So, this article has gone around and gotten attention. It’s an interesting topic, understanding the factors that contribute to a project raising its startup funding from “the crowd” successfully, but I want to take a moment to divert on to a tangent for a bit, and take issue with their definition of “Kickstarter success”.
This is important, because if Kickstarter is to succeed at changing the world, we need to make sure we don’t mistake “funding success” with “project success”.
Seriously, this is really, really important.
Funding success is, like, maybe the third or fourth step in a project — far from the final one. Project success is what really counts. You have to do the work. You have to deliver your product. Only then can we decide whether the project was a success.
Yeah, it’s really cool that people liked your idea enough and in such numbers that you got to raise enough money to hit your goal and actually collect that money. Don’t you dare think of the Kickstarter as “successful” at this point! The project is only beginning. When you deliver the product that you promised, then you can make a claim to success.
But finishing isn’t even success. Not really. If you completed the project, but went way over budget, or delivered so late that no one cared and everyone now hates you, your Kickstarter won’t be remembered as successful. If the end results are of poor quality, no one will call that successful. If you don’t set yourself up for your next successful project by building on the success of the last successful project, whatever success you do attain will be quickly forgotten.
It’s only natural for people to celebrate reaching an important milestone, but don’t confuse your funding milestone with the finish line. Stop calling funded Kickstarter projects “successful” until they are.
If you don’t? Well, you’ll be deluded. And the project owners will be deluded people with a big pile of money. And big, probably fragile egos.
You’ll feel like you had the meal when you merely looked at the menu. Getting your money up front, I’m sure, feels wonderful. But don’t let it go to your head. You need to show us results. I worry the exuberance everyone feels from a project getting successfully funded will make people forget about delivering the results and making a successful product. The focus will be on the run up and the party that happens when the “success” of reaching the funding target happens. There’s a long, not very sexy period of working your ass off that comes after this point, and if you allow yourself to get too high on the “success” of having all that money you said you needed to attain your dream, you might just forget about the dream.
And then we’ll have scandals and repercussions. And the good will of the crowd will dry up. You don’t want to ruin that trust, because once it is ruined, regaining it will not be easy. Please don’t diarrhea into that swimming pool full of money.