RocketHub Brings Crowdfunding to the Independent Music Conference
The RocketHub team is excited to participate in this year’s Independent Music Conference. We’ll be bringing crowdfunding to Los Angeles at the Musician’s Institute on Saturday, October 20th - with a panel discussion and mentorship sessions. The Independent Music Conference seeks to help independent musicians achieve their goals as entrepreneurial business owners through the presentation of educational seminars, workshops, panel discussions, mentor sessions networking opportunities, performance instruction, evaluation and critique, and live performances. The new path for musicians is to take control of their business, and that’s where IMC2012 steps in with an intense focus on education and networking for independent artists. Around 125 industry experts conduct workshops, give seminars, mentor one on one, and cover all aspects of the independent music business. And since it’s a music conference and there is no separate fee to perform, participants can expect to enjoy many live performances and guest appearances by several top names in the business including Jill Sobule… Be sure to grab your tickets and we’ll see you in L.A.! - The RocketHub Team
- October 9, 2012
A Fun Family Game Modernized - Silo
At it’s core, family is the inspiration. For the vast majority of my life, we’ve played homemade, in-house, board games. At the same time, we were really into games like Yahtzee, Clue and Rummy. About 14 years or so ago, my parents started tinkering with some of the games, which spurned some new games, then some newer ones and more after that. The family would play, provide feedback and the games would evolve. So much so that they attempted to bring one to market. Problem is, the start-up capital is immense. We’re talking well into the 6 figured immense, if you want to have it mass-produced. Creating the games, by hand, were costly and time consuming, which means they only could have run a niche business. I’ve always been interested in the creations, from more than a playing standpoint. My entire career has been spent in and around software, so I was fully aware of the power of games as software. In fact, I once ran an agency that built some very successful branded games and gaming experiences for FedEx, Playboy and Warner Brothers When I first saw an early version of Silo (originally called Mad Math), I knew it was time to marry the skills and desire and take this thing to the masses. At the same time, app gaming, via phones and tablets had exploded, but timing wise, player fatigue was kicking in. You can only play Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja for so long. Trust me, I want to be that successful, but they’re games with a high growth rate, but a shorter lifespan. With Silo, which is rooted as a math-based strategy game, we have two incredible advantages. Math is universal. Addition, for example, is the same in America, as it is in Japan as it is in Peru. We don’t have to worry about being culturally centric as we expand. Secondly, every year, we potentially have millions of new players, because there are kids beginning their schooling and learning math in their curriculum. It is our goal to inspire learning, via a competitive and exciting process. Beneath all of that, if we can spark the next generation of engineers and scientists, then we’ve done more than we could have ever imagined. My 6 y/o daughter has been playing this with me, since she was 4.5 and her skills have taken hold, which has her excelling in her studies. At the same time, it’s no coincidence that she’s recently taken a passionate interest in astronomy. While explaining distance, size and speed she understood quickly, that scientists used math. As a parent, that whole experience of tapping an insatiable curiosity has been amazing. To be honest, the experience is an emotional roller coaster. It’s so exciting to see the your network hard at work, supporting your mission. Their initial boost got us so fired up, because the network effect started to trickle in. It doesn’t matter how large your network is, if they aren’t influential, this isn’t going to work. Also, without a solid project presentation, we have no chance of motivating the RocketHub community. We just participated in a live event, with other crowdfunders, via one of Boston’s largest start-up support communities, Mass Innovation Nights. It was so exciting to be in-person, sharing this story, with a completely fresh group of people. The feedback provided was immense and for every new LinkedIn request, Facebook like and hopefully dollar contributed, it proves this was well worth it. Our biggest challenge, right now, is to show the world that this is a game for the masses. It’s easy to understand. It’s flexible, via platform and gameplay. A player can battle the computer, via a train ride with no WiFi or they can play friends on a turn-by-turn basis. Most of all it’s fun. We’ve tested it in schools, for example, and the only complaint from the teachers is that the kids get so loud, competing, that it can be a distraction to other classrooms. I’d say that’s an awesome problem to have First off, if it feels right, then do it. Secondly, do your homework on the various crowdfunding sites out there. You have to find one that feels right. I made that mistake. This is my second time raising funds for Silo. We did a very aggressive, 2 week, campaign on Kickstarter that failed to reach it’s goal. RocketHub was actually our first choice, but at the last minute went with Kickstarter, because I personally thought the gaming community was there. They do have a large population, but it didn’t help. We ended up being featured in Wired, various news outlets and blogs, had hundreds, if not thousands, of tweets and Facebook posts go out and not once did we ever hear from anyone at Kickstarter. Not even a RT or thanks for the new customers. I know they’re growing fast, but with stiff competition, you need to know it’s all about service now. Well, I hate living with regrets, so I chose to get back on the horse and go with RocketHub. I couldn’t live with myself if I was walking around with a “What if?”. The other piece of advice is to find your community ahead of time. By that I mean, find the blogs, sites, etc that are into what you’re trying to do and make yourself known. Get good at doing your own PR. It’s so much more genuine when it comes from you. Bloggers and newsies are looking for fresh content, all the time and if you present a compelling story, then they’ll love you for it. - Marc Girolimetti, Game Development & Business Management, Red Raider Studios
- October 8, 2012
Community Empowerment through Crowdfunding - Siléí
Silei Community Empowerment project is truly about community empowerment. Our center was established to cultivate safe, sustainable, and just communities within a healthy environment. Not only can we envision more healthy and sustainable communities, we are working very hard to build them. We creatively and directly confront oppression and ecological injustices through arts and activism. This project is sort of a hub to connect diverse struggles for justice and work on identifying meaningful ways to take action. A large part of our inspiration is also from the fact that there are no other Indigenous established projects like ours that we are aware of. We provide access to arts, activist resources, filmmaking workshops, Indigenous youth empowerment, an all ages venue for musicians, community gardening, and much more. We are deeply committed to ensuring that this community resource lives for generations to come. By its very nature crowdfunding is a collaborative process and that’s what is really so powerful about it. Instead of having to be fully dependent on corporate foundations, crowdfunding facilitates a way for people and projects to connect beyond borders. In its own small way it can subvert corporate domination by bringing resource exchange to the hands of people from diverse communities. It’s also a very fun and creative process that has offered us the opportunity to cultivate deeper relationships in and around our immediate community. We’ve had some amazing artists and authors step up to volunteer their work for rewards, we even had a neighbor print out the online information to distribute it in our neighborhood! Crowdfunding is one very important and meaningful way community members are empowered to create and support change in the community. Developing interest and a base of support before launching our crowdfunding campaign was incredibly important. We did a lot of outreach (like making announcements at events and arranging meetings with other community organizations) to gain support for our crowdfunding campaign before we initiated our Rockethub.com campaign. This enabled us to reach out to a base and work to build excitement which, with consistent updates and outreach, could be a recipe that translates into crowdfunding momentum. We also tried to be as creative and resourceful as possible with rewards we offered. By creating a compilation CD that is offered as a reward, not only are we able to reach out to many awesome independent bands who have played at our community center, we are able to have bands spread the word to their fans as well. While there is a lot of focus on integrating social media with a crowdfunding campaign, we noticed significant surges in contributions when we sent out personalized email updates/reminders and called our friends and families to directly ask for support. Finally, we realized that our work didn’t stop with setting up the Rockethub.com crowdfunding campaign; we’ve written press releases and sent them to local papers and radio stations and printed flyers and put them everywhere we could think of. - Klee Benally, Siléí Community Empowerment Project
- October 3, 2012
Emiko’s Journey - An Emotional New Album Comes to Life
The inspiration behind the new album is my journeys over the past three years. I left New York in November 2009 for a 10 day trip to Japan, starting in Tokyo. Three days into being there, I met the man who would become my husband. Three weeks after that, I was on a one way flight to London with him. A month later, we were in Paris, and a week after that, he proposed to me 30,000 feet in the air over the Atlantic Ocean, halfway between England and the US. The past three years have been an incredible adventure for me - the kind of adventure that I know a lot of people wish they could have — it’s a real once in a lifetime thing and I was lucky enough to live it. I also want people to know that saying “yes” to one simple question changed my entire life (no, it was not “will you marry me!”) - and the kind of courage I had to muster up to do so was not easy, but totally worth it. This album is an example of what can happy when you truly follow your gut and let your heart lead the way and I want to share these experiences through the songs I’ve written, and as it’s been quite a while since my last major commercial release, I wanted to do a limited and exclusive pre-sale in preparation and celebration of the impending album release. The response from the people who have bought the pre-sale so far has been overwhelming — messages of congratulations to fan letters to even requests to cover my music have been coming in! I was really nervous about the music’s reception but so far it’s been amazing and the support has really made it clear that I went on this three year journey for a reason and it’s even more clear that this music needs to be shared with people. I’m absolutely thrilled that everyone loves the music - we’re working really hard to finish the album and the pre-sale not only sets the tone for the album release (which is going to be awesome) but the actual pre-orders help to expedite our finishing the record. My advice to people who are looking to crowd or fan fund is three fold: 1. Be gracious, humble, personable, and thankful 2. Follow through and do what you say — if you promise someone a special added gift with a funding package, make sure to deliver it, however long it takes! 3. Be realistic! That’s the biggest one of all I see so many people (mainly artists) who attempt funding projects and want to raise the better part of $50,000 — think about that. That’s the downpayment on a house in a lot of places! Can you justify asking for that money? How? What is the value of what you’ve done so far? Do you have a track record? Do you have recommendations? Where will the money go? Can you ensure transparency? Also - do you really NEED that amount at that time (maybe you do in which case go for it, but maybe you don’t …) All I’m saying is that people are much more likely to support those who have a solid foundation and a good head on their shoulders. Yes, a great dream is wonderful - a solid plan will make me want to support you, and a fantastic story that is personal, inspiring and moving will make me want to know more and make sure that I can help to make others succeed. I would like to say this: in planning my pre-sale I looked at a lot of different options, including doing a pre-sale on digital music retailer sites and other funding sites, as well as offering it directly from my own website. I chose to go with RocketHub for two reasons: 1. I know their Co-Founder and he was very approachable, personable, gracious, and informed … and supportive of my ideas and my journey and 2. (a more practical reason) they are globally accessible. These, to me, are two very important factors in entering into a new partnership and I’d just like to say that so far, it’s been a real pleasure being part of the RocketHub community. - Emiko, Singer, Songwriter, Musical Artist
- October 1, 2012
Crowdfunding Thousands for Walking for Pennies
In 2008, Andy Jobe and I found ourselves in the woods of Vermont with two guitars and a lot of time on our hands. We met performing in a production of Les Miserables at Weston Playhouse, and the second we sang together it was clear that our voices blended unusually well. As we began combining musical influences and working on original songs we found that a blend of bluegrass, motown, 70s rock, and folk emerged out of the collaboration. We started this RocketHub campaign to help fund the completion of our debut album, Forget About Wonderland. We’ve been recording for almost two years now (the pace being set as our time and money would allow) but have finally built up enough momentum to move forward and the money we raise from this campaign will effectively launch Walking for Pennies into the indie music scene and allow us to share our music with the world. We were actually pretty ambivalent about crowdfunding at first- we didn’t want to feel as if we were begging for money, so we made a point of only posting ‘rewards’ that we thought would truly be valuable to fans. It has lead us to think creatively about merchandise and come up with some pretty cool offerings. Creating this campaign has really helped us focus and given us a structure around which to build more social media connections, and the promo alone has been worth it. It’s easier to tell people about your project when you have a clear call to action. We never knew how many people supported us til the numbers started adding up so quickly - this album has been a long time in the making and the excitement for what we’re doing has been very surprising (and gratifying). Our advice to anyone looking to crowdfund their own project: Be honest and wear your heart on your sleeve. Sell who you are, not who you think you should be- people will value you for you. And make sure to communicate with your fuelers. The connections you build from the campaign are much more valuable than the money. - Neeley Bridges, Walking for Pennies
- September 28, 2012
RocketHub CEO at World Maker Faire New York
This weekend is World Maker Faire New York - a two-day, family-friendly festival of invention, creativity and resourcefulness, and a celebration of the Maker movement. With over 500 Maker exhibits, this years event is the world’s most diverse showcase of creativity and innovation in technology, craft, science, fashion, art, food and education. The program is jam-packed with fun interactive exhibits and presentations, including RocketHub CEO Brian Meece, lecturing on Crowdfunding Success Patterns at 6PM Saturday. The questions that will be answered through his Maker’s Faire workshop include: 1. What is crowdfunding? 2. How are Makers currently crowdfunding their endeavors? 3. What are the “core patterns” for increasing the probability of funding your next project? RocketHub is honored to be a part of the Maker Movement and Brian is looking forward to meeting Makers this weekend. To get involved: http://makerfaire.com/newyork/2012/index.html World Maker Faire New York New York Hall of Science, Queens, NY Saturday, September 29, 2012 - 10am - 7pm Sunday, September 30, 2012 - 10am - 6pm - The RocketHub Team
- September 26, 2012
Opera Five - Modernizing Opera Through Crowdfunding
A deep-seeded love of opera was the main source of inspiration for us. We believe that opera is awesome. It’s an omni-art where drama, music, visual art, dance and any other kind of art form you can imagine is combined on stage for the audience’s enjoyment. Despite its awesomeness, there are obviously some hurdles facing most opera companies when it comes to developing new audiences: confusing plot lines, uncomfortable or unwelcoming environments, the price, etc…. Enter Opera Cheats. The concept is simple: All you need to know about opera in two-minute videos. We release them on Youtube so that anyone can access them on their computer or phone, anywhere, free of charge. There are two types of Opera Cheats: 1. General Guidelines: so you aren’t worried about things like what to wear 2. Plot Synopses: so that you always know what’s going on. Most important we make it fun. We hope to give people the information they need to sit back, and enjoy whatever show they happen to be at. The response has been incredibly positive, and has been working in ways we didn’t foresee when we were in the production phase. As a fledgling opera company, it seems a bit lofty to say that we have fans, but through this process we seem to have gained a community of amazing people who have (literally) bought into what we are trying to create. We’re all watching our progress meter get closer and closer to our goal. Those who have been involved in any capacity, from sharing our link to donating, helping us film our video, or pledging to watch the final product once it’s released has a stake in seeing us reach the finish line. It feels a little clichéd to say we’ve been overwhelmed with the support we’ve received thus far, but it’s true, so let’s just own it, and get it out there: we’ve been humbled. There’s a lot of advice already available on the RocketHub website and beyond on how to run a successful crowdfunding campaign, but in our experience messaging is key. Your video, project description, rewards, and product should all use the same language and tone. For example, if your project is funny, sweet, and courageous, your video should not be serious, hard to swallow, and safe. It seems like a simple enough concept, but it took us a long time to make sure everything we were doing was consistent. Also, every single person who gives any amount of money to the cause deserves a public thank you. You’re going nowhere without their support, so tweet it, and make sure your use as many venues as possible to thank the people who are getting you where you need to go. Other than that, carpe some diem and milk the crowdfunding process for all its worth! You can get a lot more out of it than just the funding you need for your project. - Aria Umezawa, Artistic Director, Opera Five
- September 25, 2012
Central Florida Community Arts Crowdfunds Growth
Central Florida Community Arts is a non-profit Musical Arts organization that began as a true grass roots entity, complete with meetings held in peoples’ homes and coffee houses throughout the Central Florida area. However in the past two years of our existence, we have been growing like crazy. We have gone from just a 140-voice unauditioned Community Choir in Feb. 2011 to a 210-voice Community Choir and a 65-piece Community Orchestra, along with over 75 kids in our Children’s & Youth Arts program today. We’ve completed 11 full-scale performances and are currently in rehearsals for 3 more. We’ve partnered with over 30 non-profit organizations and performed for them at no cost, either as part of their fundraisers or for the client they serve. We’ve run a Music Performance Summer Camp program, where roughly half of the kids who participated were from foster care, Coalition for the Homeless and the local chapter of the Boys & Girls Club and we invited those campers to participate for free, so we could expose them to the Arts, some of them for the very first time (the Case Workers for some of these kids said they had never seen such a vast change in behavior than during that one week of camp - proof of how important the Arts are to a developing mind!). We also have plans for a studio for music lessons on a sliding scale basis so learning and studying the Arts can be accessible and affordable to more Central Floridians than ever before. We have established ourselves as an up-and-coming 501(c)(3) non-profit Arts organization and with all that growth, with plans for so much more, we have come to a point where meeting potential members, community partners and donors can’t happen at a Starbuck’s anymore, if we want them to take us seriously. We also need an area to rehearse, to teach lessons and to store all our music and props - and all of that can happen with this new space. Honestly, although we’re thrilled to have as much in donations as we do, we still have a LONG way to go to help us raise the full $50,000. We’ve have some supporters who have been absolutely incredible at getting the word out and others have, we know, have donated as much as they possibly could - and to those people we are eternally grateful. But with as many past and present members and patrons as we have, to say nothing of personal contacts, and the tools we have offered all of them to help us, well, let’s just say that when we see the contributions dwindle down to just an occasional trickle, and it often does, it can be very, very frustrating. And then all of a sudden we’ll get a few donations over the course of just a couple of hours, and we’ll smile from ear to ear for the rest of the day. So it’s really a roller coaster of emotions. We’re keeping the faith and doing everything we can to make this work, though - hopefully enough people will show enough support and belief in us and our future! For success, plan carefully and wait until you really need something, rather than just wanting it. That in itself goes a long way to help you look legitimate. We initially had the opportunity for this home nearly a year ago but after some long staff meetings and lots of soul searching, we decided that “then” wasn’t the time. We were still too new and too small at the time to really justify having such a space, as much as we wanted it and as cool as we thought it would be. Well, it’s a year later and we’re much larger, more established and are becoming more well-known each day. We feel that we’ve grown into the need for this home and can state all the reasons why we truly require it now. We’re lucky to have so many people who have the ability to help us and, besides asking them to donate whatever they can, we have offered all of our members, patrons and personal contacts all the tools they need to help us raise the funds - from flyers and info meetings to a promo video and custom-made emails. We send out periodic email blasts, reminders on social media and our Executive Director is willing to personally speak from the heart to anyone who is considering making a donation - all good tools to help get the word out! Hopefully it will all be enough to help us reach our goal! - Sharon Hegedus, Senior Director of Community Involvement/Special Events, Central Florida Community Arts
- September 21, 2012
RocketHub Success Check-In: Peter Michael Marino
I wanted to thank RocketHub for making the crowdfunding of my show so simple … and dare I say, FUN? My solo comedy “Desperately Seeking the Exit” started with a short NYC run in May, and was quickly extended. This quirky comedy about the making and unmaking of my West End musical flop “Desperately Seeking Susan” then went on to packed performances in Hollywood, Long Lake, and across the pond in Manchester where it received standing ovations. My RocketHub funding then helped pave the road to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the largest Arts festival in the world, where the show ran for three weeks to enthusiastic houses, tremendous media attention, and garnering 5-star reviews! The goal of my crowdfunding campaign was to get international press so that I could tour the show around the world in conjunction with my solo show workshops at schools and universities. This all happened. The show was featured in nearly every UK national newspaper, numerous radio stations, podcasts, and blogs. Now the show is being transferred to London where it will run for 3 weeks in early 2013 before heading to the Adelaide Fringe and more Fringes to follow. The show will return to the Edinburgh Fringe next summer -something I never expected to happen and something I’m totally psyched about. And as I hoped, I’ve received several offers to teach my solo show workshops around the world as a result of doing the show. Dreams do come true - and I thank all of my RocketHub Fuelers and the entire team at RocketHub for their patience, outreach, smarts and experience for helping me realize my dreams. You can read more about the show here. Thanks again and again! - Peter Michael Marino, Director, Writer, Producer, Actor, and International Crowdfunding Success
- September 19, 2012
Foodie Entrepreneurs Crowdfund Global Cuisine Company
Global Kitchen was born out of a passion for food, culture, stories, and shared meals. We love food from different regions, travelling, and learning about new cultures. We want to create an experience where class participants see the place our chef instructors grew up through their eyes, and experience it first-hand. We view these experiences not just as cooking classes, but as an evening’s escape to a completely different place where exotic spices blend into personal stories, and cultural exchange happens through the kneading of dough. Advancing the interests of an under-employed population is another critical element to Global Kitchen. We provide foreign-born food business owners with a venue to share their fantastic dishes, recognize that they have a great deal to contribute to their adopted home, and market their own businesses. Veda Sukhu had this to say about leading our pilot class: “Thank you for taking a chance on me. The guests made it easy. They were a lovely bunch of people, the interactions were great, and seeing them enjoying the food we prepared gave me great pleasure. Thanks a million for giving me this opportunity.” The crowdfunding campaign has been a really valuable experience for us. We are making good progress towards our funding goal and are seeing an enthusiastic response from our supporters. Equally as important, the campaign has provided a great opportunity to build buzz about our enterprise in general. Since we opened the campaign, we have noticed a substantial bump in people’s interest in Global Kitchen. So the RocketHub campaign has been a good focal point for marketing in addition to a useful fundraising tool. Early on in the campaign identify the big guns- people you think may be in a position to give a significant amount ($100-$200+) and your hardcore supporters- those who will actively spread the word about your project to their networks. It also takes a lot of work, so it’s important to keep plugging away at it. Getting your message out in person, by email, social media, and phone every day is key. It’s also essential to show your supporters appreciation along the way. We’ve found that thanking supporters via Facebook and Twitter is not only a nice token of thanks but also drives more traffic to our campaign and encourages others to contribute. In short, keep at it; reaching your goal will not happen without some good ol’ grit and grind. - Ryan Brown and Pete Freeman, Global Kitchen Founders and Crowdfunding Pioneers
- September 17, 2012
