UPDATE: The invites are gone. Sorry.
I have five invites I want to give away for Kickstarter – a social fundraising platform that launched very recently. They service allows people to raise funding for their projects, regardless of size and scope. Instead of going to one or two investors for large amounts of money, a project creator can essentially crowd-source the fundraising process across hundreds of individuals in varied amounts. Sometimes the “pledge” for a project is as little as $5. It’s a particularly intriguing prospect to small and mediums-sized projects that might otherwise have little to no funding options.
To provide incentive on the other end of this service, Kickstarter asks project creators to establish a system of rewards and benefits to deliver to their supporters when certain funding levels are met. Sometimes they’re based on individual contributions, like “Pledge $20 and get a free T-shirt” or “Pledge $800 and receive a free copy of the software I’m developing along with updates for life.” Other times they’re based on the total amount raised, like “If I hit my $2,000 mark by the end of June, I’ll include an additional set of icons for your personal use.” This makes browsing the different projects truly fun and lets the user feel like he or she is really getting something in return for their contribution.
What project am I starting you ask? I’ll blog about it when I finally set it up, hopefully this weekend, but I’m going to see if I can raise some money to turn my brother and I’s hot sauce making hobby into a genuine side business. Even if we don’t, I expect it to be a lot of fun!
But I’m more interested in the projects YOU want to start. Currently project creators are available by invite-only – I lucked-out by getting one from Andy Baio – but I have five free invites I can share. If you’re interested in one of them you should get in touch with me, tell me a little about your project (I’m just curious; I won’t renege on my offer. Even if your idea sucks. I also won’t tell you that, if that’s what I think. I’m nice like that.) and I’ll send along the invite.
You can leave a response in the comments below or tweet at me on Twitter.
There are currently 0 invites available – I’ve given them all away!
Winners as of 5/8/09:
- Russell Sanders (russellsandersdesign.com)
{ 8 comments }
I would love an invite if you really still have them left.
I would love an invite as well if you still have any left.
Thanks,
Michael
I would appreciate an invite as well, in the case that you have any left!
Lookin’ for the invite! Yay!
Thanks,
-Ant
would love an invite!
thank you
I am looking for an invite so I can raise funds to make my student thesis film. My grade depends on it and we have to fund them ourselves. An invite would be much appreciated.
Hi George,
I’d love an invite if you still have one. I’m in the early-ish stages of starting a really cool platform for independent filmmakers to help them self-distribute and keep control over their own work and rights inevitably allowing them to gain financially over the long haul from the work they created!
Distribution is changing and we have an window of opportunity open to wrangle control over indie rights back into the hands of the creators themselves. I very much want to do everything I can to help indie filmmakers obtain this goal.
I run a couple film festivals (Festival Director of one and Artistic Director of the other) so I hear what indie filmmakers need and want. In fact, the reason I started this project was because I couldn’t get anyone to do it for our filmmakers and festivals. Instead, the reaction encountered was strong resistance to the idea of allowing filmmakers to profit from their work. Eventually, I decided I would do it myself.
The response has been fabulous. We’ve found the back-end platform to hand the media load that can allow us to grow and expand seamlessly and two front end platforms capable of covering both the website and commerce ends of the project.
The site should be fully functional soon. We’ve got a lot of incredible filmmakers from all over the world already on board and eager to participate. We’d love funding to help us more easily achieve this goal. It’s a wonderful project that will build a global bridge between independent filmmakers and their audience. We have the opportunity now and are up to the task. Funding for some computer issues would be very cool as would funding for the global promotion.
Our goal is to empower filmmakers while bringing independent film to the people around the world who do not presently have reasonable access to it. We plan on doing this online with fabulous independent films and an every growing audience who is falling more and more in love with indies as they become more and more exposed due to better access.
Our rewards will range from free obscure indie movie posters, a indie promo bloody baseball bat, film t-shirts, a signed copy of a Cannibal Jane DVD to film festival messenger bags, a private copy of never before seen Cannnibal Jane two, and even CJ3. In fact, one of the rewards would be cutting the benefactor into a recut version of Cannibal Jane as to give the donor a completely unique and original version just for them!
Oh, I forgot to mention that we’ve had inquiries as to whether we’d be willing to extend our platform to indie musicians (of course we would!) and one of the wonderful things about FFJ is that it can help festivals generate a very needed source of revenue without compromise to the festival’s specific nature or direction! Basically, it helps artist toward financial independence.
Feel free to check out the FB page, FB Group and Blogspot! Our extended FFJ group is about 15k people globally.
All the best!
*Hoping you still have a ticket!*
Christine
we desperately need a kickstart invite please. we have been doing a local internet show with great results using borrowed & out dated equipment for nearly a year. we now have quite a bit of recognition in the local music scene. we have been operating on a shoe string budget but that has become much more difficult due to the economic conditions here in Detroit. we have been given an opportunity to have our show seen by a much larger audience on a more regular basis, and have taken that opportunity. our problem is that now our operation has out grown our equipment. we need a kickstart invite to help us raise the money for new equipment. thank you for reading this post. please send an invite to n3gativ3ions@gmail.com it would be much appreciated.
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