Several weeks ago, I posted about a phone app that I wanted to exist: a one-to-many messaging system that worked by hopping from phone to phone.
JakobVirgil was up for the challenge, and after talking about it a bit, I offered to launch a kickstarter to support his effort.
Today we launched the Tin-Can kickstarter.
JakobVirgil has already done a significant amount of work on Tin-Can, and we are excited to see this realized. steve made our awesome video.
Any pledging and/or sharing of the project would be much appreciated!
UPDATE: Thanks to some great suggestions made by JTHipster, we've added new $25 and $75 backer rewards.
The kickstarter page isn't quite up to snuff to really get this off the ground. The project looks great, but the kickstarter page is going to prevent a lot of people outside of hubski from backing a project they would probably already love. You really need to show people why they would use this versus testing, and what donating more money would get for everyone. Show me some stretch goals. Hell I donated 1000$ to homestuck so I could get in the game credits. Offer actual cans sent to people's houses if they donate something like 50 dollars. That's a neat dumb trophy that says "yo I made a contribution." for something like 20 dollars offer sheets of hubski stickers. Stretch goals should have some similar aspects. So let's say at 2500, you guys get a graphic designer to help with the ui. At 5000 you give everyone who contributed the "pro" version; that's a great way to get people using your product and contributing. Give people who contributed specially colored names or something can also work, but that does have some downsides. One of your later goals should also be making tincan open source. You might be tempted to right now, but while that's a noble effort, its much more effective to make people strive to get it to open source. Your primary market is going to be redditors and younger people, and a large form of activism today is spending money on helping small developers. I'd also recommend using your real names, not your hubski ids. Yes, it makes it less anonymous, but if people are paying you for something, they want to know they can trust you, and showing names means trust. The product itself looks cool, but kickstarter is essentially a marketing platform, and you need to convince people why they would pay a premium price for a product that's going to go anywhere from 2 dollars to free. This seems like a lot of criticism, but its really not. The idea is great, its the pitch that needs work. I'm actually ready to pop 100$ on this, but I'm only doing that if I know it'll succeed. It totally can, no pun intended. Just show me.
Thanks. These are good points. I'm cool with adding my name, and did in the description. I can't change our account name, however. As for rewards, at $2500, we are $700 past our goal. Let me discuss with JV some about other potential rewards. Due to the nature of the app, the ability to build personal variation within the app itself is limited. If sending cans out to people will make the difference, I'm up for it.
JTHipster is right, People want "things" for their contribution. A chant in a circle? That's not going to cut it. People are giving you their money. Send them a tin can sticker or put together a "how to make a real tin can phone" kit. Send them string and a diagram of how to build one (can's not included). -Silly, but it gives them buy-in. Maybe at $50 you send out a "how to diagram" and at $75 the diagram and string and at $100 they get the diagram, the string and two tin cans. At $500 they get the family package, enough string and cans for 5 people etc.... Just some ideas off of the top of my head.
The account name is fine, its mainly using your hubski account names on the kickstarter. You can mention them, but your real names should be the ones used on the actual page. Personal variation isn't a super big deal. It also can create a negative effect, where you have an established elite group with colored names that keeps new people from using it. When this gets cross posted to reddit, be sure to send everyone the link here so we can help give it some visibility.
Ok, I just added the tin can phone reward at $75. :) UPDATE: Just added a $25 reward. Will do. Is there any /r you suggest other than /r/hubski? I would guess that most subreddits don't want kickstarters.When this gets cross posted to reddit, be sure to send everyone the link here so we can help give it some visibility.
See.. and I just changed my donation from $50 to $75, just so I can get the tin can phone reward.
/r/technology will likely eat it up, even /r/darknet if it's still around. Reddit is very accepting of kickstarters so long as its related to the subreddit. You just need to get it visible in one subreddit and people will get it visible in others. I'd also recommend creating a lower backing than $10. Something like $5, as well as $10 and other higher ones has that appeal of less than a meal. Its hard not to justify spending $5 on something you agree with that would be useful. If I keep making suggestions I'm going to overwhelm this conversation. I used to be much more in-tune with the reddit community, but have since dropped off. IIRC, there's really not much opposition to kickstarters, just so long as they're not way too off topic or frivolous.
Can or 2 cans string with a string and the logo would be awesome. You know tin can version 1.0