Fellow Knodes social data nerd and crowdfunding afficianado Emma Larkins (twitter.com/emmalarkins) pulled together an amazing set of data about what people THINK is hard about crowdfunding and what we've learned can be done to achieve success. We did this in response to people using Knodes tech for crowdfunding outreach. We were curious. This paper is the intro to a larger research project that Emma is doing on what conditions create successful outcomes on Kickstarter, Indiegogo and other crowdfunding platforms. Follow her. Laud her. Love her. This is good stuff. Want help launching your project? http://try.kicksmarter.me/slideshare/

1. Why Crowdfunding
Is Hard - And How
To Do It Better
(Hint: recruit the right crowd. Early, and often.)
Crowdfunding is the new gold rush.
It opens up great opportunities for
prospectors willing to accept the risks,
but not without tons of challenges.
Here are some things to consider be-
fore you pack your donkey and head
into the wilderness.

2. Does It Work?
According to the data, the majority of
crowdfunding projects fail.
57% of Kickstarter Projects Fail
43% of Kickstarter Projects Succeed
Moreover, the majority of failures do so by
large margins.1
1 - 20%
Funded
27,753
(62%)
Number of Failed
Kickstarter 0%
Projects Funded 21 - 40%
9,111 Funded 41 - 99%
(20%) 5,257 Funded
(12%) 2,749
(6%)
Total
44,870
Launching a project only to see it miss its funding goal might make you feel like you’re stuck in
one of those horrible presentation-in-your-underwear dreams, and could result in the squan-
dered goodwill of supporters (both friends and strangers). Your project will take care and feed-
ing, but will be worth it.

3. What Stops a Good Project
From Succeeding?
Sure, there are projects on Kickstarter and other crowdfunding
platforms that just shouldn’t be funded, like this documentary
on Juggalos. Ew. But there are also tons of great projects that Maybe the
don’t end up getting the resources they deserve. These are proj-
ects that might have ended up entertaining us, motivating us, rewards were
or dramatically impacting our economy, technology, or society.
poorly chosen, or
So what went wrong? Maybe the rewards were poorly chosen,
or perhaps the video was too long. Did the project owner de- perhaps the video
scribe the product or project clearly? Did she talk to the right
people about the right things at the right time? Did he provide was too long.
updates that were highly shareable? Did she wait until the last
week to make her big push for support?
How Can You Improve Your Chances For
Success BEFORE Your Project Starts?
The fact that you’re reading this puts you ahead of the pack when it comes to starting out on the right foot.
You’re doing the legwork to make sure that your project starts out and finishes the same way: strong. We’ve got
some insights to help.
We’ve researched the Kickstarter-related conversations people are having on Facebook and Twitter, and it turns
out there are at least three major areas of anxiety before the project even launches:
1. Defining the project (storytelling, rewards, etc)
2. Creating content for the project (Shooting video? How long? Pictures? Graphs? Updates?)
3. Building support for the project (Who to ask? How frequently? What channels?)
These are all important, but defining and creating assets for your project are pointless if you don’t build the right
support. We’ve found some good resources around #1. & #2., and Kickstarter itself has a solid primer here.

4. Building the right supporters
from the beginning
Unfortunately, there aren’t many tools or resources available
to make your supporter outreach effective. A lot of people start
target the out with an “if I build it, they will come” mentality, and when
that doesn’t work, turn to aggressively bombarding – and of-
individuals... who ten overwhelming – their social networks. It makes much more
sense to target the individuals within your extended networks
are most likely to who are most likely to want to help you – either because they
like you, or because they’re really interested in the merits of
want to help you. your project.
With these invested, enthusiastic early adopters in hand, you
stand a much better chance of getting the strong, initial sup-
port-base that is key to determining whether you make it across the finish line. To do this well, you can’t think
of your network as a black hole into which you throw requests and pray for responses. Instead think of it as a
data-rich, intricate web of hundreds (or thousands) of people who have different reasons for caring about you
or your project. The key to optimizing your outreach is to figure out which of these folks listen to you when you
post, respond to you when you tweet, re-share your stuff, and click your links. But wait, there’s more! The steps
to make your network actually work look like this:
1. Understand who is likely to back the project.
2. Understand who is likely to back you.
3. Understand who is likely to spread your word.
4. Message according to role and always personally if possible.
You will, of course, augment this segmentation and personal messaging with public social media blasts, but hav-
ing a base of deeply invested early supporters is crucial.
If you think that deeply understanding your network might be of use, check out what we’ve already built for
private testing and stay tuned for more insightful research into what really makes crowdfunding succeed.
Brought to you by the social data nerds at Knodes.
Want to see what we’re working on? Check out http://try.kicksmarter.me/slideshare/
Sources:
1. “Kickstarter Stats”
Kickstarter. 7 Jan. 2013 <http://www.kickstarter.com/help/stats>