Stuff You Should Know - How Kickstarter Works

Episode Date: November 25, 2014

With billions of dollars raised, Kickstarter has singled itself out as the go-to site for creative crowdfunding. But not without some controversy along the way. Learn all about how this artistic business model operates in today's episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

attention bachelor nation. He's back. The host of some of America's most dramatic TV moments returns with the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison. During two decades in reality TV, Chris saw it all and now he's telling all. It's going to be difficult at times. It'll be funny. We'll push the envelope. We have a lot to talk about. Listen to the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. On the podcast, Hey Dude the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack

and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from howstuffworks.com. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry's over there and we're ready to kick this episode off for just one dollar. You can contribute to Stuff You Should Know. Yeah. Can I? No. We're free podcasts. That's why I get less patient with complaints. Yeah, right. It's a trade off. Yeah, it's free. Got some ads here and there. Live with it. Yeah. No, but I'm just kidding. We don't fundraise or crowdsource or crowdfund. No, we just

to put stuff out. We have corporate sponsorship. That's right. Not everybody does though. No, no. Not all creatives do have corporate sponsorship and so luckily since what 2009 there's been something to help people like that out. Artists, creatives who want to get a project underway but can't do it. Yeah. It's called Kickstarter. They don't have the funds. I'm a big fan of Kickstarter. Yeah, it's pretty cool. I remember when it came out I was like this is going to revolutionize independent artists because one of the problems if you're an independent artist and you don't want to cow-tow to the man is to just do your own thing because the future is now as far as accessibility to equipment and you can make a movie right there in your own neighborhood and

home. Right. Yeah, it's true. There's been a DIY spirit. Yes, if you have the skills it's important. Well, there's always been that DIY spirit but it's just the accessibility this equipment is like never before. Right. They've caught up to one another. Yeah, it's cheaper. You don't have to get film developed. You can edit off your laptop. Yeah. It's all there for the taking except that it still costs money. Yeah, actors didn't come free. Nope. That's one thing. So, locations. Right, exactly. Wardrobe like craft services. Sure, you got to have some peanuts and coffee. And that's just for a movie. There's also theaters. Sure. There's music. Yeah, I want to travel the world and photograph all the remaining rhinoceros. I don't know. I think

rhinoceroses. It's a photo book. It's a photo project about the rhinoceros. In felt. And I want to do that. You can do that. That's an art project. You can get funded. You can if everybody thinks that that's a good idea, which is the cool thing about Kickstarter. That's right. So, Chuck, let's talk a little bit about this. Right. Kickstarter is crowdfunding, which is a play on crowdsourcing, which is originally basically just tapping into the hive mind. Yeah, thanks to the internet. Right. There's a lot of people out there. If you take their collective brains or talents or thoughts or efforts together, put them together through the internet, you can do massive awesome things like wikipedia is originally or is an original great example of crowdsourcing. That's

right. Now, if you take all those people and say, hey, just hold on to your time. Hold on to your volunteering. Hold on to your effort. Just give me money instead. Yeah. That's crowdfunding. And Kickstarter is one of the better examples of it, but it's not the first. No, no. It's called micro patronage if you want to get specific. And it's been around since the mid 90s. Kiva.org. Yeah. We've done a podcast on micro lending and we have our own Kiva team. We've got a killer Kiva team that just surpassed 100,000 loans. Yeah. And we're coming up on $3 million in loans made. That's right. So if you're interested in helping out, I know we talk about it a lot, but it's been a little while. If you're interested in helping out a business owner,

either in the United States or abroad, you can do so at Kiva.org slash teams slash stuff you should know. That's right. And you can do it as a team. And it's just fun. So Kiva's one great example. DonorsChoose.org, I remember when that started, when teachers started posting projects for their school because schools are ridiculously underfunded and teachers had to ask the public to help pay for a field trip or something. Yeah. You know, I've seen waiting for Superman man. I saw it seen that. Oh, it's been on my list for years. Very rarely have I seen a documentary that just got my hackles up like that one. Yeah. It's really well done. Well, that's because can anyone make an argument that education isn't worth funding and supporting? No, but this, this,

this does just a great job of like getting all sides of the issue out. You got it. It's one of the best documentaries ever made. Yeah. Easy to see that. And that wasn't on my top documentary list because I hadn't seen it. Gotta see it. Oh, and also feedback on that. I want to say thank you very much to all the people who wrote in with suggestions in answer to my complaint that I've seen all the good horror movies. Oh yeah. Apparently I was wrong. Boy, we got a lot of good suggestions. Yeah, I can't wait to see some of them. Yeah. Most of them are foreign, it seems like. Hey, they're making the takes the whole world takes a global village to scare Josh. It does. Indie Go Go and Celeband were a couple of other other early crowdfunding sites for music and

movie making. I think Indie Go Go does lots of projects now though. Right. It's not just movies anymore. Yeah. Kickstarter has emerged as like the go to site for what's supposed to be creative projects. Yeah. Well, let's let's talk about this. In 2002, co-founder Perry Chen said, I want to do this concert here in New Orleans, but it costs a lot of money to throw a big concert. And let me talk to my partners, Yancey Strickler and Charles Adler and see if we could figure out a way how to do this. And they said, you know what, we know we can get people to donate a little bit of money to this thing. A lot of people, but how can we do that? You know, I think they met Perry Chen was waiting tables and was one of the other guys waiter. And they struck up a conversation about

this. I believe that's how Kickstarter got started. That's pretty cool. Yeah. So they had the idea obviously based on, like we said, Indie Go Go and some other crowdfunding sites out there to start Kickstarter in 2009. But they said, you know what, we're going to do exclusively creative projects. You can't raise money to like pay your rent or pay off your house or anything weird like that. And it wasn't, you can't just do like a vague plan or something like that. It had to be here is what I'm going to accomplish. Here's my project. Here is the end result. This is what it's going to be. Here's the timeline. I want to get this done within. And this is my Kickstarter project. Yeah. This is what I'm going to hopefully go get funded. My campaign. Yeah. But it's creative.

Yes. That's right. And they, you know, they wanted to differentiate themselves and be unique. And being creative only was one of the ways that they did that. Another way they did so was to, and I thought this was a stroke of genius. It's all or nothing. Yeah. This just makes sense now. Unless you get a hundred percent of your funding, you're not going to get any funding. And Kickstarter is only going to collect, of course they make money by collecting a little piece of it. Yeah. Five percent commission only if you reach that funding goal though, right? Which sets it apart from the crowd. And I think it's pretty genius. No, the whole reason is genius is this. If you are a creator and you have a project and you get

halfway to your goal, your monetary goal, and you take that money, you are obligated still to those people who gave you just half of the money you needed to create something. But what you're going to create is inherently inferior to what you would have created had you had all the money you figured out you needed for this project. So if you, if you can take less than all, you're going to set yourself up to make something that you're not proud of. Yeah. Or if you don't get funded, you might think, all right, well, maybe that wasn't the best idea. Or, you know, maybe go another route or say maybe that wasn't the best idea. Let me try something else. Which is like a crowdsourcing aspect of Kickstarter. You're also saying to the

hive mind, is this a good idea? Yeah. And the other cool thing about the hundred percent or nothing is as a donor or an investor, you know that what you're going to end up with is this finished a movie or this finished record album or this finished photo project. Right. It's not just going to be like, well, I just lost that $5 to something that was 30% funded. And I don't even know where, what I'm going to get out of it now. Right. You know, you're just basically like through a $5 bill into a buskers guitar case or something, you know. Yeah. Which is something you should do. Yeah. There's nothing inherently wrong with that. But the point of Kickstarter is there's a project that this person has approached you on and you have said that is worth $25 of my

money. Yeah. Even if I don't get anything back. Sure. I feel good about this project, not the fact that you're an artist in general. Right. Or you're a musician in general. This is this project that I'm investing in. That's right. Another interesting facet to Kickstarter is that they do offer rewards as a backer. Right. They require people to offer rewards. So it's not just, hey, you're going to feel good about yourself for supporting the arts in my finished movie. You're going to get a copy of the DVD or the CD, maybe signed by the artist. Right. Maybe it's a poster. Maybe it's a pin or a button for a $2 donation. Right. Or maybe it's lunch with me if you kick in $100,000. Or maybe you're the executive producer if you kick in all the money.

Right. Yeah. Or not all the money, but you know, they have different tiers set up. Yeah. And different rewards that align with those tiers. Yeah. The thing is that there's rules with this. Like you can't offer a financial stake in the project or equity. No. You can't say you kick in $25. Now you'll get $50 back when I sell this thing to, you know, Carol Co. Yeah. Film. You know, where'd you come up with that? That's a go to of mine. Carol Co. Yeah. Haven't they been out of business for like 20 years? They had a good logo. It glowed, I believe. And then the other, so when this, when this stuff is all done and up on Kickstarter, the, basically the creative has said, I'm responsible for two things. One, I will complete

this project. If I get funded fully, that means this project has to be done. Sure. I can't just take the money and run. No. Legally, I think they can. Oh, really? Yes. But I think the public shaming that would ensue, it would just not be worth it. That would be your only Kickstarter project. Exactly. Yeah. And then secondly, you have to fulfill whatever your rewards were. Right. And we'll get into the nuts and bolts about actually creating a Kickstarter project right after this. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack

and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting frosted tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL instant messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s.

Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikular, and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get second-hand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention. Because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast.

Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, cancelled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, so we said it has to be a creative project. What does that mean, Josh? Josh, I think if I fart the Star Spangled Banner on YouTube, that's a very creative project.

I can't believe you just used the F word. You know what? You probably could get that funded pretty easily. I totally could. And the key is- Eric Cooper would pay for that by himself. By himself. He would liquidate everything he has just as long as you did that. You're right. But the thing is, to get on the Kickstarter site, you have to get past the Kickstarter staff. And it's actually not just any Joe Schmo can come along and be like, I define creativity. Right. And as a matter of fact, there are definitions for what makes a creative project.

And then on the other end of that is the staff that has to look over a proposal and say, yeah, this meets our standards. Yeah, they define it on their website as art, comics, dance, design, fashion, film, food, games, music, photography, publishing, technology, and theater. And they admit that it is an ever-evolving definition because creative people are kind of wacky. And they'll submit things that walk the line that they'll have to decide, hey, it's Chuck Bryant guy. He's kind of a big podcaster. He wants to fart the Star Spangled banner on the front lawn of the White House.

Oh, man. That sounds pretty good to me. You could very easily get onto the front lawn of the White House these days, too. Oh, yeah? Yeah, you just jump the fence. Oh, nice. And start farting. So the thing is, I think in that sense, on that end of the spectrum, they're a lot more liberal.

Like, I don't think the Kickstarter staff is interested in saying that's art or I don't agree with that art. So that's not really art. Sure, yeah, yeah. What they're more concerned with is having basically becoming an as seen on TV website. Right. So the author of this article is Dave Ruse. He puts it like, it's a proposal for a project, not for a finished product. So it's not, hey, buy my DVD. It's, hey, invest in this project, and you'll get a DVD when it's finished.

Yeah. That's a huge distinction. Sure. Because if not, it would just be an online marketplace and Kickstarter suffers a lot of criticism because it's evolved in that way, but apparently they're cool with that to a certain degree. Yeah, there was one case, I think it was a couple of years ago for a watch band that held the iPod Nano. I remember when that came out. They wanted to raise $15,000 and they raised a million dollars.

That's the other cool thing about Kickstarter. I don't think we mentioned. If you go over, then great. Yeah. Good for you. But basically what happened was your $25 donation got you that watch band that you can now get online or Apple stores for 40 bucks. And they did take, you know, they took some flak for that saying, isn't this just a way to buy something before it comes out? Yeah, like it's pre-order. Pre-order. Yeah, pre-order. Is that what it's called?

Yeah. Pre-order this thing. Yeah. I know right now, I think the biggest success they've had is that cooler. The coolest cooler. Have you seen that thing? $13.285 million. And I think their original goal was like $50,000. Yeah. I mean, I remember when I first saw the little ad for this thing on Facebook,

it was awesome. I was like, man, that is one cool cooler. Yeah. It has like Bluetooth, a waterproof Bluetooth speaker. Yeah. It has a ice crushing blender built in. It is a cooler too. And again, like we said, like this is the crowd sourcing aspect of it. Like these people came up with the coolest cooler and the world said, yes, that product needs to come into existence. Yeah.

And they voted by saying, here is way more money than you need. And now, yes, it's basically a pre-order. Not only that, this company now can sell out to whoever they want to. Sure. And sell coolest coolers for the rest of eternity. Yeah. License it to Igloo or somebody. Right. Because it's not a gamble at all. It's already proven itself in the retail market.

So there's no gamble whatsoever. So they can just keep making them themselves or they can expand and attract outside capital. And it's all because Perry Chen and his fellow co-conspirators created this website that has all these dimensions to it, even though it's so simple. Sure. When placed into the context of the internet, it has complications, but also expansions. Yeah. For sure.

It's pretty cool. Even though there are products like that, over 60% of products that are successfully funded are music, film, and video. So that's a little off now. That's true, but it's flip-flopped some apparently. So this article, I think it was 2011. Yeah. From what I saw, the most popular, by far, as far as funded projects go, is film and video.

Yeah. Then music, then publishing, then art, and then games. Gotcha. Like what was games mean? There's a lot of role-playing games that get created on Kickstarter. It's another thing, too. It's a great marketplace for non-traditional stuff. Yeah. Like, yeah, you'd probably think of going on to Amazon to look for that.

And you might find something, too. But you're not going to find a game that doesn't exist yet on Amazon. Wow. I don't know. You just blew my mind. Thanks. I got a few more stats for you. These are current as of today.

1.38, is that a billion? Billion. Dollars pledged to projects, almost 73,000 successfully funded projects. By the time this comes out, it'll probably be past that. 18.5 million total pledges. Mm-hmm. I'm having trouble with my commas today. But that's basically the public saying,

we believe in donating small amounts of money to projects that we believe in. And I think that's great. I do, too. I think it's a pretty neat concept. So, we were talking about how odd Kickstarter can get sometimes. There's no dearth whatsoever of very weird Kickstarter's that have resulted in some pretty cool stuff, like Zach Danger Brown's Potato Salad. Oh, that guy.

He was looking for some money to just make Potato Salad one day and got wildly funded, well past his goal, and ended up holding Potato Stock in his town of Columbus, Ohio. And he made something like 350 or 450 pounds of Potato Salad. So, if you donated, you could come and eat this Potato Salad. Yeah. That was it. That was the Kickstarter. If that's not conceptual art, I don't know what is.

Is that how he categorized it? That's how I categorize it. Because food is a category, too. Maybe it was both. He straddled the line. The Food Art Project. They do, there are some tips we can give you though. Kickstarter successful Kickstarter, Kickstarterers.

Kickstarterers, what do they call themselves? Kickstarterers. Kickstarterers. Kickstarter people. Kickstarter people. They say that obviously you have to start with a very catchy, unique, fun, and or inspiring idea. Potato Salad is pretty inspiring. Well, that can be fun or catchy at least.

They say you should have a good story, because what you're going to do is you don't have to, but you're encouraged to make a video pitching your idea. Right. And if you've watched some of these, they're all usually just kind of off the cuff and tongue in cheek and fun and low budge. You know, you don't want to like look like you have a lot of money probably. Right. By making some big production.

And you want to appeal to someone. If you got a great story about why you're doing your project, then that's certainly going to help you get funded. Yeah. And that's one of the things about Kickstarter too is that you hear about the Potato Salad thing that became basically an internet meme. Sure. It became so popular. The coolest cooler you could find out about on Good Morning America.

You can really count the number of Kickstarterers on both hands. Maybe if you had a third hand, that would be helpful that you've heard about. If you're not like a Kickstarter donor, don't really go to Kickstarter. Right. Yeah. But that leaves 70,000 in chains that you've never heard of. Yeah. And that's the thing with Kickstarter.

You create your Kickstarter projects page. And the first thing you do is send it to family and friends. Yeah. Say, hey, you want to invest in this. And then you take it out to your social media contacts. And then if, if it is a really good idea, theoretically, it should take off on its own. Yeah.

It should just spread by word of mouth. Somebody should say, this is really cool. And I'm going to share it. And Kickstarter makes it easier for you to share. Well, I just sounded like I was pitching Kickstarter. I was just thinking, man, they should get in touch with us. But that video aspect, that in and of itself is very shareable. So if you can come up with a cool video to put on your Kickstarter page,

then that could easily be shared. And that's a really good way to make the rounds on social media, too. Yeah. They say that every successful campaign begins with an anchor audience is what they call it. It doesn't necessarily mean you have to have a popular podcast, although we could probably get something funded if we wanted to. Especially your idea. Yeah, exactly.

With the F word. Your anchor audience could be just your social circle, your friends and your family. Your rich uncle. Yeah, your rich uncle. I just got him first before I even went to Kickstarter to see what happens. But you should have a good anchor audience. If you're not on social media, if you don't have a solid support group in life, then unless you really catch on somehow, you're probably not going to get funded.

Yeah. Well, you should be relying on your idea and the catchiness of your pitch anyway. Yeah. But the fact that you have access to social media is probably a pretty big leg up over somebody who doesn't know how to use Twitter or Facebook, at least. Sure. You're not going to be left alone in your experience, though, because once you do get approved, you will be working with Kickstarter.

They're going to have a representative get in touch with you, and they're going to work with you and say, you know what, you might want to think about these rewards or your rewards aren't great, or maybe you should have these price points to tie into these rewards. They want you to succeed because they make their 5% if you succeed. Exactly. And then, you know, I'm sure they want to encourage the arts, too, because it's how it started. You know? Yeah.

But we're going to talk a little bit more about those reward levels and a little bit of math and some more controversies right at this break. On the podcast, HeyDude the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show HeyDude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use HeyDude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends,

and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting frosted tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL instant messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper,

because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to HeyDude, the 90s, called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikular, and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking.

You might not smoke, but you're going to get second-hand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention, because maybe there is magic in the stars. If you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in, and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology,

my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change, too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Math.

Maths, as they say in England. Yeah, and we used to say it here, too. Oh, really? Until I think the 19th century, and then we started saying, why are we saying it like that? When you say math, except Hodgman, Hodgman always says math. Yeah, he's got a little bit of the British in him. He likes to think so. All right, so the math of rewards levels.

They've done a little bit of tinkering just to kind of find out what succeeds and what doesn't. The $25 pledge is the most popular. Sure. About 18.4% of pledges are in the $25 range. $50 is the next most at close to 14%, and you know, that's if you set your levels, like you can have a dollar be your lowest donation level if you want. You're going to count on, you have to think about your audience. If you think I've got lots and lots of people, but they may not want to throw up a bunch of money,

throw in a bunch of money, then maybe I should do the dollar level. Well, plus also, you should sit down and think about exactly how much you need to achieve your project. Yeah, they say the minimum amount that you need. Right. And you really need to sit down and crunch the numbers. Oh, yeah. Yeah, let's say 20,000.

You need to crunch the numbers, know the minimum amount you need, because even if you threw a number out, you might find down the road like, oh man, this isn't actually enough. Yeah. So you want to take that number and then add, they suggest at least the 5% commission that they're going to take from it. Oh, yeah, never thought about that. Right.

But say your project is to eat a Chipotle burrito, a chicken burrito, and then describe its deliciousness on a graph. Yeah. You need eight bucks for that. And some guy did that. He set his goal for eight dollars. He made way more than that. I think he exceeded his funding by like 1300%, which is the record holder still.

Oh, come on. And he created a graph of the deliciousness of Chipotle chicken burritos and sent them out to like all 270 donors. Yeah. See, naysayers will say that's just a waste of everyone's time and money. Conceptual art. And you should donate that to some like important cause. But you know what?

It's their money. If people want to donate a dollar for that, then that's their right. You're right. You know what I'm saying? That's true, man. A hundred dollar pledges have the biggest impact on total dollars raised, but they make up less than 10% of pledges. And they recommend you get super creative with your prizes.

Make them really personalized. You know, if you're a filmmaker or any kind of creative artist, like a musician, would really help if you personally were offering something like a signed copy or maybe a phone call, leaving your voicemail outgoing message. Yeah. You know, something silly like that. A lot of people would donate to. Right.

And you put that in as like the highest possible goal. And they say that you don't, you're probably not going to get one of those. But why not put it out there in case somebody does want to shell out like 50 grand or something on something silly like that? Yeah. And a good idea is a good idea because 94% of successfully funded projects exceed their goals. Yeah. So that means if you're on to something, then you're going to get that money plus some.

But there have been some controversies, right? There have. So Veronica Mars was canceled. It was a TV show that was canceled. With stuff you should know, Mr. Kristen Bell. Right. And they brought it back. They said everybody wanted a movie.

And what's his name? Rob Thomas. Yeah. The guy from. From what? Matchbox Toronto. No, no, no. A different guy.

No, the great Rob Thomas. He did the TV show party down, which is my like. I got you. Okay. Top five all time favorites. Sure. Cool, cool dude then. Yes.

So he basically said, we're going to make a movie and we're going to use this Kickstarter thing to do it. And they did. They raised like five and five and a half million dollars for the movie just from Kickstarter. And I think it's the fifth most funded project in Kickstarter history. Oh yeah. Yeah. But there was some controversy with the way that they offered downloads.

Right. Apparently they use Flixster. Yeah. Which a lot of people are like, I don't use Flixster. I use iTunes or I use Amazon. Like just give it to me through that. I gave you guys money to go make this movie, give me the download the way I want to. So apparently he got in touch with the studio Warner Brothers, I think.

And they said, okay, we'll make this right. Right. Because he was saying like. The Alfred refunds, I believe. Because the idea was if you donated a certain amount, you got the movie within days of its theatrical release on your device of choice. Yeah. And he had a pretty good blog post.

And this is actually kind of a good indicator of what you're supposed to do on Kickstarter. You're supposed to post updates. Yeah, sure. After you reach your goal, like that's not that. You don't walk away and then come back when it's done. Right. Like you want to post updates about production. You just keep people involved.

He had a blog post when all of this hubbub was going on. He said, you know what? Like I'm really sorry. Said more than anything else, I want this day to be perfect for you guys. Because this is the day of the Veronica Mars movie that we've all wanted. Yeah. So long gets released. So it's supposed to be a great day.

So whatever you guys need, just get in touch with Warner Brothers, Customer Service, and they'll set it right. Nice. So it's a good example of handling controversy through Kickstarter. But it also kind of underscores the ownership that people who invest in Kickstarter projects feel in the final product. Yeah, for sure. Like they're like, hey man, I'm an investor in your movie.

I should be treated better than this. Yeah. And along with Zach Braff who raised about more than $2 million for his most recent film, which I was here, he got a lot of flack because he raised, like I said, over a couple of million bucks and then got another like $8 million or so from Worldview Entertainment, a film financier. And a lot of people said, hey man, that ain't cool. Like you basically said, you know, you don't have the money to do this yourself.

So you're going to raise the money via Kickstarter because you don't want to give up your final cut or your casting decisions to some film financier. Right. Like we understand that. Like you're avoiding the man and doing it all yourself. So here's some money and then you go to a film financier and they give you completion funds or finishing funds. Because all these people have already proven they're willing to pay money for it to see this made.

And he basically said, you know what, I'm not making some different movie. I still have Final Cut. I never said that wouldn't happen. And so he defended himself, I think fairly successfully. But a lot of people on the independent creation level hear about Zach Braf making a movie and they're just ticked off about the whole situation. They're like Kickstarter should be for the really the starving artist, not the guy who made a ton of money on scrubs who could either throw in his own money or get financing.

And he already had financing lined up. He said, and he bailed on it because they did want Final Cut. Right. So I kind of get both sides on this one. You know, yeah, like good for Zach Braf if he can find a way to do it without giving up Final Cut. Yeah. But I mean, he does he does serve as a cautionary tale. Like you don't change the terms after the Kickstarter's funded.

Yeah. And he says that he didn't. He said the whole time he said that he was going to take the Kickstarter funds, some of his own money and then get foreign distribution money to fill out the rest. And apparently that's what he said he did. Yeah. And again, though, if people wanted to donate to see another Zach Braf directed, written and directed film, then great.

But that's a separate issue. Like if he if he wants to come to Kickstarter and use it, then yeah, he's not going to. If he shouldn't be, or if people disagree with that, they're not going to fund it. If people do fund it, then it has nothing to do with you. Exactly. You know. So I found an interesting thing here from Cambridge University. They have some computer scientists that say they have found a way may have found a way to

direct your Kickstarter project to the right audience. They basically examined three months worse of worse of data from Kickstarter. A researcher named Jisun An and then plugged it into an algorithm after they found two categories, basically frequent investors and occasional investors, occasional funders built an algorithm to say which projects attracted which type of funder. And what they came up with was the following. If you are a frequent funder, you're more likely to fund projects where that displays good management.

Like if you like you said, if you're frequently updating the page, if it's really well-designed, and it makes sense, kind of like someone who would invest in a company. If they really look like they're buttoned up, they're more frequently going to invest. High stakes, they said frequent Kickstarter investors are more likely to invest in something with a high fundraising goal, not the $8 Chipotle graph, which makes sense. As universal appeal, they said the local projects are more likely to get funded by infrequent investors, long-term investors are more likely to fund something with universal appeal. And if it's fast growing, if they see a lot of people are investing, the more frequent

and most heavily investors, heavy investors. Sure. Everybody wants to get in on that. Exactly. But they did say in the end, it's really all about the quality. That's the one caveat of the project. At the end of the day, it still has to be a quality project. Yes. Or catch fire in a meme sort of way. Right. Like meat soap.

Exactly. Have you heard of that one? I already know what it is. And then there's one, the grizzly coat. Well, what is meat soap? It's soap made from fat rendered from meats. It smells like meats. Oh, okay. It's basically bathing in meat.

Meat. Yeah. So you get to clean. And then there's the grizzly coat, which is a coat with a hood that looks like a grizzly bear's head. It's pretty cool. Nice. There's a lot of weirdness out there on Kickstarter. It's a wonderful little marketplace of idea exchange.

Yeah, I mean, if I didn't have my job doing what we do with our great company that we work for, like paying the bills and keeping the lights on, I would definitely go this route. Like if it was around in the early 90s, I would have been all over this junk. Because I was out there on the streets making films. Paying handling? For nothing. Yeah. And the result was indicative of that.

You got anything else? No, sir. If you want to know more about Kickstarter, go to Kickstarter and follow all the rules. You will be funded. You can also learn some more about it by typing Kickstarter into the search bar at howstuffworks.com. And that will bring up this article. And I said article, so it's listener mail time. Yeah, I'm going to call this that won't play in Peoria.

Remember during our MPA podcast? I don't think I could remember the name of the city. I think we said like Sheboygan or Walla Walla or something like that. So we had quite a few follow-ups. And this one is from Nate Malor. And Nate said, so Nate works as a temp at a greenhouse, which is interesting. And he said he's fallen behind lately, but wanted to reply about the MPA podcast. Chuck was struggling to remember the phrase that will or won't play in Peoria.

Someone has probably let you know this, but if no one has enlightened you, as to the origins, I will. I'm told it was in a book at some point in the late 1800s. But even before that, theater groups, Burlesque and Vaudeville, would use Peoria to workshop shows on the way to Chicago, as it is a fairly large city on the Illinois River. When I was a kid, it was a test market even. Have you ever had a McDonald's pizza? I remember the McPizza.

He says, no, if no, then you're lucky because they're terrible. It supposedly is representative of the Midwest. And according to my father, it was one of the most economically diverse cities in the Midwest. So Peoria, I guess, was just kind of that every place near Chicago. Gotcha, which explains the phrase. Exactly. Anyway, love the show and your sister show, Stuff You Missed in History Class, which we also recommend, by the way. Listen to every episode, even the pre-Chuck era, except the 10 or so I have to catch up with.

So that is from Nate Malor. And Nate says, P.S., every time you end a commercial and say, go to the search bar and type in stuff to get your whatever. It makes me want to go to whichever site you're plugging, type a bunch of random keys into the search bar, and send you an email calling you jerks in my head using Josh's voice. I'm not sure what that means. I think it's that face value is how that's to be taken.

Well, Nate, I think you've been in the temping in that greenhouse a little too long. Hey, what kind of greenhouse are you in there, Nate? Yeah, is it in Humboldt County, California? Yeah, thanks a lot, Nate. That was very nice of you. Indeed. If you want to get in touch with us, you can tweet to us at S-Y-S-K podcast. You can join us on facebook.com slash stuff you should know. You can send us an email to stuffpodcastathousetoforks.com.

And as always, join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. We have a lot to talk about. Yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts.