Utopia

I've been fascinated by the idea of utopias I think since around 4th grade when

I read The Giver (and btw, I'm soooo excited about it becoming a movie soon).  I loved books like Fahrenheit 451, 1984 and Brave New World that show an alternative view of what life could be like.  Maybe that's why, as an adult, I was so drawn to the Hunger Games series and really relate to the people of the Capital in those books, as well as the Divergent series.  I loved The Great Gatsby in high school and was thrilled with the recent movie adaptation, because the parties were just as over-the-top and out-of-control as I imagined them to be.  The current TV show by the name of Utopia I think is anything but that; it's more of a Real Life show meets Survivor.  The fact that the producers intentionally put people with very opposite extremist views is just the first hint that this mini society was meant to be a complete failure.  It's a little obnoxious how bad it is.  But there are some tidbits of interest that come out of it; Hex is by far my favorite character, alcoholism aside, because she can be level headed and talk to anyone, even if she disagrees with him or her, and ask them what their utopia is.  I think I also like her because she naturally looks like a real-life Katniss from Hunger Games, complete with being handy with a bow and arrow.  All literature, cinematography and bad reality TV aside, I still love the idea of a utopia and wondered what my utopia would be like.  

The problem with trying to create a utopia is that we're so used to what our norm is that there is a hesitation, if not outright resistance, to try anything or imagine anything different.  For example, the utopians in the TV show naturally formed a democracy without officially declaring it, and only a couple weeks in decided to formalize and modify the political structure.  One person on the show said that their utopia was one without money, but the economist in me likes the way money rewards efforts and can be spent on (somewhat) fairly equitable goods or services; an efficient market is the cleanest and best way to trade goods and services, keep costs down and drive innovation - not bartering or equal distribution.  So rather than trying to start with a blank slate and recreate a society from nothing, my utopia realization would come from removing the things I don't like and adding things I want.  

First to go: chores.  In my utopia, I don't have to clean dishes, mow the lawn, wash the windows, do laundry, sweep the floors, pull weeds, water plants, vacuum, feed the dog or even pick up after myself (let alone picking up after my roommates).  I have always related to the main character of Pippin, who believes he is just too extraordinary to be bothered by these types of everyday things.  I have these big ideas and crazy aspirations, but I have a pile of dishes in the sink that I have to attend to from time to time.  I know there are maids and landscapers available, but with three perfectly capable people living under my roof, I just have a hard time justifying spending money on simple activities that we could do on our own.  Still, chores bring me down; I like a clean house but I never enjoy cleaning.  Usually wine is the only way to get myself to clean.  If I could, like, dance and my house cleaned itself with the same effort that I put into my dancing, I think I would dance every day and never have a messy house.  That leads me to...

First to add: a better place to dance.  I have trained briefly in ballet and jazz dance, as well as performed in musicals in junior high, high school and college.  In college I also took hip hop and swing dance, and since then, I have been swing dancing on and off (with a stint of hip hop again when I went back to school for my MBA).  I love our swing dance community, but the venues never have the air conditioning capacity to support the hoards of people who come to dance.  It's a good problem to have, I suppose, but still, I think I would dance more if I didn't dread sweating in front of everyone so much.  The other issue is that I often want to dance at home to practice, and I just don't have my house arranged in a way that really supports that.  But I do like how my house is furnished, so I don't want to change it; I just want to add a huge room to the back with wooden floors and its own amazing A/C and mirrors and cameras so I can review my dance and improve myself, and a large screen (or four) to watch videos from the greats.  

Next to remove: human-driven transportation.  I know autonomous cars on a mass scale are still in the future, and it's going to be a long, long time before everyone adopts them or they are legally the only option.  But people are stupid, and driving is the most dangerous thing most of us do in our lifetimes, and we do it every day.  I personally despise driving, although I think I'm good at it (when I'm awake), and I have a problem staying awake behind the wheel at times.  Life would be so much better if I could get in a vehicle and use my laptop or watch a show while the vehicle transports me to where I need to go.  Some utopias are so small that they don't require powered transportation at all, one could easily walk or ride a bike to where they are going on a regular basis, but I don't think that's realistic, especially because I like to travel.  I don't think a small distance utopia could ever include everything I would want to do.  If we could just eliminate all bad drivers, that might make a big enough difference, but unfortunately, we all have dumb moments and I will still fall asleep.  So autonomous vehicles can't come soon enough.  Come on, Elon, I know you can do it!!  I'll be your first volunteer to test it, or your first customer, if you let me!  

Next to add: food that tastes delicious and is super healthy and exactly what I need.  This is one area where 3D printing has some potential, but its even further in the future than autonomous cars, and I'm not sure that 3D printing is really practical as the means of achieving this.  I think its a lot more of formulation and finding ways to flavor that won't cause cancer; I could care less about the shape. If I had a cheese-flavored shake that gave me all the nutrients I needed, I could switch between that and a chocolate-flavored protein shake and be pretty dang happy without solid food at all.  Ideally, certain tasteless substances could be made into several formats and textures, infused with the nutrients we need, and then flavored based on our tastes.  Imagine going to a party, having custom food made to meet your nutritional needs, but getting to try new textures and flavors that you've never tried before.  But alas, cheese is high in fat, along with pepperoni (even turkeroni, which I often eat in lieu of the real thing), and Ben and Jerry's just cannot be made healthy without taking away what makes it so amazing.  At least not yet, but I think maybe there's hope for some day.  

A big picture removal: political parties.  Okay, a lot of my items so far have been somewhat minor, personal preference type things.  But if I was designing a utopia, I would upheave the entire political system and replace it with an even more democratic process.  I wrote a whole post about this previously, so I'll only summarize it here: we would essentially vote for issues we are concerned about, establishing both the solutions and the priorities, and then voting for the people whom we think are most capable of making those things happen.  So instead of voting for a person because he is of a specific party or because she promises to do such-and-such, we vote for people based on our belief in their ability to make things happen, and we vote for the issues we care about, and we vote for what we want out of the political system.  Then its the politicians' jobs simply to execute on what the public voted for.  If they do a good job, they may get re-elected.  If they sucked a big one, we'll find someone else to lead the way.  Read more about this idea here.  

A big picture addition: more technology in schools.  I think it's a crime for people to graduate high school and college and not know more than the very basics of Microsoft Excel.  Most people don't know how to program.  With technology being so prevalent these days, I just don't think people should become professionals or go into the workforce and not understand how computer logic works.  I see people that are completely baffled by the computer programs they use every day, and that scares me.  I understand that college is more generally about learning and theories and not so much practical technical instruction, but a person with a college degree should be able to comprehend and repeat a simple Excel formula.  Kids, learn how to program; learn it early and do it often.  That will set you apart instantly, even if you don't go into programming (or I should say, ESPECIALLY if you don't go into programming), because technology is just not taught at a competency level required to be awesome in the real world.  Learning how to type should be mandatory in elementary school just like learning how to write.  Learning spreadsheets and presentations should be mandatory in junior high, just like history or science.  Learning programming, battery technology and computer maintenance should be mandatory in high school.  College should include photo and video editing, CAD or other 3D modeling, and more programming.

And more: more life skills in schools.  I consider myself lucky to have fallen into a musically inclined family, and have taken that into theater, as well as on the completely opposite end of the spectrum having a good understanding of finance and economics.  The idea of arts being pulled out of schools is appalling to me.  Even though I've never aspired to be an actress, the spacial awareness I learned in theater has had so many applications in my regular life, and I can tell instantly when a person does not have that skill.  How much better would this world be if everyone had spacial awareness, understood the financial impact of their money spending decisions, and learned not to be afraid of speaking in public?  School should not just be about memorizing dates and definitions, it should be about learning how to live life fully.  When I tell people what I do, there are a lot of people who didn't even imagine my career path existed, and I see people who fall into careers (I think) because they saw options that they were aware of included: doctor, architect, lawyer, musician, teacher.  There are so many more career paths, and people don't know about them.  Engineering is shrinking, and it needs to be expanding.  

Let's also take out: the legal system.  I'm sorry, it's crap.  Every time I've had to interact with it, I've felt burned.  I'm a good person, I shouldn't have to prove it.  We pay lip service to "innocent until proven guilty" but the legal system assumes guilt until proven innocence.  Meanwhile, I see people driving illegally all the time and not getting caught.  I know men paying child support to ex-wives who aren't doing a damn thing to improve themselves because then their child support would get reduced.  I've seen someone unable to perform his professional obligations because a nasty, bickering woman put a completely BS restraining order on him.  And I've been part of a jury that convicted a man of a crime for which the only evidence was technically "thrown out".  If it's going to be garbage, than let's call it what it is, and not pretend that "innocent until proven guilty" has anything to do with it.  In the case of having a restraining order on someone, I think if the complaintant knowingly puts herself in a place where the accused is going to be, the restraining order should be null and void; as it stands, if she shows up on his doorstep, he's breaking the law.  Better yet, let's let common sense prevail, and not evidence that is thrown out or assuming a woman is telling the truth because she's a woman, or assuming a cop is telling the truth because he's a cop.  I love the idea in Divergent with the people having aptitudes for selfless leading the government.  Let's have the justice system be filled with people who have the aptitude to read people and apply common sense, and not have to worry about covering their butts.  Today's judges don't actually judge anything, they're not allowed to, they just apply legal procedures and ensure those procedures are being followed through.  Let's have judges who are really strong moral judges, and make the case to the judge who is not incentived to rule one way or another, only to make the best judgment, and leave the peanut gallery of uneducated hicks and racists and prejudiced people out of it.  Maybe a panel of judges for each case, just to be sure the decision doesn't weigh on one individual.  Think of the case scene in Patch Adams, where a moral appeal can win.  Judges, like the politicians in my utopia, would be voted on based on their ability to make good calls.  In my utopia, people would take responsibility for their actions, and suffer the consequences, but they would understand the consequences going into it.  Better education and no way to cheat the system.  

Add to that: a more self-policing society.  Let's imagine that, without autonomous vehicles that obey the laws to the tee, our vehicles are equipped with cameras that watch around us in four or more angles.  If we see someone breaking the law, i.e. unsafe lane change or what have you, we simply hit a "report" button and the last 30 seconds of footage gets sent to a center of workers who decide if that footage is sufficient evidence to convict the driver, and then send a ticket in the mail similar to how they handle red light camera tickets today.  I've always wanted this.  I'm not sure where else it would apply other than on the road, because I don't witness law breaking in any other aspects of my life on a regular basis, but it could be applied to solicitors on door steps or other like cases.  Imagine how few people would drive recklessly and cut you off if they knew that anyone around them could report them and cause a financial burden for them?  

Another removal: the hidden sales tax and semi- and fully- mandatory tipping.  What I mean by this, is a menu or a price tag should have the price that it will cost.  It should include the tax, so there is no guessing.  When we have to split the bill, its clear exactly what we owe, because we don't have to add in the tax.  Along with that, we should not feel obligated to leave a tip.  A tip should be 100% discretionary based on extraordinary service, and not expected, and certainly not added to bills for groups of 8 or more.  It's hard to deal with a group of 8?  Tough, that's called your job.  I don't get tips at work when I have to go to a meeting with 30 people.  But I'm paid fairly.  So our wait staff should also be paid fairly to do their jobs, and not expect the customers to shell out the rest of their pay on top of the price of the food we're paying over priced amounts for.  Some other countries do this, so there is no reason we need to continue in this awful tradition.

Plus add: waterproof electronics.  It's a niche need, but do you know how many times I've carefully wiped my hands off while in the bathtub in order to access my laptop or phone?  It's a lot.  And I'm sure I'm not completely alone on this.  I just want electronics to be sealed up and safe from water damage so that I can comfortably use them in the bath or shower or pool without covers that inhibit the ability to hear or use the devices.  

Remove too: welfare and any type of government handouts.  This is the economist in me, and maybe the general population in my utopia would disagree and institute them through our superior voting system, and I'd have to live with it.  But how many stories have you heard of someone living in a nice house driving nicer cars than you, and not making a contribution to society?  I would vote for any movement that would bring us closer to the efficient economy that rewards effort and results, and that means not giving anyone a free ride.  

Another addition: Streaming of important athletic events.  Back to the nit-picking personal preference stuff.  If I graduated from ASU, I should be granted lifetime access to high-def, legal streaming of all football and basketball games for ASU.  At a minimum.  I think its despicable that we would need cable and a special channel to watch half the games.  Few of the bars locally have that channel, and when traveling, its impossible to find a bar with that channel.  I should be able to type in a code and wherever I'm at can have the game.  At a minimum.  I would much rather be able to watch all major games on regular cable or Hulu or whatever.  Make it accessible to everyone, and we will get more excited to go!  Make it less accessible, you might just start losing fans, or income because we'll figure out a way to stream it illegally.  

Another removal: 40 - 60 hour workweeks.  Companies should pay a person to do a job, not spend a certain number of hours in the office.  I truly believe that some people are better than others at their jobs, and yet we do this weird equalizing thing to require efficient workers to stay so many hours, while inefficient workers may not even get their jobs done but they put in their hours so they're good to go.  The reason we do this, I'm sure, is because it's far too difficult to quantify what the job should be in any other manner, so its simplest to just assume it should take about 40 - 45 hours per week.  There's also discrimination that might play in, presuming that most women can't physically lift and load as much as most of their male counterparts, and you don't want to be accused of paying women less in a discriminatory manner.  Then again, maybe a physical job isn't good for women who can't keep up with the boys, why is that wrong?  Maybe those women who can't keep up should go do a job better suited for their brilliant minds or physically less demanding.  Regardless, in my utopia, we would figure out how to quantify work effort and results, and allow efficient workers the freedom to leave after the equivalent of 40 hours of work, even if that's 32 hours for them, and they get Friday off, but they are paid as if they were there for 40 hours because that's how much work they did.

And add: more positive news journalism.  I know, they're based on ratings and the violence and awful stories get more attention than the positive stuff.  But kind of like in Divergent where people with a certain aptitude go into certain fields, I would mandate journalists to want to report on the positive stuff, and downplay the violent stories that lead to copycats.  Celebrate the heroes and the victories over disease.  Don't name the name of the killer in the mass shootings - don't give them any credit or attention whatsoever.   Also, let's not make stories about race if they aren't about race; hell even if they are, let's not focus on that because that only raises more racial tensions - a crime is a crime no matter what the (ignorant) motive may be.

Going back to my first point about chores,  I suppose if the help was cheap enough, it could be worth it to pay, but then there's trust issues and the weirdness of a random person coming into your residence.  I would prefer to just find a way to eliminate the need for chores altogether, like having a goat that eats the grass, or maybe just have robots do them.  A lot of these wishes require future technology or a full re-vamping of a country, and obviously I'm not single-handedly capable of doing all those things.  This is also why the TV show Utopia will fail, because they made those people become farmers and live off the land and removed much of the technology; without technology, you're not really allowing them the full utopian-creating potential.  Also, they're just a few people, not a whole society of hundreds of thousands.  It's more like a make-your-own summer camp than the building of a new society.  For me, there are a few things I can do in my own little world to make a partial utopia for myself, and that is what I will strive to do.  I've already made my house quite comfortable with excessively nice luxuries in some places (like my amazing bathtub).  There's always more to do, of course, but that's what it's all about for me.

Kickstarter Kenpo: How To Put the Powers of Influence to Work for Your Crowdfunding Campaign

There once was a guy that had a really great, creative idea and wanted to crowdfund the production of his idea on Kickstarter.  The people he talked to genuinely believed it was a great idea, and were happy to support it.  He had some film-minded friends help him make a kick butt video.  His story was heartfelt and impactful.  He worked diligently to rally his friends and family.  The campaign got some traction, but as those final hours ticked away, he realized he was not going to make his goal.  The time ran out in deafening silence and inactivity.   While some crowdfunding platforms, namely, Indiegogo, give creators the option of taking what they earned, on Kickstarter you either make your goal or you get nothing.  Exhausted and defeated, this much deserving creator with a worthy, genius idea, walked away with squat.  

This story is all too familiar for creators and fans of Kickstarter or friends of specific creators.  So I'd like to take a psychological approach to putting your best Kickstarter foot forward, kind of like self-defense for creators wanting to see their dream come true.  

Talk it Up, Don't Be Shy

Before even submitting to Kickstarter, there is a lot of pre-work you should do upfront.  The obvious set of actions is getting your Kickstarter content ready: your all-important video, your written message (your story), your bio, and the rewards.  We'll get into some of those later.  The thing that Kickstarters seem to either underestimate or not realize at all is making a network of connections to support your Kickstarter.  I think more recent coverage has dispelled the myth that Kickstarter is a magical fundraising land where random donors drop out of the sky and send you unsolicited money.  Most people get it now, that you have to assume you're driving all the traffic to your Kickstarter page on your own.  The likelihood that Kickstarter will feature you on any of their main pages is incredibly low, it's best not to count on it ever happening.  The key, then, is building your list of contacts and preparing your followers for your Kickstarter campaign before you even hit the launch button.  Once the campaign starts, it is your sole responsibility to drive traffic to the page and solicit every single donation.  Most successfully funded campaigns make it by tiny margins, whereas most failures miss the mark by a lot.  Be ready for an intense, non-stop flurry of activities to reach your goals.  

Authority

Before you can begin driving traffic to your Kickstarter page, you have to get over the hurdle of Kickstarter's approval process.  Some crowdfunding sites, like Indiegogo, allow anyone to submit virtually any project and have very low barriers to entry.  It might seem easy to get approved, based on the sheer numbers of Kickstarter campaigns going on.  What you don't see, however, is how many projects are rejected and for what reasons.  There are some crucial criteria that Kickstarter doesn't explicitly come out and say.  Most importantly, they want to see that you can deliver.  What that means is the following:

• You have a background in a related area as your project, and you have experience.  Kickstarter is looking at your credentials for evidence that you can deliver what you say you're going to do.
• You have a team.  Kickstarter knows that going it alone is not only difficult, it often spells failure.  Software projects have been rejected for lack of a development team, for example.  Make sure you show that you have other people contributing their unique talents in addition to yours.  
• You have a product, or something very close to it.  A napkin sketch isn't going to cut it; depending on the type of project, the closer to the final thing, the better.  Finished song recordings, filmed scenes for your movie project, CAD drawings and a manufacturing plan for physical products, a prototype for software products, are all far more likely to be approved than an idea, a drawing, written lyrics or scripts, etc.  

In this respect, the name Kickstarter is a bit of misnomer.  It's not here to make your wildest dreams come true; it's used for wrapping up and closing out the hard work you've already done towards a specific goal.  

The good news is that those credentials that get you through the Kickstarter approval process are also the same credentials your backers are looking for.  They, too, want to see that you can deliver.  If you talk up your expertise in the area, people will naturally believe that you are an expert in that area.  In TV commercials, actors who have played doctors on popular shows are perceived subconsciously as medical experts.  Actors dressed like doctors also have this effect, and just claiming a title of doctor causes people to believe and act on the belief that the person is an authority in medicine.  Now, I am not encouraging misdirection of any form, rather, I want to encourage you to play up your expertise.  Use the titles and credentials you have earned, dress the part, and tell people why they should listen to you.  

One other tactic to consider is to prepare your networks before launching the Kickstarter campaign; provide education on what Kickstarter is.  Many Kickstarter campaigners were surprised to find out that they had would-be backers that either didn't understand how to donate or weren't really sure what Kickstarter was all about.  So the most important pre-work you're going to do is to build your list, and the next most important pre-work is socializing Kickstarter with your potential backers (especially those that may be less tech-savvy, like your Mom's bunco group).  

Scarcity

Putting yourself and your dream out on Kickstarter is a very scary way to get validation - you have the potential to be completely and utterly rejected in the public eye.  Thus, a risk averse and conservative approach to time limits tends to lead creators to lean towards a longer Kickstarter campaign.  Quite to the contrary, statistics show that shorter campaigns, in the neighborhood of 21 to 30 days, are more successful than 60 day campaigns in achieving their goals.  In fact, Kickstarter, wanting to see as many projects succeed as possible, did away with their option to go as long as 90 days when they saw how few projects succeeded with that length of time.  One very logical reason for this is the notion of scarcity.  When you chart daily fundings through a typical campaign, there is a lot of activity around the first few days, then a valley of low activity, and then a surge in the last three days or even in the last 10 hours.  The feeling of potentially missing out is a compelling one that gets people off the fence and moves them to action. 

Likewise, there is value in limiting certain rewards offered; as the number of backers approach the limit, it makes those rewards seem more valuable.  It is also prudent advice to limit the rewards that require a lot of your time and attention.  Don Steinberg, in The Kickstarter Handbook, recommends offering no personalized or customized rewards for less than $100.  Remember that your time is valuable, too, and the more time dedicated to fulfilling special rewards, the longer it will take to complete your project. 

Make 'em like you

Have you ever been to a Tupperware party, or a Pampered Chef party, or something similar?  These seemingly fun ways to make a little extra cash for the party host turn the power of liking around on us: we buy Tupperware or kitchen utensils because we perceive that we're buying from a friend and helping her out.  We don't realize that these are just marketing tools for Tupperware or Pampered Chef to sell to us.  The same is true of Kickstarter: expect that nearly 100% of your backers will be people in your personal networks.  What's interesting is that most successfully funded projects had no backers directly related to creators; instead, it was the tier 2 or tier 3 relationships that provided the majority of the monies.  In other words, your closest family and friends may not back you, but their friends and family are likely to.  So play this one up: tell your friends and family to share the message, even script it for them to make it easier to share.

Whether we like to believe it or not, there is a psychological part of us that prefers people that are similar to us, and those who are attractive.  Most successful Presidential candidates are good looking people, less attractive Presidential candidates have rarely won.  Likewise, putting an attractive person as the face of your campaign is a good idea.  Steinberg calls this the "cool guy/cute girl factor".  You also generally want the face of your campaign to relate to your audience (unless you're going for a shock factor, which is a different strategy altogether); so if you're targeting recent college graduates, don't use a 50 year-old man, use a 20-something.  

Another way to win potential backers over is by complimenting them.  Cialdini's discussion on a car salesman revealed that even something as impersonal and obviously geared towards selling cars as being the recipient of one of thousands of cards in the mail that said, "I like you" was able to enhance the car salesman's reputation and boost sales significantly.  So while our intuition tells us that making it personal is best, an impersonal tone of congratulations for finding the Kickstarter website and telling them how awesome they are may still be an effective tactic.  Watch the first 20 seconds of Freaker USA's Kickstarter video (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/freakerusa/freaker-usamaking-you-and-your-beverage-cooler) for a good laugh and a hilarious application of this power of influence.

Social proof

11% of projects go without receiving a single pledge, but 81% of projects that get to 20% of their goal end up reaching their funding goal.  This is no coincidence; we look to what others are doing for validation.  In talking about Venture Capital funding, a common analogy used describes being the first penguin to jump into the water where predatorial walruses may be lurking.  They need to get in the water to eat, but they want proof they won't themselves be eaten. Once you get one penguin to jump, and he comes out alive, the others will jump in with confidence.  If you think of crowdfunding as an extension of venture capital, you can imagine how important momentum is.  Getting over the first hurdles, the very first pledge, the first 10 pledges, the first 20% of your goal, serves as evidence that people believe in your project, validating your project with social proof, and thus encourages a potential backer's willingness to donate.  

Of course, your first backers won't have the privilege of seeing the momentum of the pledges.  Testimonials of people similar to your target market are a good way to give your project authority, social proof and a likability all at the same time.  You can also achieve this with associations and partnerships that appeal to potential backers for the same reasons.  

Creators are strongly encouraged to provide updates throughout the campaign and after being successfully funded.  The updates can work for you in a multitude of ways.  First, they give your backers a sense of involvement and make them feel closer to the project.  By keeping them engaged, they are more likely to mention the project in conversation or recommend it to their networks.  Second, you can use your updates to share the momentum and traction your project is getting, which further validates the backers' commitment with social proof.  

Reciprocity and apparent concession

Doing things for others creates a sense of social debt that needs to be repaid.  Offline fundraisers and sales people have used reciprocity tactics successfully for years: giving a flower to a passerby leads to a donation, waitresses giving extra mints get bigger tips, and providing samples of food leads to purchasing that brand's products.  The same is true of online fundraising; giving a little can mean getting a lot.  

You can use reciprocity and the contrast principle together for an apparent concession.  By asking your friends and family to donate money, and then following up with a request to share the link with their friends and family if they cannot pledge, the retreat to a non-monetary favor shows a concession on your part, and compels them to reciprocate with action.  Again, very few people related to you will end up giving you money, but if they ask their friends to help you out, you have a much stronger chance of making your goal.  

Value perceptions and the contrast principle

When you give something away for free or too cheaply, people automatically associate the item with low value.  "You get what you pay for," is so ingrained in our minds, that steep discounts actually turn potential buyers away.  If you set the price a little higher, you will attract people who want a valuable product.  

The average pledge amount for all campaigns is about $71.  This is much higher than what the typical backer pledges, which is in the $11 to $30 range.  This means there are a small number of individual backers in some campaigns that donate a lot, like hundreds or thousands of dollars.  It is important to separate out these two distinct statistics, because your projects may not be average or typical.  

A rule of thumb is that your most popular reward level is going to be the one that offers "the thing" that your project is producing.  So if your project is an album, the reward level that gets them the album is going to be the most popular, which may be around the $10 to $25 range.  But if your project is the newest and coolest 3D printer, your backers are more likely to give you the amount that gets them one of their own, which is most likely in the hundreds.  So think carefully about how cheap you want your thing to be offered at.  If you set the point too low, it will take a lot more backers to get to your goal.  Of course, there are always contrary examples, the best to my knowledge being when Freaker USA offered its backers their product for the $1 reward level.  They got creative with the other rewards to compensate for such a low requirement to get the thing.  Their campaign was brilliant, and hugely successful.  

While you don't want your rewards to offer the thing too cheaply, you also want to make sure your backers still see value in it.  Generally speaking, you want to offer it at a discounted price, cheaper than they'll be able to buy it later.  It definitely should not be marked up; they are pledges, not charitable donations.  You can then create higher reward levels where you add in additional features, special Kickstarter-only packages or personalization that go above and beyond the thing you are trying to produce.  

There are three pieces of good news about rewards that I think are overlooked.  First, it is easy to test the rewards with your followers before launching.  Sure, giving you advice is not the same as writing you a check, but you can at least get a feel for what they like and what they don't and at which price points, before you finalize it with Kickstarter.  Second, rewards can be limited during the campaign.  Once a backer has picked a specific reward, you cannot change what that reward is or how much it costs, but you can put a limit on it.  This means that if you've reached your goal or you've started to realize that one reward is getting so much action that it'll take you forever to fulfill, you can limit the number of people who can claim that reward, thus limiting your future commitments.  Third, rewards can be added during a campaign.  While too many choices up front can make it difficult for a backer to pick, it is a good idea for you to have planned backup rewards in case the thing really blows up and you find yourself needing to open up more reward options.  Adding rewards (or even loosening the limits on popular rewards) also gives you a very good reason to provide updates to your networks and backers, too.  

A great reward strategy that encourages early participation, and thus, starts the momentum, are what Russel Garenhan called early bird specials.  In talking with him I have noted that he had limited rewards that were identical to slightly more expensive rewards, except that had a small limit on them, like 10 or 15 people.  "You gotta do that," he explained.  "It puts pressure on the early people looking at it."

Video content

Without taking video quality or content into consideration, the empirical evidence is clear: you should have a video.  Michael Neel's post "Kickstarter Stats You Can Use" shows that projects with a video of any kind have had a 52% success rate, while those without one have a 35% success rate (http://www.vinull.com/Post/2012/07/25/kickstarter-stats-you-can-use.aspx).  That being said, what goes into your video is still more important to being successful.  

Chris Kocek posted a slideshow of "Kickstarter Best Practices & Next Steps" (http://www.slideshare.net/ckocek/kickstarter-best-practices-and-next-steps-10-1611-slideshare) in which he defines some elements of successfully funded Kickstarter projects, including a clear, concise product description "in less than 200 characters".  I would add to this that your video needs to have a hook in the first 20 seconds to keep a potential backer engaged.  Kocek also lists "well-lit photos/videos of the product in action" as a critical element to success.  You don't necessarily need to hire a full professional production crew, but good video footage and editing are important. Put yourself in the backers' shoes, if the creator isn't willing to put the effort into a good video, would you pledge money?  Chew on this: the top funded category on Kickstarter is film; they know how to make a compelling video and tell a good story!  

Make sure your video has a call for action, with very clear steps on how to donate. In the very fortunate case that your video goes viral, its viewers will not be seeing it in the context of a Kickstarter page.  This could become a very unfortunate scenario if your backers don't know by the video's content how or what they can do to help.  Thus, you need to make sure to tell them to go to Kickstarter and pledge before its too late.  Be direct and explicit, ambiguity leads inaction.  

How much to ask for

Several funded projects have lost money because they failed to account for just how much every aspect of the Kickstarter project would cost.  So it is definitely prudent advice to spend a good amount of time working through all aspects of costs that impact the project, including fixed costs related to the project (website, PR, advertising), the cost to you of the actual rewards, the cost to ship physical rewards, including international shipping, and the Kickstarter and Amazon fees (plan for 10% total to be taken off the top before you even see your money). 

So on the one hand, you want to make sure your costs are covered.  It is also interesting to note that, because successful projects usually only make their goals by a small margin, there appears to be some psychology that discourages potential backers from helping once a project is funded.  Thus, if you reach your goal in the first three days of a 30 day campaign, there isn't much more action to be had.  Kickstarter backers want an element of a challenge or gambling; when its sure to be funded it isn't quite as interesting.  

On the other hand, you don't want to be too greedy.  Many failed creators have lamented that their goal was just too high.  Garenhan learned this lesson with his first Kickstarter campaign, "I got a little greedy with the goal.... Basically, my first goal on that project was set to where I wanted to get it to make it worth my while to do.  You know, and I was being ambitious. But it had no basis of what it costs me to actually produce the hangers."  He then launch a new campaign for the same product, with a goal that was lower than the cost of a first manufacturing run.  It was a calculated risk that paid off, and the project was funded 310%.  It was risky, he admitted, but a calculated risk: if he made the goal and not much more, he could provide the rest of the upfront money needed out of pocket to get the inventory that he could sell to Amazon.  "I didn't really make any money off of it, but I had inventory."  

This seems to be the sweet spot for Kickstarter goals.  A Kickstarter campaign is intended to cover the costs needed to finish the project, not to give you a handsome profit.  Kickstarter customers seem to be savvy enough to not get suckered in to supporting projects with overly ambitious goals.  After the 7 - 10% fees are taken off the top, most of the products sold are going to be nearly at cost.  

While, of course, nothing can replace great ideas, unique marketing approaches, and awesome connections, the above components could mean the difference between getting funded and barely missing the mark.  Good luck and happy creating!