New 'Creative Fund' Promises To Back Every Project on Kickstarter (venturebeat.com)

All Kickstarter campaigns are getting a show of support, according to a new web site. "Every day, The Creative Fund backs all newly launched projects based on our current patronage." It's the newest offering from BackerKit, which also makes a data management platform for crowdfunding campaigns, and so far they've pledged $1 to 10,594 different Kickstarter projects.

An anonymous reader quotes VentureBeat: One dollar doesn't seem like a lot, but it's just a start. BackerKit cofounder Rosanna Yau says that this is more of a proof of concept, to see if their community is willing to rally around the idea. She and cofounder Maxwell Salzberg have set up a Patreon, a monthly subscription service that enables people to support creators directly. All the donations they receive from that platform will be distributed among Kickstarter projects, and the goal is to make sure all projects have at least one pledge....

Yau says that the company is open to contributing more than a $1 in the future. Its Patreon guidelines say that for each $2,000 milestone reached, the fund will pledge $1 more to all Kickstarter projects. If something doesn't get funded, the fund's pledges will get recycled and re-donated to new projects.
A Medium post says the new fund "supports the entrepreneurial spirit of all independent creators, one dollar at a time....

"Everyone deserves some inspiration and a virtual high-five."

Comments

Very optimistic

[vadim_t]

The problem with that is that kickstarter is full of half-baked ideas and people trying to sell some random thing they dug up on Alibaba as their own creation.

Personally, what I would want to see instead of a list of very well curated kickstarter projects. A list somebody went through and determined that:

1. The project is actually physically possible.
2. The project is actually doable with the skills and tools the maker has.
3. The project is actually novel, and not simply reselling an existing one.
4. The project as described makes sense to experts in the associated discipline and seems workable
5. The maker actually understands what they're getting themselves into and have the knowledge and resources to produce it.
6. (optionally) The product actually has some sort of practical use to it.

Such a list would go a long way highlighting the people with a good idea that can actually be realize, and bring more money to those who are truly deserving.

Re:Very optimistic

[vadim_t]

I'm not asking for an oracle, but for a good filter.

You don't need a team full of PhDs to figure out that Air Umbrella was an unworkable and terribly impractical idea, or that Solar Roadways was a stupid idea because it compromised both the function of a solar panel and a road to make a whole that was far worse and more expensive than simply building both of those things next to each other.

Lots of people in fact pointed that out. A site staffed by a bunch of volunteers with a decent understanding of physics and electronics would go a long way. And if you have $10K to spend, you could hire a bunch of engineers to take a quick cursory look at a bunch of stuff and give a quick opinion on whether it's obviously stupid or not.

Re:Very optimistic

[alvinrod]

Okay, so what does this good filter get out of it? It sounds like you have some knowledge and a bit of common sense about you, so why not start this curation website up yourself? I suspect that in answering why you haven't done so already and don't have any intention to do so presently, you'll have answered exactly why this website doesn't exist. But setting aside needing a wide variety of expertise across all manner of different fields, it still doesn't solve the part of the problem that deals with whether or not the people running the project can execute effectively and that's hard to do for anyone that doesn't have a track record of success or a good résumé.

And as soon as someone does start something like this up, the incentive to pervert it becomes too great and the likelihood of it being rendered useless increases. Once someone has a service designed to funnel money to select projects, it would be really great to try to hoodwink a group of people into investing in your kickstarter. What this means is that you can't have just one of these types of sites, much like you can't have a single news paper, rating agency, etc. without a lot of care and consideration to prevent impropriety.

Maybe you can get that kind of thing in safety critical situations where the government has decided to fund it through tax dollars, but you're basically asking for what would require a large group of volunteers to spend a lot of their time for relatively little compensation. They would have to value good Kickstarters getting funded a lot more than their time (as well as having the moral fiber to remain objective) in order to do this. Maybe there are enough people in the world like you to make this happening, but if you want to see it, you're better off starting it yourself than waiting around for someone else to make it happen.

Re:Very optimistic

[Raenex]

Such a list would go a long way highlighting the people with a good idea that can actually be realize, and bring more money to those who are truly deserving.

That's what professional investors are for. I never understood the Kickstarter craze. You want me to plunk down some money, assume all the risk, and my only reward is the product if it's actually made and some token gift? How about giving me a share of the profits instead?

Time to start a new Kickstarter then

[guruevi]

I plan on starting ~10,000 Kickstarter projects with a goal of $1.

Silly virtue-signalling PR campaign.

[ScentCone]

Silly virtue-signalling PR campaign.

Creative people are better than other people! See? We support all of them! With: a dollar! Now, pour a bunch of money into OUR account so we can signal some more, and, of course, draw a paycheck for the noble cause of administering this absurd bit of nonsense.

Here's an idea: actually VET the projects, and only support the ones that aren't utterly pointless. Otherwise they might as well say they're supporting all the artists at Burning Man by burning a pile of $1 bills in the parking lot outside their office. Or in the driveway outside mom's basement, wherever this is actually run.

No, they don't

[sylvandb]

No, not every project or "creator" deserves "inspiration and a virtual high-five." There are too many fraudulent projects or ones that are simply outright idiotic (like the old one to make a heat exchanger in your fridge or freezer to cool your house).

The real world isn't about participation trophies or a medal for effort and propagating that attitude is a strong indicator of immaturity.