and Kickstarter begins," says ErnieNoh, the fourth Raging Artist.

Nearly 30 percent of campaigns on Kickstarter -- almost 18,000 -- fall under the film-and-videocategory. That number is sure to grow. The competition for funds has never been higher. Thetools available to creators have never been so effective. And content creators have never been soenergized.

"I need to makeBread and Butterfor my inner 16 year-old," says Manashil. "To provide analternative romantic comedy for those who feel disenfranchised. To reinforce whatever magicalforce has pushed me to make a movie all these years. I need to makeBread and Butterbecause Ican."

In a crowdfunded world, she just might.

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How to Crowdfund Your Dream