Go Fund Yourself

When talking about success, it is important to distinguish ...

Definitions of success

Crowdfunding campaign

- Ziele im Zeitraum während der Kampagne, direkt Verbunden mit der Kampagne - Definiertes Ziels: Sammeln von Ressourcen - Verschiedene Möglichkeiten Erfolg zu erzielen, Branchenabhängig? z.B.: Kommunikation durch Netzwerke, Präsents in den Medien, Werbung, Grafische Darstellungen (Optik), .. usw. - Klarer Erfolg: durch Erfolg von genug Ansammlung von Ressourcen oder nicht

Crowdfunding project

- Ziel kann nach der Kampagne entstehen/geschehen, nicht direkt Verbunden mit der Kampagne - Durch Kampagne nicht immer ersichtliches Ziel, z.B.: Werbung, Aufmerksamkeit/Nachdenklichkeit wecken, schockieren, Investoren begeistern usw. - Erfolg ist nicht so sehr gebunden an Kampagne Eine Kampagne kann Erfolgreich sein, dieser Erfolg muss jedoch nicht mit dem Erfolg des Projekts an sich zusammenhängen. Interessant wird die Analyse in den Beispielen, in welchen der Erfolg der Crowd Founding Kampagne nicht gleich auch den Erfolg des Projekts bedeutet und umgekehrt.

Statistics per Category

A variety of factors influence the end result of a Crowd funding campaign, such as: the platform being used, seriousness in approach to the project, proper social networking, use of media in explanation of the project, realistic projection of funding goals, research of the best suitable rewards, and so on . However, success of the project can also have something to do with the category it belongs to. Some categories are more interesting for potential donors and more popular than others. 'Market' saturation is another element that influences potential success in a way that the large number of project in a category will result in a lower success rate. That is why it is important to analyze and compare categories based on the current number of projects and success rates, and to see if the link between success of the campaign and the category it belongs to can be made.

The overall success rate for projects hosted on the biggest and most successful platform -('Kickstarter') is approximately 44% (as of January 2014), which means that more than half of the crowdfunding campaigns do not reach their ultimate funding goals. Nevertheless, some categories have better rates than others do. While these statistics are based on Kickstarter projects, they can apply to all of the crowdfunding industry. Dance and Theatre with their 71% and 64% success rates are the most successful categories on this platform. The most unsuccessful categories are Publishing and Fashion with 32% and 30% success rates. Astonishingly, Games and Technology are one of the categories with the lowest rates of success (both have only 35%), being that games and technology projects were responsible for the blooming of the crowdfunding platforms. With its 40% and 48% rates, Film and Art stand in the middle of the Success Rate Graph.

Another important parameter in analyzing statistical data is the number of the projects, where it can be seen that the most popular categories are Film and Video (with a total number of 29624 projects) and Music (with a total number of 24707 projects). Games has 6841, Technology 2887, Art 10374, whilst Dance has only 1517 projects. The statistics also show that when it comes to average funding per Campaign, category Games is on the second place with 36,162.84 $. Technology, which is one of most unsuccessful categories, is on the first place with 40,095.29 $, while Dance has only 10,572.08$, whilst Art has only an average of a 4895,00 $ per campaign. Even though category Games is one of the least successful, it has also in total the highest gross of 160 Million Dollars. It is somewhat a paradox, and it has to do with the fact that a successful game a lot of times gets overfunded and exceeds its funding goal (Game Broken age had exceeded the $400,000 goal with more than $3.3 million from over 87,000 backers).

The data shows that a link between the rate of success and the average funding per campaign can be found. Two of the most successful categories, Dance and Theater, have also one of the lowest funding goals. Furthermore, Games and Technology, one of the least successful categories have also the highest funding goals. A grate success of the Dance has probably a lot to do with the low funding goals and the fact that there are 1,3 % of the dance crowdfunding campaigns. Another aspect that should be analyzed is sociological, where the dance and art 'offline' society is a rather stronger connected, as appose to 'games' society. With a small funding goals and with the first ring of the donations that are based on the friends and family pledges, it is simpler for an artist or a dances to come to it's goal. However, majority of the campaigns don't even surpass the first step of the funding, and near 80% of them never raised more than 20 % of their goal.

Projects' analysis

Broken Age

Broken Age is an episodic point-and-click adventure video game, Tim Schafer’s first return to the genre since 1998’s Grim Fandango.

Broken Age began under the working title Double Fine Adventure as a Kickstarter crowdfunded project promoted by Double Fine and 2 Player Productions in February 2012. Originally a goal of $400,000 was set to cover the costs of development and documentary filming, it became the largest crowdfunded video game project at the time, raising over $3.45 million from more than 87,000 backers within the month. It remains one of the highest-backed crowdfunded projects of any type, and its success helped to establish Kickstarter and other crowdfunding mechanisms as a viable alternative to traditional venture capital and publisher funding for niche video game titles.

ILLO: Birth of the Cool

Raylight Games, attempted to fund its Illo: Birth of the Cool – via both Kickstarter and Indiegogo. The game is a surreal puzzle adventure, designed for platforms with tilt, touch and microphone inputs, including iOS, Android, PlayStation Move, Kinect, Wii U, PS Vita and 3DS.

Marina Abramović Institute

25 August 2014., the Marina Abramović Institute (MAI) Kickstarter campaign successfully surpassed its $600,000 its funding goal with 4,765 backers contributing a grand total of $661,452.

New York City Opera

The People’s Opera – New York City Opera – has focused on producing unique works, showcasing emerging young artists, and educating the next generation of performing arts lovers. Throughout its history as The People's Opera, NYC Opera has made opera accessible and affordable. People opera exists to give everyone an alternative artistic experience, unique and accessible to all. And now NYC Opera needed help to produce its upcoming season. The New York City Opera has raised only $301,019 and the goal was 1 million dollars. Funding for this project was canceled by the project creator on September 30, 2013.

The 'People's Opera' has struggled in recent years. It closed its doors in 2008 for a refurbishment that coincided with the Financial Crisis, and has struggled to make ends meet since then. Organizers describe the crowdfunding campaign as 'urgent', but it is only a slice of a larger call for $7 million by the end of September. New York City Opera did not achieve the goal on Kickstarter but they have raised $1.5 million outside of Kickstarter, but they still have not reached the goal. Even in an urgent situation, $1 million is a big ask for an arts project.

Veronica Mars

This project was successfully funded on April 13, 2013. on Kickstarter. It had 91,585 backers. They pledged $5,702,153 of $2,000,000 goal. The movie earned on Box office $3.5 million.

Veronica Mars is a American neo-noir mystery comedy-drama movie. It is sequel, film adaptation based on Thomas' UPN/CW television series of the same name (2004-2007). The movie is co-written, produced, and directed by Rob Thomas and co-written with Diane Ruggiero. Kristen Bell has role as the title character. Its executive producers are Joel Silver, Bell, and Jenny Hinkey. Warner Bros. Pictures opened the film in the United States theatrically and on video-on-demand on March 14, 2014.

Darci’s walk of shame

Darci's Walk of Shame Funding for this project was canceled by the project creator on May 13, 2013. It had 315 backers.

The newest hottest Spike Lee Joint or "Da sweet blood of Jesus"

The newest hottest Spike Lee Joint This project was successfully funded on August 21, 2013. It had 6,421Backers. They pledged $1,418,910 of $1,250,000 goal.

We can compare the NYC Opera’s campaign with the most successful arts campaign to date, The Marina Abramovic Institute. It’s a useful comparison for a few reasons: both campaigns are by well-known arts brands located in New York City, fundraising within a few weeks of each other. Abramovic is a Serbian performance artist who has been active for three decades; The NYC Opera has been operating for 70 years. Of course, Abramovic was asking for $600,000 rather than $1 million. But with the NYC Opera seeming unlikely to raise even a fraction of Abramovic’s total, we need to look beyond the target amount. The average pledge to the campaigns is similar - the mean pledge for the Abramovic campaign was $139 compared with a current mean of $125 for the NY Opera. But that’s where the similarity in pledging activity ends. Rewards for the pledgers of NYC Opera are moustly the tickets for the performances. But the problem with theater tickets is that they are in-person rewards. If a backer isn’t based in New York or willing to travel there, they’re essentially useless. If the backers are outside the NY, NYC Opera is offering only a choice of a tote bag, desktop wallpaper, an mp3 playlist curated by the Opera’s artistic director and a CD or DVD. Marina Abramovic offered: For $25, “Marina will teach the Abramovic Method SLOW MOTION WALK exercise via live stream. Receive exclusive access to this event. You, Marina, and the other backers at this level will then perform your exercise SIMULTANEOUSLY, creating a large public performance that occurs at the same time in different locations all over the world.” For $100, “You will receive a set of never-before-seen video materials.” For $1,000 “Marina will perform the Abramovic Method eye gazing exercise with you via webcam. You may document this experience in any way you’d like and opt to include it in MAI digital archives.”

Leading to conclusion, it is possible to notice that crowdfunding campaigns will take in the future much more important rolle in economonical sence. This might lead to completely new course in development of society. At the moment, it is impossible to say to which extend. It todays world much money would be spend on developing the product, getting reactions from consumers and eventually promoting it as starts to produce. With crowdfunding campaigns, it will develop quitte different. Through crowdfunding campaign be already most of those thing visible. Promotion of projects will be accomplished with reactions of possible backers which will show the nessesity of product its self. Prior to all knowledges collected during the capaign, products will have much lesser procent of risk.

Crowdfunding campaigns have not only opportunity factor, but they can provide much bigger picture of the thing to come in future for investors because they provide strong picture of the current situation on the market. Chances that the investor will get in risky situations are significentaly smaller after the have been filtered trough crowdfunding campaingns. On the other side crowdfunding platforms make inventros much more vissible on the market and they do it for free at the begining. Eventually they charge certain procent of collected money, but that happens only if the campaign had success.

Achieving Success

Crowdfunding may be an ideal way to get capital for a new creative project, but being successful is not easy as it seems. As analyzed projects show, even the successful campaign can produce an abortive project and vice versa, although the campaign fails, the project could turn to be a success, which is why it is important to distinguish these two terms - the success of the campaign and the success of the project. To become successful it requires a lot effort and dedication. A good concept, adequate preparation, and an existing community to support it are very important. Every crowdfunding platform, such as Kickstarter or Indiegogo, has tips in order to make it easier for the users to make the campaign efficient. Furthermore, there are variety of tips and texts from 'online society' that mainly come to the same conclusions. Engaging with the audience, capturing the media attention, using social networking as a way of promoting the project, having adequate rewards for the donors, having a professional approach to the project and to the campaign are only some of the advices given. However, even the completion of all of the above does not necessarily bring success. What makes it more interesting is that if the campaign fails, the project can turn out to be successful.

Benefits and Risks

Crowdfunding is an excellent way for creators to raise a capital, but also to receive exposure they need in order to verify, execute, and help their projects grow. That is why, when talking about the success of the project, failing to raise the funding does not necessarily mean unsuccessful campaign. Success is much more complicated in terms of the campaign, since it offers more than just desired funding. That being said, crowdfunding campaign is not only a fund raising campaign; it can also be a mean to introduce broader audience to the project, and to advertise it without spending resources on the advertisement, as the Illo: Birth of the Cool showed. It has the potential to go viral on social media, while attracting the interest of more traditional media outlets. It affords an unbelievable networking opportunity. Just putting project out and promoting the campaign on social media and getting press can get real investors who otherwise may not have heard about the project. A crowdfunding campaign can also answer to real investors, whether project has what it takes to give them a return on investment. It helps to show there are others who believe in the project. Even if the campaign doesn´t raise it´s goal, it still makes possible to show investors that a certain project has received sufficient market validation. On the other hand, it can be a medium to include public in the project and to create a certain community around it, as Marina Abramovic did with Marina Abramovic Institute. Of course, the main reason to start a campaign is fundraising and with that in mind, crowdfunding can be risky. As shown in the statistical analysis of the categories, only 44% of the campaigns turn out to be successful, in terms of fund raising. Since the crowdfunding community grows, number of the campaigns only becomes larger and some of the participants are famous individuals, as seen in the example The newest hottest Spike Lee Joint. Saturation of the community becomes a real problem, and standing out is harder than before. Since only small number of the campaigns is shown on the main page, advertising becomes a challenge, since not only the time but also finances should be invested in it. It can lead to a serious investment of recourses that in the end do not bring wanted result. Although, crowdfunding is not the answer for every organization, it does provide an alternative. When developed, executed and curated properly, crowdfunding campaign contributes to the success of the project on many different levels and should not be viewed solely though the criteria of capital.