9 Steps for Getting Kickstarter Dollars

These days, more Kickstarter campaigns are achieving success than we can keep track of. The iPhone-friendly Pebble watch earned $7.6 million more than its $100,000 goal. And the Galileo iPhone platform closed its Kickstarter campaign at $702,000, far surpassing its $100,000 goal.
Not to mention, Kickstarter recently reported it has raised $200 million from over 2 million backers.
How does one cash in (literally) on the Kickstarter craze? For starters, it helps to have a unique concept, wicked ambition and one unforgettable pitch. We've read all of Kickstarter's guidelines, FAQs and tips, and have researched testimonials from successful campaign alums to compile a set of tips that will help launch you into the Kickstarter hall of fame.
1. The Scope
Kickstarter projects are just that: projects. And Kickstarter has strict parameters to define a project. It's "something finite with a clear beginning and end." In other words, Kickstarter is not meant to help you earn money to launch a business. Rather, it’s about earning money to complete a finite goal, whether that’s releasing your band’s latest album, completing a book, etc.
Now, if that project just so happens to coincide with the launching of your business, so be it. However, don’t expect to use Kickstarter funds toward anything related to general business–you can use the money towards the development of your project and in paying the necessary people to get your work off the ground. So, set very specific and measurable project goals. Not only will Kickstarter approve your project, but potential backers will have a firmer understanding of what they’re funding.
2. The Timeline
One of the biggest factors to take into account is your project’s timeline. This will dictate how long your Kickstarter campaign should run and how long it will take to deliver the finished product.
You can set a Kickstarter campaign to run anywhere between one and 60 days. Keep in mind, however, that projects lasting 30 days or less have Kickstarter’s highest success rates. A project’s momentum climbs in the beginning and the end, but can lag during a too-long middle time period. Find a happy medium between your timeframe and your audience’s attention span.
A timeline is also important so that you can set mailing dates for your backers’ rewards, another essential piece of the Kickstarter experience. Be sure to give yourself enough time to complete your project once the Kickstarter campaign has been funded; that way, you won’t disappoint your backers with late or rushed rewards.
3. The Money
Once you have a clearly defined project, it should be relatively straightforward to define a funding goal. It’s as simple as putting together a budget.
Take into account the following: production, manufacturing, labor, packaging and shipping costs. Factor in your “salary,” too; if you’re using Kickstarter to help you complete a book, backers are paying for your time. (Just be sure to make that clear in your project description.)
The most important thing to remember is that Kickstarter uses an all-or-nothing funding model. If your project doesn’t reach its financial goal within the specified time period, you’ll receive no money. Therefore, don’t set the bar unreasonably high. On the other hand, if you’ve accurately budgeted the project and are fully transparent to potential backers, you should see healthy returns.
4. The Tiers
Hand-in-hand with your budget, you’ll need to determine the proper rewards to return to backers once the project is completed. Rewards are tangible returns for a backer’s money, and can vary widely from project to project. A popular example is rewarding your backers with something made by the project itself, like a copy of a newly recorded album.
Rewards are determined by different funding tiers. Let’s take the CD example: You might estimate that a backer who pledges $20 deserves a copy of the CD. However, if a backer pledges $50, maybe he or she receives a signed copy of the CD. And if he pledges $100, it’s two signed copies plus a concert ticket.
Kickstarter data shows that the most popular pledge is $25, but the average pledge is around $70. Kickstarter also shares that projects with no reward succeed 35% of the time, while projects with a reward less than $20 succeed 54% of the time. Don’t be afraid to vary your pledge tiers widely to accommodate all budgets.
5. The Video
Kickstarter projects with a video component succeed at a significantly higher rate than those without (50 percent vs. 30 percent). So yes, a video is important. According to Kickstarter, this is what makes a killer vid:

• Tell us who you are.
• Tell us the story behind your project. Where'd you get the idea? What stage is it at now? How are you feeling about it?
• Come out and ask for people's support, explaining why you need it and what you'll do with their money.
• Talk about how awesome your rewards are, using any images you can.
• Explain that if you don't reach your goal, you'll get nothing, and everyone will be sad.
• Thank everyone!

Finally, be sure that your video thumbnail is strategic, inviting and piques the visitor’s curiosity. Consider featuring a prototype or a design element. After all, it’s the first image people will see when they visit your project page.
6. The Project Page
Now that you’ve defined your project’s parameters, it’s time to communicate them to potential backers and supporters. Kickstarter emphasizes the most important thing to remember is to be transparent at all times.
That means clearly defining your project’s scope and how you will achieve your goal. It’s also imperative that you explain precisely how you plan to use backers’ money.
Then, explain why you are the best person, company or group to complete this project. Why is your team qualified? What are your past experiences and accolades? Also, create a sense of urgency and timeliness–why do people need this project right now?
Remember to be concise but thorough. Ask yourself, "What questions would people have about my project before pledging money and support?"
7. The Community
Now that you’re ready to launch your project, it’s time to call on your community. Kickstarter recommends tapping your social media followers, but advises a gentle approach. Don’t spam your friends and goad your followers with self-promotion. Consider several different kinds of outreach so as not to overload one network.
And remember: Your community isn’t enough. Consider drafting a pitch document for media coverage, no matter how small the outlet. And ask for help from your local community so they can share in the success–pass out fliers in local businesses and make nice with your town’s radio DJs.
An often overlooked tactic is to tap your backers’ networks, too. Once a person supports your project, he or she is obviously invested in its completion. So ask backers to share the project among their communities.
8. The Updates
Your backers are the lifeblood of your project. They deserve to be updated frequently and thoroughly, as if they were on the team alongside you.
You may choose to either make updates public, or share them privately to backers. To make them feel invested, consider e-mailing updates that include video and photos of your progress, important milestones and team events.
9. The Rewards
A project’s completion means you need to start mailing backers their rewards. You’ll be able to send backers a survey upon completion of your Kickstarter campaign, in which you can ask them to provide their contact information and other requests (T-shirt size, color preference, mailing address, etc.) Kickstarter offers a spreadsheet tool to help you keep all of this information organized.
Staying organized is key. Many Kickstarter alums share that the most challenging part of the process was meeting the mailing dates for rewards. But the process should be pretty straightforward, as long as you account for every step of the process: collecting surveys, calculating shipping costs based on package weight and backer location, purchasing supplies, printing shipping labels, packaging, transporting and finally mailing your rewards.

08:01 by Robert dawne · 0

iPhone Documentary Takes on Syria: Is This the Future of Journalism? [VIDEO]

An anonymous undercover reporter for Al Jazeera has captured the Syrian uprising in a first-of-its-kind-documentary — recorded on an iPhone.
The 25 minute documentary, “Syria: Songs of Defiance,” aired on Al Jazeera’s show People & Power earlier this month. Al Jazeera has not released the reporter’s name for safety reasons. (Check out the video at the end of this post.)
The anonymous reporter states the reason he used his iPhone at the beginning of the documentary. “Because taking a camera would be risky, I brought my cell phone with me as I moved around the country,” he says.
Syrian activists have been uploading YouTube videos of protests and sending out phone calls to media outlets for more than a year now, understanding what exactly has been happening in the country from citizen journalism alone has proved difficult.
Though the Syrian government recently adopted a U.N.-backed ceasefire plan, the violence continues. According to Al-Jazeera “there was no sign of any risk-free demonstrations” as of Friday.

That’s why the reporter’s use of his iPhone is a huge feat — though an incredibly dangerous one. Had he been caught, he might have faced brutal retaliation. The Syrian government banned iPhone usage last December.
Here are four reasons why it was essential for the reporter to go undercover and use a mobile device.
1. Language. Many of the videos that activists have uploaded don’t have narration. In this undercover report, the context that the reporter provides — in English — makes it accessible to audiences worldwide. Subtitles are used for footage documented in Arabic, whether they be interviews with civilians or translations of the songs that protestors sing.
2. Audience awareness. At the beginning of the documentary, audiences can see several unidentifiable objects. They are very familiar to Syrian protestors, but most people who will watch this documentary will probably have never seen them before. Right away, the reporter asks the essential question: “What am I looking at?”
It turns out those objects are “thumb bombs.” They can’t hurt anyone, according to the activist showing them to the reporter, but protesters use them as alerts, to test security and warn those who haven’t entered the revolution yet.
3. Perspective. Syrians have been experiencing the protests for more than a year, so explanations of the significance of these demonstrations hardly ever emerge in their footage. However, with the reporter well-aware of his audience — and being an outsider himself — he can offer a Tocqueville-like perspective. Take this example:

I was walking through Homs and sniper fire started, and I was the only one in the crowd that actually flinched. And a father with his kids was standing by the door and they were sort of laughing at me and pointing, saying ‘why don’t you fall on the floor while you are at it?’
It’s amazing how Syrians, who never heard gunfire because they lived in a very peaceful country, have gotten used so quickly to living in a state of war, how to respond to it. They’ve very quickly become a mobilized revolutionary society, whereas before they had no experience of doing this.

As New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof recently pointed out in an interview regarding KONY 2012, “One thing we know intellectually is that it helps to have a bridge character, that Americans don’t just want to focus on somebody abroad.”
4. Form. In the same way that the videos Syrians upload offer a raw, visceral look at the situation, the imagery from the reporter’s iPhone — not always of the best quality, prone to shaking — gives a perspective that large, professional cameras don’t always capture.
Given the circumstances the reporter is covering as well, a polished, glossy video simply would not make sense. In fact, it might take away from the understanding the documentary is trying to convey.
However, one thing that distinguishes this iPhone documentary from other mobile-captured footage on Syria is editing. The inclusion of music, cutting from one shot to another and positioning clips of interviews side-by-side before zooming in on one specific shot — these editing details provide a more stylized look at the entire situation, which is not something one finds in most Syrian YouTube coverage.
Because the majority of Al Jazeera’s footage itself is from the iPhone, the rawness of the actual situation in Syria — and what that means — doesn’t seem to be compromised.
Of course, this stylized editing is a resource that media outlets have, and a luxury for most people documenting the situation on the ground. But, it speaks volumes of the capacity that journalists have to make the situation in Syria come alive for the rest of the world — which, arguably, has been a battle in itself for the past year.
What do you think of this iPhone documentary? Will mobile devices become the default eyes and ears for reporters? Let us know in the comments.
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

18:33 by Robert dawne · 0

New iPad Pre-Orders Now Shipping On March 19

As it was the case with the iPad 2, the iPhone 4S (and pretty much every device Apple announces), pre-orders are now being shipped a little bit later for people that were not quick enough (or unlucky) to secure a unit in time.

While this doesn't necessarily mean the new iPad is out of stock, it might be a good indication that sales, as usual, were solid. If initially, pre-ordered tablets were shipping on March 16, those that only now decided to grab one will get it earliest on March 19.

On the same note, Apple has started shipping initial pre-orders for the new iPad. Those who managed to place one on March 7, the event day, are now receiving notifications; delivery day, via FedEx, is scheduled for March 16, the launch day.

Apple announced the new iPad on March 7 and it brings an improved A5X chip, a "Retina Display", better camera sensor and lens, more memory as well as 4G LTE capable radio.

13:32 by Robert dawne · 0

iOS 5.0.1 Bug Allows Very Persistent Villain To Access Contacts

An iOS 5 bug allowed pictures to be displayed on a password-protected iPhone if the time on the device was set to an earlier time and date than the real timestamp of the pictures. A new security flaw has been discovered, this time on iOS 5.0.1, but it takes a very persistent villain several tries to get passed the lock screen.




In theory, the password protected iPhone must have a missed call. Swiping the missed call notification in an area without network coverage, or by removing the SIM card from the phone, could expose, after several attempts, the entire Contact list together with Favorites on the device. Luckily this is highly unlikely to happen because you have to leave the hacker alone with your phone and a SIM card eject tool for quite a long time. Check out the video below and see how many attempts it takes to replicate the bug.

08:41 by Robert dawne · 0

Google Wants a 2.25% Cut of Every iPhone Sale

Looking to earn back some of the $12.5 billion it’s spending to buy Motorola Mobility, Google sent a letter to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers looking for a maximum 2.25% cut of sales for phones that use Motorola’s technology, including Apple‘s iPhone.
The letter, which went out to the IEEE on Wednesday, outlines Google’s position on Motorola patents if and when the proposed takeover is executed. (Reports say it could happen next week.) Most striking was Google’s insistence on continuing to enforce a 2.25% fee on iPhones based on the model’s use of Motorola patents.
Google’s stance comes about two weeks after Motorola Mobility filed a lawsuit against Apple accusing the company of infringing on its technology patents. Motorola’s complaint, filed in a Florida federal court, concerns patents for the iPhone 4S and Apple’s iCloud service.
Patents has proved to be a key issue for Google and likely a primary impetus for the Motorola Mobility acquisition. That bid came after a very public spat this summer between Google, Apple and Microsoft over patents.
Google fired the first salvo in early August by using its Official Blog to kvetch about an “organized campaign by Oracle, Apple and other companies, waged through bogus patents.” The post, by David Drummond, Google’s senior vice president and chief legal officer, went on to accuse Apple and Microsoft for being “in bed together” in an attempt to hurt Google’s business via patent claims.
Though Apple stayed above the fray, Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith took to Twitter to point out that Microsoft had invited Google to jointly bid on patents from Novell. Frank X. Shaw, Microsoft’s lead of corporate communications, also posted a letter from Kent Walker, Google’s general counsel, refusing Microsoft’s invitation regarding the Novell patents.

The iPhone 4S looks and feels exactly like the iPhone 4.

The most important new feature of the iPhone 4S is Siri, a voice-controlled "Intelligent Assistant" that can complete tasks based on natural language. Ask it what the weather is like today and it will respond with details.

08:42 by iliot Atlas · 0