One of the new social sites that provides a unique way to fund ideas and dreams to fruition is Kickstarter.com. While the site is focused on creative projects proposed by designers, artists. theatrical, film makers etc, the concept of the site is certainly one that could carry over into more technical products. My guess is that a site already exists, I just haven't stumbled on it yet.

I recently met Rob Barros, a Minneapolis based film maker doing a documentary on John Howe, The Architect. Howe is little known, even having done over 50% of the drawings for Frank Lloyd Wright's projects. Barros used Kickstarter to post his project with a movie trailer, description of the project, description of what the money would be used for. Then sent out emails, shared with a Facebook page and it went viral enough to raise the needed $9K for the project in 2 months.

I interviewed Rob while in Phoenix, where he was on site doing some filming, about what this meant to the success of the project in this blog post on funding of creative projects with social media.

I believe incubators and more concepts like this are what will help entrepreneurs in the early stage of forming companies, or selling a product idea to someone else.  Madison would do well to step up the incubator concept like Milwaukee, Boston, and Palo Alto CA, to keep our inventors and creatives in our local area.

What are some social communities you know about that help entrepreneurs get started?
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2 comments:

  1. WisconsInnovation said...

    An excellent example of how individuals can collaborate to duplicate, and even replace organizations! Indeed, the age of the organization is nearing its end. Another great example is Hitrecord.org, which provides, among other things, funding for start-up music acts:

    http://hitrecord.org/reel  

  2. Unknown said...

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