Name: Greta Medelyte
Degree Programme: (BA) Graphic Design
2013/14
Title: “To what extent has Kickstarters success as an online crowdfunding resource influenced and affected the success rate of a Kickstarter campaign?”
6,291 words
Content:
Introduction ……………………………………………………………………...…..3
Chapter One. The phenomenon and controversy of Kickstarter ……….….…..4
Chapter Two. Successful Kickstarter campaign techniques …………….……..8
Chapter Three. Kickstarter project success through Kickstarter brand
equity and strategic management ………………………………………………..13
Bibliography …………………………………………………………………...……19
Introduction.
This research project will explore Kickstarter as a leading crowdfunding online resource. It will also look at the influences on the success of a Kickstarter crowdfunded campaign and to what extent Kickstarters brand equity contributes to campaign success. A historical and analytical approach will be taken as well as a pragmatic one and action research will be carried out through analyzing a number of Kickstarter campaigns. Moreover, the author will refer to campaign she has personally set up.
Chapter one will investigate and define Kickstarter as a crowdfunding resource and why it has become an online phenomenon despite all the controversy. In addition it will look into the history and the origins of the crowdfunding idea.
Chapter two will investigate the process of starting a Kickstarter campaign. In addition it will study a series of successful campaigns and inspect the reasoning behind them regarding why campaigns on Kickstarter are more successful than any other crowdfunding resource.
Chapter three will examine Kickstarters brand equity through analyzing their strategic brand management. It will also explore the Kickstarter user-centered interface design and why Charles Adler is one of the co-founders of Kickstarter. (something to do with interface design experience)
The following glossary is provided below in order to understand the terminology used in Kickstarter (Steinberg, 2012, p 18):
campaign - posting a creative project on Kickstarter to raise funding and setting it up to run for a certain number of days
creator - someone who launches a campaign in Kickstarter.
backers - people who donate money.
pledge - the money given by the backers.
funded - when a project reaches its final target.
rewards - items that backers receive as a thanks for the pledges
Chapter One. The phenomenon and controversy of Kickstarter
This chapter will explore the definition of Kickstarter and the basic functions of the website. It will include the history of crowdfunding before the digital age. It will investigate the phenomenon and the controversy of Kickstarter and what effects it havs had on Kickstarter in order to understand the essence of Kickstarter.
The focus of this study is an online crowdfunding platform for creative projects called Kickstarter. The site was formally launched in 2009 by Perry Chen, an entrepreneur, Yancey Strickler a music journalist and Charles Adler, a user-interface design expert. Kickstarter is one of those “so-crazy-it-just-might-work” ideas that actually succeeded. The principle of Kickstarter is simple. A project is created that fits within the 13 categories that are further sub-divided into 36 subcategories of Kickstarter; no charity projects are allowed. The creator of the Kickstarter campaign pledges money to back up the campaign of whatever creative project they had in mind. Basically the public is asked to provide funding for a campaign and, if they are impressed they may contribute. It is interesting that a website like this can exist as everything these days online is for free - google, twitter, facebook etc. (Steinberg, 2012, p. 11)
Not only that but Kickstarter is one of the world’s largest crowd-funding platforms. One of the reasons for this is that, unlike other investment sources or crowd funding Kickstarter does not claim ownership of the project or the work the creators produce which creates absolute independence. On the other hand there is no guarantee that creators will deliver on their projects, use the money to implement their projects, or that the completed projects will meet the backer’s expectations. That is why backers are advised to use their own judgement when supporting projects. In many cases it becomes surprising how the creators build up such a strong community of backers that believe whatever the creator will ‘say’ or ‘promise’.
The second key for success in Kickstarter is community. Vistors to www.kickstarter.com website get a sense of social networking. Kickstarter has built an amazing bond between the backers and creators. They encourage the backers to support campaigns and the creators to be generous by giving them great rewards. For this reason, Kickstarter has created a support network and they are at the peak of crowdfunding. Michael Galinsky who did a ‘Battle of Brooklyn’ Kickstarter (Rumur, 2009, www.kickstarter.com) also wrote an article, ‘The Kickstarter Effect: Fundraising as Game Theory’ which states that there is not only a financial but an emotional investment when people pledge to kickstart a project.
“People who pledge towards a project become invested in seeing the project succeed, so they are likely to reach out to others to help reach the goal.” (Galinsky, 2010, ‘www.documentary.org)
However, If the goal of the pledge is not reached, the creator does not receive anything and that itself utilizes the power of game theory to raise fundraising energy. From July 2013 the success rate of Kickstarter projects that reached the goal was 43.66%. (Alexa Internet inc., 2014, www.kickstarter.com) By that time Kickstarter had generated $717 million of pledges 5% of which goes to Kickstarter and 3-5% to Amazon which collects the pledges. Through out the year 2013 alone, three million people pledged $480 million to Kickstarter projects. (Alexa Internet inc., 2014, www.kickstarter.com) Who would have thought that such a simple idea as that would change the creative industry and to some extent revolutionise the way projects are supported?
Kickstarter, being a crowd-funding resource, creates the possibility of independence and circumvents decision makers and gatekeepers and most importantly traditional sources such as business loans, venture capitalists, angel investors also public and private grants. (Grant, 2010) Consequently all of these sources include shared ownership and the decision of allocating funding will depend on amount of revenue the ideas are projected to produce. (Steinberg, 2013, p. 10) For that reason Kickstarter creates a new platform that allows the creator to proceed without sharing ownership. It is becoming the 21st century way of sharing wealth and ideas in ways that were not possible before the online culture. (Steinberg, 2013, p. 12)
Nevertheless the idea of crowd-funding is not absolutely new as it is a throwback to much earlier times when artists would have wealthy patrons. Classical composers such as Mozart and Beethoven occasionally relied on “subscriptions” that were similar to the Kickstarter system. As Steinberg explains in “The Kickstarter Handbook” (2012), these subscriptions allowed them to advertise for pledges to finance concerts and printed editions of their work. As an example, in 1783 Mozart wanted to perform three recently composed piano concertos in a Viennese concert hall and he published an invitation to prospective backers offering manuscripts to those who pledged. Apparently he did not succeed the first time. However he tried again the following year and received 176 backer pledges to make the concert happen. (Kazmark, 2013)
There are many more examples like this that can be found in the past that shows crowdfunding was popular and necessary before the digital age although maybe not as much as it is now. It does not fall within the scope of this study to explore these. Obviously online platforms such as Kickstarter have made it easier to find the right people and created a virtual heaven for entrepreneurs who do not want to be reliant on an agency or person that would strip away their freedom and vision of what the product, piece of art or any other body of work could potentially be. It has also outrivaled its competitors with project success. According to the crowdfunding success rate chart, more than half of the projects that raised the most funding were in Kickstarter. (n.d., crowdsourcing, www.wikipedia.com)
Kickstarter also hosts a lot of popular names and social figures that have attracted a lot of press whiles it also fans a great deal of controversy. One of the most successful campaigns in the film section, “Veronica Mars Movie”, has raised a lot of questions about the clarity of Kickstarter goals and intentions. “Veronica Mars movie” became one of the most funded movies in Kickstarter reaching of $5,702,153 while the goal has been $2,000 000. There was a lot of press involvement and many different opinions were shared around the internet which obviously was a good way of marketing Kickstarter. After the Veronica Mars campaign, another star, Zach Braff, did a campaign of his own movie, “Wish I was here” claiming that he wanted to make an independent movie sponsored by the fans so he could have the creative freedom. The Kickstarter video of “Wish I was here” has a lot of interruptions of famous people just ‘walking’ into the shot. (Braff, 2013, www.kickstarter.com) This is a very good selling point. It became an even bigger controversy when, after the campaign finished, Worldview Entertainment sponsored the movie with extra funds that took the movie’s budget up to $10 000 000. (Child, 2013, The Guardian) Yet again Kickstarter stated on their blog:
“The Veronica Mars and Zach Braff projects have brought tens of thousands of new people to Kickstarter. 63% of those people had never backed a project before. Thousands of them have since gone on to back other projects, with more than $400,000 pledged to 2,200 projects so far. Nearly 40% of that has gone to other film projects.” (Chen, Strickler and Adler, 2013, www.kickstarter.com)
The question remains, was this a well-thought out trick to get more attention and a bigger money flow? These are only a few examples of controversies that Kickstarter has had in the past. One of the greatest scandals concerned the book “Guide to getting awesome with women” which was funded through Kickstarter, but was called by critics ‘the guide for rapists’ as the book had a lot of references to violence against women. (Hoinsky, 2013, http://web.archive.org) Later the author, Ken Hoinsky, made an apology and yet again, the book was funded even though Kickstarter had been asked to remove the campaign. Kickstarter later wrote an apology in their blog in which they explained the reasons for their actions and took full responsibility by making sure they would not repeat this kind of mistake in the future. (Kickstarter Team, 2013, www.kickstarter.com) They now prohibit “seduction guides” or anything similar.
“This material encourages misogynistic behavior and is inconsistent with our mission of funding creative works. These things do not belong on Kickstarter.” (Kickstarter Team, 2013, www.kickstarter.com)
Before starting a Kickstarter campaign the creator needs to agree on a set of rules and guidelines that are legal. Kickstarter has existed for five years nows. They are still developing and adding rules with every mistake they make. The interesting thing about all of the controversies are the Kickstarter Blog comments which are updated continuously, making sure that the community of Kickstarter are aware of where Kickstarter stands and what its opinions are. The second reason why Kickstarter is a phenomenon and different from any other crowdfunding website – community, is that , upon registering with Kickstarter, the participant becomes a part of the community that has two sides, backers and creators but the user is encouraged to be both. This encourages the user to be more involved which creates care and community which adds to Kickstarter success.
Chapter Two. Successful Kickstarter campaign techniques
This chapter will analyze the process of setting up a Kickstarter campaign and the process of building a Kickstarter page. It will also include tips and examples of other campaigns that have reached or even overgrown their goals. Furthermore, it will look behind the factors of success in these campaigns. Also the question will be raised as to shy KIckstarter crowdfunding campaigns are more successful than any other crowdfunding website.
A large amount of online and published material about Kickstarter undoubtedly contributes to its success. Kickstarter even has a ‘Kickstarter school’ where enquirers can find answers to many questions. It seems that they are trying to prepare the creator’s projects and really help in making them successful. After reading handbooks and guides as to how to make a Kickstarter campaign successful it is obvious that there is a certain approach to a successful campaign. First the creator decides on the idea and creates a clear concept and deadline for the campaign. It is very important for the campaign to be a project which has a clear ending so the creator is advised to start out with really good planning and calculations of how much he will need to pledge, as Kickstarter, Amazon and gift fees have to be included in the price otherwise the campaign might be more detrimental than useful.
Kickstarter always encourages people to try and fund their idea and gives many examples of successful campaigns. They warn that having a Kickstarter campaign online is a full-time job and it will be hard work promoting it. Then, if the creator is still interested in pursuing the idea, he or she has to check if they have the rights to start a Kickstarter, for example they are over 18. Once the creator is eligible for a Kickstarter, he needs to check if his project meets all of the Kickstarter criteria, for example “Projects cannot offer genetically modified organisms as a reward.” (n.d, www.kickstarter.com) Once the project is approved, the creator has the right to start a Kickstarter campaign and the amount of pledges needed are estimated, it is safe to proceed to the other phases which will be divided into three sections: the video, the Kickstarter page and the promotion.
The video is probably one of the key factors of the campaign. After researching many Kickstarter videos and looking at their success, a few common factors that lead to a successful video have been found although they may vary between different categories of Kickstarter. If the creator has an already established reputation, the best selling point is going to be their character and previous achievements, for example Tim Shafer is an American computer games designer with an established reputation in gaming. He had two Kickstarter campaigns and not only funded both of them but exceededthe pledge. Analyzing the videos that he produced for both of the campaigns, ‘Double Fine’ and ‘Double Fine’s Massive Chalice’ (Double Fine and 2 Play Productions, 2012, www.Kicksrater.com) it is clear both had the experience and elements required for a quality video. The product design category will not be analyzed as it is a completely different sector and even has a different set of rules. It is however one of the most funded categories in Kickstarter. Another important key figure in making a successful Kickstarter video is to state what the idea is and its purpose.
The ‘Kickstarter School’ encourages the creator to be enthusiastic about their project and convey their excitement to people. A good example of this is within the graphic design category. The video “Bucketlistmap: putting the awesome back in maps”, by Simon Schuetz demonstrates that really well. (Schuetz, 2013, www.kickstarter.com) To addition there is another trend within the graphic design category that involves the product attracting funding designed and produced in advance of the campaign. Kickstarter was created for people with passion so, for that reason, another key factor to a successful video is the creator. It is highly recommended by the site creators to show and share the enthusiasm and personality within the video. Backers want to see who are they giving their money to. Nano Whitman who raised money to take his band on tour states that rewards are secondary but the video is key to the campaign.
Kickstarter has also stated that, as in life, same in Kickstarter appearance is key although there are some examples of successful campaigns where the creator chose not to appear in the video.(Steinberg, 2013, p. 94) For example Jenifer Fox for her campaign for her documentary movie “My Reincarnation” showed a trailer of the movie and included the reactions of people that have seen the movie. (Fox, 2011, www.kickstarter.com) In this case her work represented her and there was no necessity for her to be involved in the picture. Nevertheless that is only the case if the work has already been done in advance as some of the projects might not even be in production but rather be an idea or a vision of what the creator intends to do with the funding.
Kickstarter tries to be honest whilst preparing project creators for the video. In the book ,“The Kickstarter Handbook”, (2012) there is a paragraph stating that appearance matters and “attractiveness can attract things”. (Steinberg, 2012, p.94) They encourage the “cool guy/cute girl” factor which can be traced back to advertising. This raises the question, could a Kickstarter video be treated as an advert?Certainly, as the first and foremost reason for making a video is to get funding and investors, in order to achieve which the creator needs to sell. Not only sell the idea but sell himself as a character worth investing in, also selling the confidence that he will proceed with the project after it has been funded. Even though there is no right or wrong way of doing the Kickstarter campaign video the creator is strongly recomended to look at videos that have been successful and learn from them. (Kickstarter School, n.d, www.kickstarter.com)
Once the creator completes the video, a Kickstarter page has to be built. Prior to 2012 creators would submit a proposal to Kickstarter and, whilst waiting for approval, build the rest of the campaign page. (Brand, 2013) Now the creator builds the campaign page and it functions as the proposal. After submitting the campaign, the Kickstarter Community Team will take a few days to approve or reject it. The creator will be able to share a private preview link to advisors and edit the campaign if necessary. (“Gold Again”, Madline, 2014, www.kickstarter.com) Kickstarter has a very simple layout for the campaign. First the creator fills in the basics: a short 135 character description, location, category, duration and the amount to be pledged. Then rewards follow; the creator is encouraged to take time with this part as it is very important. Even before starting the campaign the creator has to figure out the rewards that he or she will be giving for backers as that will affect the amount the creator needs to raise. The rewards can only be things associated with the project, for example if the creator is asking for money for a movie, one of the rewards could be the movie itself. The next step is ‘story’ where the creator is asked to give details about the project in more detail, for example a breakdown of where the funding would go, links, images or any other material that would support the video and the campaign. The story section can be updated any time through the campaign. (“Gold Again”, Madline, 2014, www.kickstarter.com)
The last part of the Kickstarter campaign page is the Amazon account that needs to be established. This part of Kickstarter is very much self explanatory. Kickstarter was designed in a way that the creator could not tamper with the layout, for example the typeface is standard and only has the options of bold or italic. It makes it clear what the project is about by making the creator fill in details following the layout of the page. It is clear that Kickstarter thought through this second section of how to make it easy for the creator and useful for the backer to create or view the project by guiding them and having a clear structure.
The third part is probably the most important of all three. This part of the project is not as visible but creators receive a lot of information and it is highly advertised and a lot of advice and useful approaches are offered to creators. After the creator launches the Kickstarter the Kickstarter Team suggests promotion tactics. As stated in the “Kickstarter handbook” by Don Steinberg (2012) in 2012 Kickstarter statistics showed that 11% of funding came from Kickstarter and 89% from external sources. Promotion is the key factor of a Kickstarter and the Kickstarter team are more than happy to share other campaign secrets and advice on how to promote the campaign in many different ways. To a certain extent it is a school of business and marketing. In “Kickstarter School”online (n.d., www.kickstarter.com) or in “Kickstarter for Dummies” by Wiley Brand (2011), also in “The KIckstarter Handbook” by Don Steinberg (2012) there is a lot of coverage about many possible ways of promotion, step by step guides and very detailed charts and “how to’s”. Andrew Gale who launched a Kickstarter on how to create a successful Kickstarter stated that the success to a campaign is by selling a story. (Clendaniel, 2013, http://www.fastcoexist.com)
That relates back to a TED talk “How great leaders inspire action” by Simon Sinek that claims “People don’t buy what you do they buy why you do it”. (Sinek, 2009, www.ted.com) In many ways a lot of Kickstarter sources teach people to use effective marketing tools and advertising to raise awareness of their project. Kickstarter gives the creator many options and approaches which he or she can choose from, for example getting picked by the Kickstarter staff might be a good way of boosting pledges, direct e-mailing to potential backers, starting off by asking for money from friends and family, getting the campaign reviewed by bloggers, press-releases and many other ways to get a Kickstarter campaign noticed.
There are many tips on “how to make your Kickstarter campaign a success”, many of which describe similar approaches. Gotham Bicycle Defense Industries launched a Kickstarter “Theft-resistant bike light” and hit their goal of $18,000 in one day. (Menn, 2012, www.kickstarter.com) Obviously many were questioning how the company managed to achieve such incredible success. The company discussed the strategy in an article “The 6 Variables Behind a Kick-Ass Kickstarter Project” (2012) in which they explained that before launching the campaign, the company spent six months researching and looking at other successful Kickstarters and by doing so that they have learned from and ‘hacked’ Kickstarter. Gotham Bicycle Defense Industries even created an equation of Kickstarter success which included story, friends, video, rewards and media to make their project a success and, as they proved, it was right. Nevertheless whilst analyzing the article again there was another factor involved - research and ‘brand’ management skills and knowledge. For example Gothem Bicycle Defense Industries state:
“In the book Made To Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, authors Chip and Dan Heath write, “a credible idea makes people believe, an emotional idea makes people care.”
A similar idea may be found in the book “ Strategic Brand Management” by Richard Rosenbaum-Elliott, Larry Percy & Simon Pervan in which they state: (2011)
“...the separation of the concept of the brand into a functional domain as a representation of what the product actually does for us and an emotional/symbolic domain as a representation of what the product means to us.”
It is probably not a surprise that so many Kickstarter project success pointers are closely related to management, marketing and advertising guides. These skills are essential when dealing with selling an idea or any financial investments, the only difference is the media it is done in and the independence that Kickstarter offers. Rather than that, the creator still needs to convince the backers that his idea is worth the investment. This is never an easy task as it requires not only a good idea but the knowledge of marketing that Kickstarter “shares” publicly with every creator through strategic updating, social media, news media and useful handbooks and guidelines. There are reasons why Kickstarter not only hosts and attracts the most successful projects but why they have became the most successful crowdfunding platform and are constantly growing in popularity.
Chapter Three. Kickstarter project success through Kickstarter brand equity and strategic management
This chapter will investigate Kickstarter’s Brand equity and how that affects campaigns and creators who choose to use Kickstarter for their projects. Also it will examine into how Kickstarter uses marketing and promotion to attract target audiences and create a community. By doing so how they ‘keep’ the social networking within the website through centered interface design understanding and applications.
First of all, to understand the rising value of Kickstarter there is a need to understand the value of internet growth within business. Kickstarter is an online crowdfunding resource which is directly linked to the internet as a whole. “Internet traffic is doubling every 100 days” (Harpin, 2000, p.1). As explained in the “Kickstarter.com the definite European start-up guide” there are a few factorswhich explains this, for example convenience, different shopping experiences and lower prices. The growth of the internet is essential as it gives businesses wider opportunities and larger audiences. Kickstarter project success is not only defined by how the project is managed by the creator or how it is improved by Kickstarter after it has been submitted for evaluation but by Kickstarter having a strong brand equity overall. Brand equity is defined by the consumer and financial value as stated in “Strategic Brand Management”. (Rosenbaum-Elliott, Percy and Pervan, 2011) Further research into the topic John Pagano in ARF Brand Equity workshop (1990) has defined brand equity as the value of worth that resides in a particular brand name, trademark or product:
“It is all the elements created by marketing, advertising, research, and production, that over the years have made the product or service what it is in consumers minds today”. (Pagano,1990)
Kickstarter has used new media and social networking to build a brand strong enough to support other brands. By having a strong brand equity they create a platform and possibility for other brands or products to have strong value and recognition.
How did Kickstarter become the most renowned crowdfunding brand online? First of all it is necessary to analyze the name from which the brand starts to exist in the consumers heads. They have adopted their name to suit three purposes; the website is called ‘Kickstarter’, a campaign can be called “a Kickstarter” and a person that launches a campaign can be called “a Kickstarter”.(Steinberg, 2012) One word that describes a website, a campaign and a brand will make the brand name, in this case “Kickstarter” appear constantly in newspapers, comments and any other written or verbal communication. That means that the brand will be noticed and mentioned enough times in different ways. As a result that will create recognition. In a study among business managers, where they were asked to identify factors that provide substantial competitive advantage, brand recognition was the third most frequent consideration. (Rosenbaum-Elliott, Percy and Pervan, 2011) For that reason Kickstarter has the advantage over other crowdfunding websites and has overtaken them in such a short period of time.
There is a very interesting analysis of why some ideas survive in the industry and others die in the book “Made to Stick: Why some ideas survive and others die” by Chip Heath and Dan Heath.(2007) It is not a big surprise that Kickstarter ticks all the “boxes” of the guide of the surviving ideas. The book states that in order for an idea to survive it has to communicate the core of the idea, the problem usually being people not understanding even though the creator has taught and evaluated the problem and the solution. The main factor is to communicate the purpose clearly to the target audience. The book illustrates a study conducted by Elizabeth Newton in 1990 as her PhD in Psychology in Stanford University. She undertook an experiment in which one half of the participants were asked to ‘tap out’ famous songs and the other half were asked to listen and identify. ‘Listeners’ only guessed 2.5 percent of the songs even though before the experiment the ‘tappers’ were asked to predict how many songs people would guess correctly and they estimated 50%. (Joffe, 2012, http://amelearning.com)
“What happened, of course, is that the tapper sings the song in their head and thus thinks he has the right rhythm, but the person hearing the taps cannot hear the song inside the others head and therefore has no idea of what the taps mean.” (Random House, 2007)
For this reason it is essential to communicate ideas and thoughts clearly in order for the audience to fully understand the core and purpose of the idea. To highlight this the first sentence when visiting www.Kickstarter.com is “Bring Creativity to life. Curious how Kickstarter works?” . This communicates to both audiences - the creators and the backers that Kickstarter is a place for creative projects to come to life and also straight away offers an explanation to those who have not yet used Kickstarter and wondered about the website.
There is another method leading to success described in the book “Made to Stick: Why some ideas survive and others die” by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, that Kickstarter uses widely - statistics. (Alexa Internet inc., 2014, www.kickstarter.com) Prof. Ethan Mollick wrote an article about Kickstarter failures that according to the professor are difficult to find because Kickstarter intentionally prevents failed campaigns from being indexed by the search engines. Prof. Ethan Mollick received many of responses to his first article but later admitted he has failed to calculate the statistics correctly, leaving him with false statistics. (Jeanne, 2013, http://www.appsblogger.com) All of this attention led Kickstarter to launch a Statistics page in order to clarify any confusion. Statistics have been part of Kickstarter from the launch days. They have been used constantly to ‘show’ the project success rates to backers and creators which to date are 55,025 successfully funded projects (2014) and the income is $943,000,000 (2014). Every year Kickstarter also does a review of the year “Best of Kickstarter…” which includes a lot of statistics and accomplishments from that year specifically, for example in “Best of Kickstarter 2013” 3 million people pledged $480 million to Kickstarter projects (Kickstarter team, 2014, www.kickstarter.com)
This leads to another important successful idea, “Testable Credentials”. (Random House,2007) If people can see that an idea has been tested out and worked, they will believe it more. That means they will use the project for their own purposes. In this case if a project creator decided to launch a project to be crowdfunded they would choose Kickstarter for three main reasons. Firstly, they will find a lot of information about it when they type ‘crowdfunding’ in the search engine online. Secondly, they will see a clear description of what Kickstarter is and how it works. And finally, they will see statistics and tested credibility - already successful campaigns and they will make a decision based upon that and of course other circumstances, such as is the project being appropriate and fitting in to Kickstarter project criteria.
It is not only a case of successful and strategic brand management but user interface experience as well. The Kickstarter website is very simple to navigate both for creators and backers. The Kickstarter page user experience includes all the main goals for success as outlined in “Interactive Design an introduction to theory and application of user-centered design” by Andy Pratt and Jason Nunes.
“One of the first steps in any design process is to understand what you are building <...> Focused design is important. A prioritized set of goals helps create focus” (Pratt and Nunes, 2012, p 36)
Once a user enters the Kickstarter page it is easy to identify the main priorities. The first goal is to inform the user about Kickstarter as a whole and what it does. Straight after - the users are split into either creators who want to start a campaign or a backer who wants to find campaigns and fund them. This is the second most important element in user-centered design experience - the user. Defining and prioritizing users is as important as prioritizing goals; in both cases Kickstarter has placed both of them on the top of priority pyramid. (fig. 1) (Pratt and Nunes, 2012) When Perry Chen thought of the Kickstarter idea and after meeting Yancey Strickler the two men connected with Charles Adler who is a user-interface design expert which was probably a well thought through idea as it is essential to any website, even more to a website such as Kickstarter. It demonstrates that well translated design practice can lead to the full potential of websites, in this case Kickstarter.
Conclusion.
Chapter one explored Kickstarter as a crowdfunding platform and the basic functions of the website. It further discussed the importance of the independence that Kickstarter provides to each creator that successfully funds their campaign. It is one of the main things that differentiates Kickstarter from all other crowdfunding resources. The chapter also recognised the benefits of networking that visitors receive whilst becoming part of the community of Kickstarter. It discussed the controversies that Kickstarter has experienced and analyzed the reactions and actions that Kickstarter has taken in response to these events. That leads to an understand that it is very important for Kickstarter to inform and notify their social community and familiarise them with their opinions on each topic. Therefore community is one of the main key factors of Kickstarter phenomenon. As Henry Ford has said: “Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.” (Ford, 1914)
Chapter two explores the successful Kickstarter campaign techniques and through action research explains the step by step tasks of setting up a Kickstarter campaign using principles that the author has undertaken herself. It explores the main factors of why Kickstarter campaigns are such a success as well as analyzing the elements which explain Kickstarter’s success as a brand. It discusses how it provides more than enough information on every single topic on how to prepare and get ready for the campaign. The focuses on promotion and project management that Kickstarter provides at the beginning of each campaign to every creator is hlighted. Creators are encouraged to learn and research to make the campaign the best possible.
Chapter three investigates Kickstarter project success through Kickstarter brand equity and strategic management of the website. It also looks into the marketing and media tools that Kickstarter choose to promote themselves. It analyzes factors of communication through a simple “Tapping” and “Listening” experiment undertaken by Elizabeth Newton that explains the essence of core principles and ideas being expressed in an understandable manner which Kickstarter has adopted well in their practice and website. (Joffe, 2012, http://amelearning.com) This leads to user-centered interface design well built by one of the co-creators of Kickstarter Charles Adler who demonstrates the importance of understanding the design principles and applying them to the full potential.
To sum up, this research project has informed about many different, some unexpected andunforseen, factors of Kickstarter success such as strong brand equity and strategic management through guided and well linked theory into practice. It was a surprise to come to a conclusion that even though individual campaign success depends on how well the idea is executed, or explained, or promoted the first and foremost factor of Kickstarter success is the Kickstarter itself. The way it has been set up to communicate the core of crowdfunding idea, the way it has built a strong online community and how well it teaches every creator the basic project management and promotion skills has led Kickstarter to become the dominant crowdfunding resource and help “bring creativity to life”. (n.d., www.kickstarter.com)
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Video:
Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action. (2010). [video] TEDX.
