Kickstarter Stats - Project Success By Category

Popular crowdfunding site releases project statistics page.

The first thing I did with the new Kickstarter data was to throw it into a spreadsheet and generate some graphs. This graph is an analysis of project success rate by category. It's clear from the graph that some categories are much harder to achieve success in than others. (Click on the image to get a bigger image).

Of keen to most everyone is that technology and publishing are below the average by more than 10% points, each with 28.8% and 31.86.  In simpler terms only 3 out of every 10 technology and publishing projects succeed.  I think it's fascinating that theater and dance have significantly better success rates out of all categories.

Kickstarter Stats

Why (some) Kickstarter campaigns fail.

Is 20% the Magic Number?

Seth Godin recently announced his entrance into the crowdfunding market with a new project "THE ICARUS DECEPTION: WHY MAKE ART?" It's no surprise that the project is already funded at +550%; meaning, the project succeeded in meeting and surpassing their $40,000 project goal. As usual, Seth did his research before launching his 1st project, in a recent post, he suggests that any project reaching the 60% is almost certain to hit 100%. Great job Seth!

According to the Kickstarter Stats Page, I'd say that most projects that fail, only raise between 0 and 20% of their goal; 83% of the failed projects never pass 20%. So I'd say if you can hit 20% of your goal, chances are. your project will be a success.  


I would assume, however, if you did hit 20% that you were executing well on your online marketing plan, extracting the most value possible from social media.  Every Kickstarter failure analysis I've read cites misuse of  social networking, or, to quote Seth, Failure to build a "bigger/louder/more influential tribe."

Collecting, Compiling, & Comparing Foundation Data

"Follow the evidence."

Which foundations raise the most $$$?

I've come to a critical juncture of my class preparation.  One of the things some reviewers expressed interest in seeing was an apples to apples foundation comparison.  So I've already collected the financial data for six popular free culture foundations, now I've got to compile them into a database so I can graph and compare them.

I've seen most of the data when I collected it, but that was only briefly.  I still have to plug everything in and produce the graphs.  I'm certainly hoping the story I saw in the data is confirmed by the data.  I'll borrow Gil Grissom's famous line "Follow the evidence," except in this case it's "Follow the data."

In order for graphs or any type of visual statistical analysis, without the raw data, they are almost meaningless.  Unless I can grab the data and reproduce the graphs myself, it's only a hypothesis.  The evidence, the data,  must agree with the hypothesis.

Banner Bling

What's that? Oh yes, yes it is some new banner bling atop the homepage.

I've added one of the banners O'Reilly provides speakers to help promote their session. Many thanks to the entire conference management team over at O'Reilly.  It really is an honor to work with such a supportive organization.  Together, I think we'll make this year's O'Reilly Open Source Conference, the best ever.  Enjoy!

Call For Participation

I just placed this call to action on the O'Reilly Broadcast Blog: "Call For Participation."

For anyone who has already registered for this year's OSCON, and have selected my tutorial "How to Organize and Fund Free Culture Projects," I cordially invite you to self-identify yourself so we can work together to make the tutorial everything you need it to be.

How to Connect

Dig in on the project's newly completed website, where you'll find out the status of the "How to Organize and Fund Free Culture Projects" tutorial and a multitude of opportunities to become involved. For instance, the first section of the slides are already available over on SlideShare. I'm wrapping up the second section of slides and then I'll be be able to start sharing more of the key graphs from the tutorial. It's going to be pretty active up until July 16.

Don't forget to join the Financing Freedom project to stay abreast of all the latest news.

Top Posts

For the duration of the project, I'll be monitoring closely the top posts, and sharing them on the right side bar.

Sharing a smile

I think it's important to share with the community what they have selected with their views as the top posts. In the fire hose stream of information that passes by our smartphones, tablets, televisions, billboards, and computer screens every day; it's easy to miss something.

Closing the loop and providing metrics to a project helps provide the transparency and a sense of momentum that engenders trust.

Platform Sweet Platform

New social engagement platform is finished.

I think I removed any last references to the old addresses.  So it's official!  Financing Freedom is home on my Web2.0 platform Fanz.ly.  I've got to extend the platform and tie in a few other tools, but most of the heavy lifting is done. It feels good to be home.

Always be Shipping!

Version Three of Financing Freedom

Three

New updated slides are available!

I wrapped up the next version of the first section.  The slides are available on SlideShare.  At this point, I think this is a final draft for section one.  I'm focusing on fleshing out section two, right now. Please feel free to download a copy of the slides for "How to Organize and Fund Free Culture Projects"

I'll be working on the timing of the slides I have so far.  The About Financing Freedom page has a nice breakdown on the tentative agenda. I've broken the tutorial into two sessions (per the O'Reilly guidelines), each session is one hour and thirty minutes long.

To give me some flexibility and to ensure a well-paced class, I've broken each of the sessions into 30 minute blocks.  That will give me two intermediate time targets each where I can adjust for, you know, life.

The KickStarter Bible

During my researching of fundraising, I came across this hidden jewel. From the eBooks web post:

"If you're thinking about crowdfunding anything, it's [The KickStarter Bible] worth a look for its detailed discussion of what to consider from start to finish. It includes a number of interviews with folks who ran successful campaigns but it's also quite useful for its discussion of campaigns that failed."

I won't be able to review this before the final set of slides are due. I've got the basics for now. But if you're ready to go for it, read this free eBook!

Four Crowd-funding Mistakes

Key failure traits from un-funded projects using crowd-funding. From Inc. Magazine,

1. You didn't nail the presentation. 
2. You didn't ask for enough. 
3. You didn't put enough work into working the crowd. 
4. You failed to put your eggs in different baskets.

Again, mastery of marketing using all forms of media is one of the key failure points.  While Internet and Social Media are the easiest and most cost effective, project leaders need to use every medium available.

Test Granularity

An optical illusion. Square A is exactly the same shade of grey as square B. See demonstration. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In testing assumptions, I consider it very tricky determining just how granular I will need data. I could throw every in bit.ly and see what sticks or just focus on the key metrics:
- Sales
- Follows
- Participation.

I think I can manage with just those, but if I can't resolve any assumptions, then that will be the trigger that I need more detailed data.

Setting Open Source History Straight*

This infographic from ubuntuBuzz is an excellent summary of the state of FLOSS:

* that is if like completely ignore the FSF!

How to Fund Your Free Culture Project

Fail! Why Kick-Ass Kickstarters Don’t Get Funded

Killer Conclusion: The beauty of Kickstarter is that it forces a proof of concept before the product hits shelves. Though investors may be crestfallen over a project's failure, just imagine the pain of having sunk thousands of dollars along with the sweat equity of manufacturing, marketing, and fulfillment into a product that was doomed to fail.

Read the Seven P's of KickStarter Marketing at Wired.

FYI: This is an excellent rabbit hole I'd love to follow, but I don't have the time. What are the failure factors for KickStarter projects? Have there been any academic papers written on the topic?

Cycle Time - The Metric for Project Execution

How fast does your team produce new artifacts?  Blog posts, forum messages, check-ins, anything that can be measured?  Whether it is Eric Ries' Build-Measure-Learn, or any of a dozen other approaches, how quickly can you work through each step of your process and ship?

If your'e not moving, you're dying; losing momentum.  If you lose momentum, you are an interruption away from losing all of your momentum.

Head down, keep shipping.  Even when you're checking off just one task off of your infinite list. It is one step closer. It is movement.

Financing Freedom is Moving

Moving...

I'm in the process of migrating this blog to a new domain and hosting site. Soon Financing Freedom will be available from FinancingFreedom.com. I've got some key infrastructure things I need to get done, but it's top priority; Along with 10 other top priority tasks.

Many thanks to Marcos Polanco from ClearShore for the branding suggestion for this project.