Union Square Ventures - Kickstarter

Kickstarter is a company which provides an opportunity to budding artists and creators to experiment and build projects of their interest. It operates as a crowdfunding platform for all kinds of creative projects. Union Square Ventures is one of the main investors for Kickstarter.
great initiative.

Cindy Au, the Community Director at Kickstarter, started off with a great presentation about the company. Anyone above 18 can submit their projects to kickstarter and quote the amount that they wish to raise via crowdfunding. If they manage to raise the quoted amount within the specified time period, they are successfully funded, and Kickstarter charges 5% of the entire amount, whereas if they fail to raise the funds, no one is charged.

The 'Backers' can browse through the various projects on Kickstarter, and choose to pledge any amount starting from 1$ and they get to be a part of the project they support by being awarded some non-financial reward. The reward can be something like t-shirts, DVDs, tickets, or any such thing related to the project.Cindy showed us some statistics which displayed that most people pledged amounts in the range of $11-$25 and 84% were one-time backers. In this way, even after the project has been funded and implemented, the backers can follow up with the progress of the project they supported. This is what appealed the most to me about the concept of a company like Kickstarter; it provides a platform to build new connections with the people in your area of interest.

The second speaker of the day was Gary Chou from Union Square Ventures. With his multifaceted experiences in the industry, he talked about how he ended up working at Union Square Ventures. He gave us some good advice explaining that you may not necessarily end up working in the field of your study. He explains that one needs to continue optimizing for learning throughout their career, keep creating new projects which display your creativity and to start with smaller projects before you jump to create the next Facebook.

Visiting a company like Kickstarter put me slightly at ease; its nice to know that any time in the future, having a crazy idea for a creative project won't be completely futile; there is a high probability that it will be supported and funded as long as it appeals to people and has some purpose. It was a valuable session in terms of learning about the stories of 2 successful people and gaining by their experiences.