Support A Fellow Leathersmith Reach Her Goals

[Spinner]

Hey Chris, hate to shoot your theory full of holes, and the internet does even the playing field some, but I just got an order for and epi-pen holster prototype from Ohio when a man met a friend of mine in VA. at a conference that lives here in VT. Hows that for networking, LOL. Covered 1/2 the country in one fell swoop with not a penny paid on PPC :-)

Meh, no worries. It actually doesn't shoot it full of holes and it's not my theory. It was an actual test case at a seminar I attended a few years back just related it closer to home for the forum. It simply illustrates Jack's earlier point that some forms of sales wouldn't be affected by anything anyone else does.

Mia doesn't seem to have much rebuttal to everyone's posts. Makes you wonder if this was all on the up and up!

Or she could be working, in school, a sleep, in a country that is 12 hours ahead, etc. and just not have visited the site again yet to see the craziness that has ensued.

[HellfireJack]

Yeah, and I can't for all certainty say how they do either. Part of where I'm coming from is my background with this stuff. I read proposals for my boss (a local venture capitalist) and have to give a report on what they do and don't say.

While her request does discuss the right things like you mentioned, it includes 'fund my life' requests that kill the spirit of it like "buying a camera, building her own e-commerce website (versus using the pay to play prefab store she's in now), etc."

It's goals are also open-ended and immeasurable as the 'goal' is to have a successful business, but by whose metrics & timeframe? There isn't one stated so now the request becomes subjective which creates a disparity between her and her supporters due mainly to varying perceptions.

As for the commerce side of it, I'm sure that goes on. Kickstarter has been abused like that pretty much since inception. Which begs another question on the 'project'...if the goal is to improve quality and design, does that mean that folks supporting the project receive their reward based on the

existing inventory of designs (which is my assumption) or one of the new, improved designs that they are actually there to support?

You may have realized by now that at least for my part this is more educational now for folks, including Mia, who might read this versus bashing on the OP. All in all, I think the main issue folks here were having (going back to the original issue raised i the thread) isn't that they think she's trying to sell them something, it was the oddity of asking the very people she plans to compete with (directly or indirectly) for help in establishing/improving that competition for business. Now, it was mentioned that competition was a BS excuse and while geography and style may inhibit that competition, we're also talking about the internet. That means search engine rankings, pay per click advertisments, etc. all have to be considered. As an example, let's use Cheryl as vendor A (sorry Cheryl ) and Mia proposes her improvement project. Cheryl chips in and gets a token in return. For arguments sake, we'll say their products are of similar quality & execution & style so what we're left with is marketing. Cheryl has a good web presence so on and so forth. Mia, using her funds builds a web site of equal quality design but uses what's left to hire a good SEO firm which gets her site into higher rankings on Google, etc. thus directing traffic to her site before they'd see Cheryl's and ends up with the business. Now, I'm not saying that Mia couldn't do that on her own without the project, or that one donation by itself could kill a business and of course, Cheryl has access to the same resources if she has or can find the funding.

Long story short my point is simply that's where the consideration & hesitation comes from. Helping to improve another's business that will add a layer of dilution & competition to an already saturated market is not a sound business decision no matter how benevolent.

I can't speak to what quality the rewards will be. I'm not the person offering them. All I know is that the rewards are stated. If you want more information you'll have to contact her.

The other stuff is all pretty much moot. What ever the circumstances are you can "what if" it death. What if Mia didn't even know what SEO was? What if Cheryl is far more dedicated and hocks her wares at 20% more locations? What if their clients prefer steampunk to cowboy gear? Who wins the lions share? Moot.

Not helping someone simply because you don't like how they are asking for help is everyone's perogative. I, personally, can't see shooting someone down simply because they tried something new that I didn't understand. I say kudos to her. No one here is forced to support anyones effort. We do it out of kindness and that's the same reason people should support anyone in any endeavor they ask for help with. Giving her an earful about how disgusted you might be because you think she's a beggar is pointless and, in my opinion, a bit insulting.

[Ferg]

Obviously this is going nowhere. We all have our opinions and there is know point in dragging this out which does nothing but create some hard feelings.

Johanna, please lock this thread.

ferg

1342183251[/url]' post='256265']

I can't speak to what quality the rewards will be. I'm not the person offering them. All I know is that the rewards are stated. If you want more information you'll have to contact her.

The other stuff is all pretty much moot. What ever the circumstances are you can "what if" it death. What if Mia didn't even know what SEO was? What if Cheryl is far more dedicated and hocks her wares at 20% more locations? What if their clients prefer steampunk to cowboy gear? Who wins the lions share? Moot.

Not helping someone simply because you don't like how they are asking for help is everyone's perogative. I, personally, can't see shooting someone down simply because they tried something new that I didn't understand. I say kudos to her. No one here is forced to support anyones effort. We do it out of kindness and that's the same reason people should support anyone in any endeavor they ask for help with. Giving her an earful about how disgusted you might be because you think she's a beggar is pointless and, in my opinion, a bit insulting.

[Spinner]

I can't speak to what quality the rewards will be. I'm not the person offering them. All I know is that the rewards are stated. If you want more information you'll have to contact her.

The other stuff is all pretty much moot. What ever the circumstances are you can "what if" it death. What if Mia didn't even know what SEO was? What if Cheryl is far more dedicated and hocks her wares at 20% more locations? What if their clients prefer steampunk to cowboy gear? Who wins the lions share? Moot.

Not helping someone simply because you don't like how they are asking for help is everyone's perogative. I, personally, can't see shooting someone down simply because they tried something new that I didn't understand. I say kudos to her. No one here is forced to support anyones effort. We do it out of kindness and that's the same reason people should support anyone in any endeavor they ask for help with. Giving her an earful about how disgusted you might be because you think she's a beggar is pointless and, in my opinion, a bit insulting.

Just to be clear, I do understand Kickstarter and have supported projects I found to be worthwhile through it. And yes, I gave her a small earful in my original post but I never straight up called her a beggar or deemed the method as disgusting, I simply disagreed with the audience she chose to solicit. It is everyone's prerogative to make decisions whether they be from the heart or the head. Ferg's right though, I've been trying to discuss business scenarios and decision making using the thread details as examples to help enlighten those who may not have much business experience and you decided to bring it back around to "why does everyone have to bash poor Mia" so I'll just chalk this up to us having two different conversations and move on to something more interesting.

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Funny enough one of my daily web comic reads touched on the whole Kickstarter theory this morning so for those interested, here's the link.

Gutters - Issue 319 Warning, they don't censor the artist of the day's language, so if you have 4-letter word sensitivities here's the first line that sums it up:

"With Boom, Top Cow, Zenescope, Image and IDW all using Kickstarter for projects they don't believe in enough to put their own money into, we thought..."

<signing off>

Cheers,

Chris

[Art]

We will call that the final note and consider this topic well and truly closed.

Art

Moderator