Kickstarter vs. IndieGoGo

[cameronchapman]

I'm about to start fundraising for my feature, and for the first round, I'm planning on using some crowdfunding. (Tentative plan at this point is raise enough with crowdfunding to secure cast and crew, then either do a second round of crowdfunding for production or seek more traditional financing once I have actors and crew attached and know I can pay them regardless of what happens).

So the big decision at this point is which site do I want to use? Or, more accurately, on which site am I more likely to be successful?

The way I see it, these are the pros and cons of each?

Kickstarter Pros:
- Seems to have more traffic (Quantcast puts them at around 100k-150k US visitors/month).
- Possibly a more recognizable brand.
- ETA: Seems to fund more large-budget projects successfully (with a number of film projects getting over $100k in funding).

Kickstarter Cons:
- Charges a 5% processing fee, plus 3-5% credit card processing fee.
- Only get money if goal is reached. If the goal isn't reached, then none of the money goes through.
- ETA: Must have a US bank account to start a project.

IndieGoGo Pros:
- Lower processing fee of only 4%, plus 3% credit card processing fee if you reach your goal (9% if you don't).
- You get to keep whatever money is raised, even if you don't reach your goal.

IndieGoGo Cons:
- Doesn't seem to have as much traffic/name recognition as Kickstarter.
- Has significantly less traffic than Kickstarter (Quantcast puts them at only 5.5k US visitors/month).
- ETA: Seems to work best with projects that need less than $10k in funds (and even better when they only need to raise around $5k).

But I'd love to hear any first-hand experiences people have had using either. I guess the big hangup I have is that with Kickstarter, I could get within a few hundred dollars of my goal, not reach it, and have to start all over again. But they also seem to be the more recognized of the two sites.

 

[PaulGriffith]

Some people consider Kickstarter a little more "honorable" because you onle get money I'd you meet the goal. If you need $10k for your project but only raise $200 then keeping that $200 is sort of not fair to the people that donated, no project is made.

The limit also helps encourage people to set their projects at the minimum they need. Like you said, you don't set it too high because you want to get what you raise.

There are several projects that go well above the minimum too. If it's a good project people don't mind giving.

Kickstarter is only for US projects though.

The most important thing is to build an audience /fanbase before you start. There are lots of great ideas that don't get funded because not enough people hear about them.

 

[cameronchapman]

Some people consider Kickstarter a little more "honorable" because you onle get money I'd you meet the goal. If you need $10k for your project but only raise $200 then keeping that $200 is sort of not fair to the people that donated, no project is made.

The limit also helps encourage people to set their projects at the minimum they need. Like you said, you don't set it too high because you want to get what you raise.

There are several projects that go well above the minimum too. If it's a good project people don't mind giving.

Kickstarter is only for US projects though.

The most important thing is to build an audience /fanbase before you start. There are lots of great ideas that don't get funded because not enough people hear about them.

Good points. I've got a pretty decent Twitter following, Facebook friends, etc., and I'm active in a number of online communities, so I'm hoping between that, an awesome promo video (so that people actually want to share it), and word-of-mouth, I can get what I need.

 

[directorik]

IndieGoGo Pros:
- You get to keep whatever money is raised, even if you don't reach your goal.

This is why I will never donate through IndieGoGo unless I
personally know the the filmmaker. I think this boarders on
a scam. The filmmaker keeps my money even if they do not
make the movie?

 

[cameronchapman]

This is why I will never donate through IndieGoGo unless I
personally know the the filmmaker. I think this boarders on
a scam. The filmmaker keeps my money even if they do not
make the movie?

That's a good point. I'm leaning more toward Kickstarter the more I think about it.

I like what Philip Bloom and Brian Ramage did for Riven. They didn't reach their goal on Kickstarter, but they rethought their budget and are now hoping that a percentage of the people who pledged on Kickstarter will pledge money directly to them to get the pilot done. (Their original goal was $48,000, they've rethought it and decided that with a barebones budget they could do it for $25,000, and they had $30,000 in pledges, so it's just a matter of reaching those people to pledge directly now.)

 

[NickClapper]

This is why I will never donate through IndieGoGo unless I
personally know the the filmmaker. I think this boarders on
a scam. The filmmaker keeps my money even if they do not
make the movie?

+1 This is definitely my problem with IGG too.

I would add to your Kickstarter cons the fact that you need a US bank account in order to set up a project.

 

[DeJager]

Kickstarter hands down.

Although my kickstarter campaign was successfully funded ($5,000+), I think they are a waste and somewhat of a scam on Kickstarter/IGG's side. They do absolutely NOTHING to bring traffic to your project/campaign. It's only a hosting site for your video. Most of your pledges will come from friends, friends of friends, etc so if you can get the money directly then do it that way. Don't forget to have great perks!

 

[Dreadylocks]

@DeJager, I don't think KS or IGG are scams at all. They are a business. They aren't just 'hosting' your campaign, they are providing a platform where people can safely, securely, and easily donate money. Everything is transparent, you can watch the campaign progress if you are interested (and having people feel like they are 'part of' the project is one of the big appeals to donors, it seems.) 'Middle man' and 'con man' are not synonymous.

And while they may not market your specific campaign, they market their platform as a whole, which gives them a lot of traffic. So there's the potential that people who aren't your friends and family will find it and donate.

@Cameron, if/when I do some crowdfunding I will go with kickstarter. The main reason is that you must meet your project goal to get the money. Not only do I feel better about it as a person seeking money, but I asked myself, would I be more likely to donate if I knew that I would only pay if the project is complete? And the answer I had was "yes, in fact, that might be the only way I would donate at all."

my .02

 

[DeJager]

Dreadylocks,

I respectfully have to completely disagree with you. I have a website and could have hosted the same exact thing. The ONLY traffic that came to my campaign AND pledged are people that I personally knew or was linked to in some way. I could have raised $5000+ without Kickstarter and not have had to pay 9% processing fees. Kickstarter makes money on YOUR hardwork, networking, and advertising. YOU bring people to their website. They offer you no service but a hosting platform. Like I said, I did have a successful campaign but I don't credit the campaign's success to Kickstarter. Without my hard work getting the project out there, Kickstarter would not have made a dime but instead they made almost $500 off my little project.

It's a decent platform if you don't have any reliable and safe way of gathering resources yourself.

However, unique projects (technology-based, board games, inventions) do benefit from the generated traffic that kickstarter USERS bring to the table. Those kinds of projects/campaigns appeal to a wider range of people.

 

[Papertwinproductions]

Dreadylocks,
Kickstarter makes money on YOUR hardwork, networking, and advertising. YOU bring people to their website. They offer you no service but a hosting platform. Like I said, I did have a successful campaign but I don't credit the campaign's success to Kickstarter. Without my hard work getting the project out there, Kickstarter would not have made a dime but instead they made almost $500 off my little project.

It's a decent platform if you don't have any reliable and safe way of gathering resources yourself.

However, unique projects (technology-based, board games, inventions) do benefit from the generated traffic that kickstarter USERS bring to the table. Those kinds of projects/campaigns appeal to a wider range of people.

And would, after tireless networking and pushing the campaign, those that you've brought to your funding-platform be trusting enough to donate to a new, unknown brand.

Which would appear more like a scam to the generic web-browser?

Kickstarter, the instantly recognisable and trusted brand, running the most accessible funding initative for Creatives all across the globe.

Or a personal website with a donate button?

If you don't believe that Kickstarter do anything to push your campaign, then you're wrong. It's about what YOU do. Updates, number of donators, referrals, referrals leading to contribution. All of these get you FEATURED on their home page, in their bi-weekly email feed to 400k+ subscribers, posted numerous times on their 415k strong Twitter account, and left on their homepage for everybody to see for a certain period.

Not to mention, upon DOING all of this, you put yourself in the frame of being right back on the homepage when your campaign reaches the final hurdle. (The time when MOST donations are received)

There's no scam.

How do you expect Kickstarter to market 27,000 campaigns a month?

Most creatives go into their campaigns knowing that donations from their friends and family won't be enough. Although they'll welcome their contribution, it's just as much about reaching a new network as it is raising the funds.

You've had a successful Kickstarter. If that was purely from your friends, and friends of friends. That's fantastic.

But nine times out of then that's not the case.

 

[DeJager]

Family, friends and friends of friends would have donated/pledged regardless of the platform because they know me, just like your friends and family would pledge to you regardless of the platform. In fact, the majority of people who pledged for my project NEVER even heard of Kickstarter before I led them there. They had to create an account just to pledge for my project. You are misguided if you think Kickstarter is pushing your project. I contacted kickstarter directly and asked them how they select projects. It's for uniqueness. It's a fact that the majority of featured projects are not films. They are inventions and pieces that are considered "art".

Here is the response Cooper Troxell from Kickstarter gave me,

"On Kickstarter projects build momentum through the outreach of their creators. The best way to get your project funded is by spreading the word. Even for projects that make the homepage, most of their funding comes from their own outreach." - Cooper

Doesn't matter if your project gets featured on the homepage because the majority of pledges are people whom you are contacts with.
If the majority of pledges didn't come from those types of relationships then it would be a different story. 9 out of 10 pledgers are pledging because of YOU not because the project looks cool. This brings up the whole debate on whether or not "casual pledgers" exist. I do think there are some casual pledgers out there so the challenge becomes not only finding them but also bringing them a complete and quality campaign. You are right though, for most people family and friend contributions won't be enough.

I will use my own platform next time as well as traditional forms of fundraising. This is just my opinion of course and other people are warranted to their own It's the beauty of freedom!

But back to the OP, I believe Kickstarter is a more reliable and professional platform in comparison to IGG for the reasons a lot of other posters have stated.

 

[wheatgrinder]

This is why I will never donate through IndieGoGo unless I
personally know the the filmmaker. I think this boarders on
a scam. The filmmaker keeps my money even if they do not
make the movie?

This is an important sentiment, but I think it just that... its a sentiment only, its not fact.

With a Kickstarter campaign there is no "contract" that if you fully fund you wont just spend the money on a trip to Hawaii... they don't provide oversight or any other method to MAKE you spend the money as you say you will. In this way its MORE of a confidence scam than IndieGoGo! By building up a FALSE sense of confidence that you are donating to something that is bigger then you, which is the ESSENCE of a confidence con.

From the Kickstarter FAQ:
How do I know a project will be completed as promised?
Each project is crafted solely by its creator, and it’s up to them to make the case that they can successfully bring their project to life. Part of every creator’s job is earning their backers’ trust, especially backers who don’t personally know them.

Creators are encouraged to share links to their personal website(s), as well as any websites that show work related to the project, or past projects.

The web is an excellent resource for learning about someone’s prior experience. If someone has no demonstrable prior history of doing something like their project or is unwilling to share information, backers should consider that when weighing a pledge. If something sounds too good to be true, it very well may be.

in either situation "ya spends ya money and ya takes ya chances!"

 

[Papertwinproductions]

You are misguided if you think Kickstarter is pushing your project. I contacted kickstarter directly and asked them how they select projects. It's for uniqueness. It's a fact that the majority of featured projects are not films. They are inventions and pieces that are considered "art".

Here is the response Cooper Troxell from Kickstarter gave me,

"On Kickstarter projects build momentum through the outreach of their creators. The best way to get your project funded is by spreading the word. Even for projects that make the homepage, most of their funding comes from their own outreach." - Cooper

Doesn't matter if your project gets featured on the homepage because the majority of pledges are people whom you are contacts with.

And that is my point exactly. Hardwork. YOU do the pushing, not Kickstarter. Kickstarter don't owe you anything, but if you do the work, you reap the awards.

Everything I mentioned above is the OUTCOME of pushing yourself. You'll see that I've participated in the tons of Crowdfunding threads, and I'm forever conveying just how much work is involved. But it's worth while if you're prepared to do so.

Finding your audience should be done BEFORE you start crowdfunding. They ARE your contacts. They'll be the guys sharing your links, upgrading their perks, spreading the words about the awesome contests and competitions you're running.

People ALWAYS check out the "popular" (and interesting) campaigns. I've contributed to plenty of unknown to me campaigns, whether that be through a donation or through spreading the word.

The casual funders do exist. But they won't find you if you don't do the hardwork throughout the entire campaign.

Kickstarter is a platform. You and your team do the work as you would in any other walk of life.

OP - Kickstarter +1.

 

[wheatgrinder]

From my above comments this makes me think that if you are partially SELF FUNDING then you can ask for MORE donations from IndieGoGo with the premise that EVERY donation helps to IMPROVE the project, so even if you only get $200, that at least you can get a MUA for one more day, or similar.

I know for fact that people game the Kickstarter system by pledging to their own projects to increase confidence so that others will join in. Its a smart move. ...

EDIT: Im coming off anti kickstarter or IndieGoGo.. not true both are awesome and I plan to utilize them in the near future.

 

[cameronchapman]

I'm thinking at this point, I'll probably use Kickstarter for my first round of funding. Again, it's the confidence thing, which I think is a valid point. And while I'm hoping to get my own network heavily involved, I know that reaching out to friends-of-friends and even further is also going to be important if I want to get fully funded, and a known brand like Kickstarter gives more credibility.

I'm also thinking, though, that future fundraising efforts might be better suited to IndieGoGo, when it's more of a "it would be great if we could get $5k for post, but any amount we can raise is really going to help," or "We'd like to raise $3k for festival entry fees and promotion, but even if we only raise $500, that's still a lot of festivals we can enter." Basically, when it's more of a "this amount of money would be nice, but we can get by on less" kind of deal.

Initial funding for this project isn't like that, though. I know that the team I can assemble to do this thing are going to make or break it, and I want to be able to pay those people more than minimum wage for the work they put in (I'd like to pay them a lot more than that, but I have a feeling deferments will be used heavily beyond reasonable day rates).

 

[wheatgrinder]

Are you working a project now that you can promote and drive interest in YOU as a brand? Thats my plan.. my "Power Up" project (100% self funded, money loser) is building brand awareness (getting my name out there) and I plan to leverage that by driving my personal network TO kickstarter (or maybe indegogo) to fund my NEXT big project.

 

[cameronchapman]

Are you working a project now that you can promote and drive interest in YOU as a brand? Thats my plan.. my "Power Up" project (100% self funded, money loser) is building brand awareness (getting my name out there) and I plan to leverage that by driving my personal network TO kickstarter (or maybe indegogo) to fund my NEXT big project.

I've got a short that I'll be filming hopefully next month (need to get the rest of my sound equipment) that I'm hoping will generate some interest. But I'm also doing something kind of off-the-wall for my fundraising video, so that'll be an experimental film in itself. The other thing I was thinking of doing is creating a novella of the film script, and selling that as another fundraiser (I've self-published novels and novellas before) and to generate interest. But I definitely think you're right about having one project that can act as a kind of calling card to generate interest for your next project.

 

[wheatgrinder]

hum, Id advise against anything other than a sit down interview style. People want to SEE who they are giving money too, they want to FEEL your honesty, etc. Sure throw in some clips etc, but that more "experimental" you go, the smaller your audience ... you want to appeal to the MASSES for money..

 

[cameronchapman]

hum, Id advise against anything other than a sit down interview style. People want to SEE who they are giving money too, they want to FEEL your honesty, etc. Sure throw in some clips etc, but that more "experimental" you go, the smaller your audience ... you want to appeal to the MASSES for money..

It's going to combine the two (I'll be in part of the video), but will emphasize how important raising money for cast and crew really is. Did you see the video for I Am I? They did a really creative video that was also very personal. That's kind of what I'm going for, just with a different take on it.

 

[wheatgrinder]

With respect my dear girl I don't believe you are much like these people.. http://iamithefilm.com/filmmakers/ there is some heavy hitting credits and names in there. The success of their campaign is largely the result of their EXTENSIVE filmmaking network and previous success and Im sure has little to do with the pitch video. I know that I would not model my campaign after them, of course you may do as you chose, and I may very well donate, but I would do more research on low budget campaigns that are successful before commiting to this course...

EDIT: Wow, that came of condescending, please dont take it that way..