Kickstarter.com – community funding of extraordinary projects

You might be one of those people that walks around with a marvelous idea but never found an incentive (or pile of money) to start your project. But what if you could find a small crowd of people that could back your idea. A crowd that doesn’t only give you the needed support but that will actually co-found your dream. That’s exactly what Kickstarter has to offer. First, submit your idea and set a target goal. (e.g. 10.000 dollar). Next you need to convince people to donate a part of your funding. To do this you make a few promises. For instance: You wish to roll out a scarcely-dressed-ladies-sketch-club and you need 3000 dollar. Those who donate 10 dollar will receive a handwritten postcard. But those that donate 1000 dollar will get life-time access to all sketch events. And so on. Make the experience as personal and exclusive as possible. But be careful. If you don’t offer enough value for money to those who pledge, you might not reach your goal within the 1-90 day time limit. Once reached, Kickstarter will pay out the funding and will take 5% commission. Secondly they will earn on the cash that’s been in their possession for a few months*. If the target isn’t reached, the project will be canceled and people will get their money back*. Interesting revenue model isn’t it?
revenue model example of kickstarter.comKickstarter democratizes the funding business. Instead of strolling between friends, family and fools you can now reach out to the masses. Secondly the business model of Kickstarter truly embraces the business building blocks ‘experience’ and ‘exposure’. Paying backers with personalized products and services is a remarkable strategy. A third important aspect is the fact that Kickstarter helps their members to fully reach the different segments within a crowd of funders. Many people will pledge a few dollars while only few want to donate a large sum. This optimization of funding is what makes Kickstarter truly unique. Keep an eye on this start-up because they could really boom in 2010.

* update Feb 10: Andy Baio (CTO Kickstarter) points out in the comments that Amazon takes care of the payments. Thereby nobody is charged upfront so Kickstarter won’t earn on the few month of cash as mentioned above. It’s worth noting that some other companies that focus on selling voucher do strongly rely on these upfront payments. The Belgian company Bongo is such an example.

Posted on February 10, 2010 in Banking & professional services Read more

RFID powered local currency presented: The Bijlmer Euro

Last week at the Creativity & Innovation PICNIC conference in Amsterdam a new remarkable project was being presented. The artist Christian Nold explained his concept ‘Bijlmer Euro’, a name for an alternative currency used only in a specific district of Amsterdam called Bijlmer. In this region he delivers a service towards the local ethnic community. To celebrate the variety of people he gave them their own currency by sticking RFID tags to normal and therefore legal euro bills. Thereby he’s able to track the social relations between these groups. Local shops that are willing to participate receive a RFID reader to scan these bills. Then when local residents are paying with these bills a shop owner can decide to deliver a community experience towards these clients. Examples of this could be an extra gift, special products or just an extra friendly treatment what could enforce the bonding of this community. Do notice that Christian works on this project for free. The return he receives lies simply in the positive image of the project that will enforce his own reputation as an artist. bijlmer euro alternative currency amsterdamAlternative currencies are a hot topic these days. Many conference speakers like Nick Bilton, Douglas Rushkoff or Bernard Lietaer are talking about new business systems that use these alternatives. As a society we introduced tangible money due to the simple fact that we couldn’t always exchange services and goods directly in our local community. My local barber was not always pleased with me paying him with my own vegetables. As a result a form of currency came in between and I could pay my barber with a tangible bill that he could be use to buy fruits in another village. But today things have changed. Due to the internet customers can again find other people to exchange services directly. For instance I could get my website made by a German student in exchange for a translation of his homework. And when direct exchange still isn’t possible, many online communities are using other means. Credit systems, karma points and beta-invite’s (Google Wave anyone?) are being used to pay each other. Money will always be there but many new forms, both tangible and intangible will flourish in the coming decades. This real-life Bijlmer Euro is only one of them.

Posted on October 2, 2009 in Non-profit & public Read more

Taatu and Virtua Gym on Pitcharena.com

Following our previous post on wantz.it and tweetag, two other social applications that presented during Pitch Arena were Taatu and Virtua Gym. For these two ventures we also briefly described their business model. We didn’t go in depth, but mapping out the four social applications gaves us the possibility to quickly compare them with each [...]

Posted on June 5, 2009 in Entertainment & tourism Read more