Fans Prefer to Back A Sure Thing on Kickstarter

Bright BulbI recently read an interesting article by Seth Godin called Why (Some) Kickstarter Campaigns Fail.
In it he mentions Amanda Palmer – the American musician and performer who has funded much of her work through Kickstarter and has inspired perhaps tens of thousands of other musicians to give the same method a try for their band. She has been in the news of late for being the first musician to raise one million dollars via Kickstarter.
So what does all of this mean?
Is Kickstarter a viable option for musicians who want to raise money to release their future recordings?
Seth makes an excellent point about the fact that it takes people to make you successful in your endeavours. It’s very easy to grasp to the piece of technology or the single website that’s going to help you make it big – but it’s rarely one piece alone that will make the difference.
That’s like saying if you want people to give you money, just open a paypal account and ask for people to send you money.
Good luck with that.
The same is true of expecting all of your promotion activities to be solved by simply creating a Facebook fan page or a Pinterest account.
you’re not cultivating a following somewhere along the way – none of the individual things you do will be overly successful. I find it interesting on how Seth also mentions that people are more drawn to donate to projects that are considered a ‘sure thing’ on Kickstarter even though they risk nothing to fund a ‘long shot’ because the money is always returned if a project fails.
While much is made of rooting for the underdog, it seems that we’d still prefer to be part of a winning team rather than a losing team.
Should you rethink using Kickstarter to fund your band? Not if you have a solid plan and (ideally) a following that can help you to reach your goal. If you’re deluded about any of these things, starting up your campaign should be a good dose of reality for you.
http://www.thedominoproject.com/2012/06/why-kickstarter-campaigns-fail.html

Leave a Comment