Video is so primal. When you can hear a person talking about the project, and can see his or her passion, it is unbelievably powerful. I don't want to make it seem like projects without a video fail.
Kickstarter was already up and going when I got the Fellowship. Spending time with the other Fellows was about camaraderie, and I talked to a lot of amazing and creative people.
We'd love it if everybody had a Kickstarter project. I believe that everyone has some kind of creative project that they think about - whether it's something small they'd like to do over a weekend with friends, or it's the film they've always wanted to make, whatever.
The kind of system Kickstarter uses has been used for hundreds of years. Unlike Medici-style patronage, where the richest people in town give large amounts of money, Kickstarter's system relies on the general public for funding projects, and rewards those backers.
I don't consider myself a social entrepreneur, but I'm thrilled to be doing good, if that's what I'm doing.
For most of the people who have a lot of success, it's because they were the ones who didn't quit. It's not necessarily because it was just laid out for them. It won't apply to all cases, but I think it's pretty good advice.
I remember early on, in the first couple of years especially, I would run into some people that would try to put Kickstarter under the 'social good' label. And I actually had this very visceral reaction - I just didn't like that at all.
Kickstarter has been such a heads-down thing.
I'm born and raised in New York. I've lived between New York and New Orleans for the last 16 to 17 years.
I wonder if people really know what the definition of crowd-funding is. Or, if there's even an agreed upon definition of what it is.
