> Contrary to what many people think, people don’t find new projects through Kickstarter
This is a major failing of KS and one that I simply cannot understand why they don't fix. Project discovery is horrible.
I am mostly interested in technology projects. One look at the projects I've supported makes this very obvious. Yet, for some unbelievable reasons I keep getting these "what's new on Kickstarter" emails promoting art projects. Sorry, I enjoy art but I have nearly zero interest in most arts projects on KS (I did back one a long time ago).
This also means that I completely miss out on some projects unless I read about them elsewhere or laboriously browse through KS to try and decipher what's new. The second part is another failing.
The website is not designed for easy discovery. I couldn't care less about their staff picks. They don't have enough people to cover the range of tastes and interests out there. What I want to see are tools to list projects based on various sorted criteria of my own choosing. "Popular this week" is also horrible.
For example, I want to visit the site today and list technology projects in chronological order with the newest project at the top of the list. Add a layer to that and allow me to, perhaps, filter by keyword or some other criteria. Let me discover what's new on my own.
Then, once I've created a search and sort criteria, let me subscribe to email updates based on that criteria. eBay does this pretty well and, therefore, promotes discovery without members having to actively spend hours browsing the site every n days in order not to miss out on bargains.
There's also a missing layer when it comes to helping campaigns succeed. I've seen campaign that failed but raised a fair amount of money. Because I never learned of the project I did not have an opportunity to support it. I would imagine this is the case for thousands of people who, like me, are too busy to remember to check KS every Monday (or whatever). Their lack of discovery tools damages project owners by not allowing them to reach the entire KS addressable market for their project.
Further to that, KS is also failing at connecting the dots. If someone is consistently supporting tech gizmos for photography it is likely that they'll appreciate a quick email when someone posts a new project in that domain. This would create instant traction for a lot of projects that are never discovered until it is too late.
Anyhow, I enjoy Kickstarter but really can't understand why they don't seem interested in doing a better job. I know they started it more as a destination for art projects and that's what they try to promote. Well, like it or not, they make most of their money off other kinds of project --mostly technology from what I can see. Isn't it high time that they accept reality and make major site improvements in order to reflect the patterns their audience exhibits?
At some level there's a huge opportunity here to do this really well by helping project originators reach an audience as well as supporters discover that which they are interested in. Do this really well and people should flock to the solution. From an entrepreneurial standpoint nothing is harder than marketing and reaching an audience. KS is squandering the data they have and forcing project originators to almost start from zero for every project, despite the massive audience KS could reach with one email.
The impression I get from their various press releases and comments is that Kickstarter is not really interested in the tech gizmo scene. They're kind of pushed it away by some of the rules they've added.
I'm also not sure they're making most of their money off of technology. Look at KS's 'Most Funded' page [1]. Sure, the projects about delivering A Tech Toy are generally making more. The Pebble's the only thing to break 10,000k. But scroll down a bit and the highest movie made 5,000k.
In fact, if you go look at the stats on their page summing up 2012[2], 'technology' is #5. Behind games, film/video, design, and music. What would happen if KS dropped the tech category? Hell, let's be aggressive and drop the game category too. All its big projects are pretty technical.
Games + tech pulled in $112,118k. People pledged $319,786k across all categories that year. So technology AND games pulled in about 1/3 of their pledges. Not too bad. But most of that was from games. Drop the gizmos, and they're only dropping $29,000k in pledges. (KS takes 5% of all pledges, so that's only about $1,450,000 out of $15,989k they'd be losing in terms of income.)
I think KS is doing the exact opposite of a pivot: the market found a use for their idea they didn't like, and instead of rebuilding things to make that easier, they're digging in their heels and insisting that it should only be used their way. Which is often a recipe for disaster, but not in the case of Kickstarter - it's clear there's a pretty good revenue stream solely in being the man in the middle of crowd-sourced art grants. Which is what they built the site to do.
As to whether or not they should be sending out smarter auto-generated mail based on what you've backed, whether or not they should let you build smart filters, I dunno. All I can say is that as a comics creator, KS worked damn fine for me as is, and I'm pretty confident it'll work equally well for the campaign I'm about to launch in a week or so.
I wish for the same features you describe, both as a creator and backer. That said, they have a very specific vision for their company and business, and have decided not to follow the money when it points them away from that vision. Hats off to them for that.
That might be true, but their UX remains broken even for people who do support their vision. I have backed plenty of quirky, art, or dance projects and I love backing those people even for no reward. Kickstarter have all the data in my profile. It would be quite possible for them to point me at non-commercial, small-scale artists but they just don't do that. Instead the thing most close to something useful is the Popular feed from the various categories. But it takes a lot of clicking and is not very useful anyway. There are a lot of projects I would have loved to back that reached the end date without me knowing. Kickstarter are leaving money on the table, not just for them, but for the artists they host as well and that's a pity.
> Kickstarter are leaving money on the table, not just for them, but for the artists they host as well and that's a pity.
That's exactly my point. I have been working on a tech project that is currently slated to go on KS. I find myself wondering if a site like indiegogo might be a better idea. KS does not help with discovery. I don't have a huge network. I woild prefer a service that actively informs it's userbase of relevant projects based on their profile. This would have a multiplicative effect on gathering supporters. I, too, have experienced coming upon a KS project of great interest to me only to learn time had run out. Multiply this by thousands of people and you have a situation that is far less than ideal for project originators and backers alike.
I wish they would clearly state their vision. If they don't want me as a backer or project creator that's fine. I simply don't understand making things so unnecessarily difficult in this day and age. From the outside it looks like they just don't care.
Unlike you I don't respect this position. If they want to be about art but happen to be making their money with tech, then have the balls to focus on art and make 5% of the money they are making now (or less). That would be sticking to their vision. Instead they make money on tech and promote art, even to those who have zero interest in the segment. That's not sticking to your vision. That's hypocrisy.
This is a major failing of KS and one that I simply cannot understand why they don't fix. Project discovery is horrible.
I am mostly interested in technology projects. One look at the projects I've supported makes this very obvious. Yet, for some unbelievable reasons I keep getting these "what's new on Kickstarter" emails promoting art projects. Sorry, I enjoy art but I have nearly zero interest in most arts projects on KS (I did back one a long time ago).
This also means that I completely miss out on some projects unless I read about them elsewhere or laboriously browse through KS to try and decipher what's new. The second part is another failing.
The website is not designed for easy discovery. I couldn't care less about their staff picks. They don't have enough people to cover the range of tastes and interests out there. What I want to see are tools to list projects based on various sorted criteria of my own choosing. "Popular this week" is also horrible.
For example, I want to visit the site today and list technology projects in chronological order with the newest project at the top of the list. Add a layer to that and allow me to, perhaps, filter by keyword or some other criteria. Let me discover what's new on my own.
Then, once I've created a search and sort criteria, let me subscribe to email updates based on that criteria. eBay does this pretty well and, therefore, promotes discovery without members having to actively spend hours browsing the site every n days in order not to miss out on bargains.
There's also a missing layer when it comes to helping campaigns succeed. I've seen campaign that failed but raised a fair amount of money. Because I never learned of the project I did not have an opportunity to support it. I would imagine this is the case for thousands of people who, like me, are too busy to remember to check KS every Monday (or whatever). Their lack of discovery tools damages project owners by not allowing them to reach the entire KS addressable market for their project.
Further to that, KS is also failing at connecting the dots. If someone is consistently supporting tech gizmos for photography it is likely that they'll appreciate a quick email when someone posts a new project in that domain. This would create instant traction for a lot of projects that are never discovered until it is too late.
Anyhow, I enjoy Kickstarter but really can't understand why they don't seem interested in doing a better job. I know they started it more as a destination for art projects and that's what they try to promote. Well, like it or not, they make most of their money off other kinds of project --mostly technology from what I can see. Isn't it high time that they accept reality and make major site improvements in order to reflect the patterns their audience exhibits?
At some level there's a huge opportunity here to do this really well by helping project originators reach an audience as well as supporters discover that which they are interested in. Do this really well and people should flock to the solution. From an entrepreneurial standpoint nothing is harder than marketing and reaching an audience. KS is squandering the data they have and forcing project originators to almost start from zero for every project, despite the massive audience KS could reach with one email.