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Side projects usually enjoy a brief moment in the sun, and then start losing traffic (or in modern parlance - money). Any further effort to promote them is fruitless, because the chances are; the same people you are targeting have already seen your project. It's like when movie franchises (Dumb and Dumber for example) try and milk the format.

A golden rule I try to live by is try many different things. Try every single avenue you can. When one avenue burns out, go down another one.

I still write lots of articles and essays, but I don't focus on any one topic.

I'm not running ads anymore. Some of my articles still have affiliate ads for books, but I placed those ads years ago. My new material doesn't have any ads.

I figure that if my writing is well-received, something good is bound to happen to me. Other than my plan for the KickStarter - which I am not dead certain I will actually pursue - I don't have any specific plans for monetizing my site.

> Just a couple days ago, I read that three times as much money is raised from crowdfunding than from VC.

Citation required. That doesn't sound possible.

I found the cite in an article by a VC, linked from HN.

I'll post it for you but not just now as it will take me a while to dig up my bookmark, also I need to get some sleep.

I'm skeptical too, but that's what the VC did claim.

According to Kickstarter's own metrics (and I'm sure we agree that they're the clear winner in this space), there's been a total of about $1.5B in funds raised TOTAL, over the lifetime of the site: https://www.kickstarter.com/help/stats

Conversely, there was nearly $30B in VC money committed in 2013 alone: http://www.pwc.com/us/en/press-releases/2014/annual-venture-...

So it's not even close to being close. Maybe there's 3x more crowdsourced projects funded than companies backed, but most KS projects are funded for a few thousand dollars.

I always assumed you had to know how to make a compelling video to succeed at kickstarter. And as a correlate be charismatic and photogenic.

I ran a successful Kickstarter with what I believe to be a cruddy video. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1985705009/pimame

I think there are two spectrums to successful Kickstarter videos: Over the top really well done quality videos, and super low budget (read: $0) iMovie videos that show sincerity.

Anywhere in between that and you come off looking like a scam.

That is a good point. I helped with a kickstarter for a fusion project. Our budget was low but we hired some marketing people who spent about $6000 putting together a video for us. It wasn't great but it was the best we could manage. We got a ton of comments about how scammy we looked, including from many of the project's long-time supporters.

(Luckily it didn't hurt us too badly, we raised $180K.)

I have two close friends who are professional filmmakers, Sari Gennis and Ted Arabian. Sari was the animation director for Ferngully, her sister was my boss' girlfriend back in the day.

I met Ted in high school, when he and I both played Roman Soldiers in Jesus Christ Superstar.

However I plan to make most of the video myself, but then to have Ted edit it. Real Soon Now I'm going to make a storyboard from digital still shots, then an improvised voice track, then I'll transcribe the voice track into text and edit it down to where I think Ted could get it to fit into three minutes.

My plan is to produce a quality video but with some very humbling imagery. Consider that a homeless fellow here in Portland, not long ago said to me "Some of they people I find sleeping on the street, they tell me they used to make six figures".

I find lots of software engineers eating at soup kitchens and sleeping in homeless shelters.

It's not exactly like my computer employer index is going to find them jobs, but that if I can make it easier for most people to find jobs, then everyone will benefit.

    Consider that a homeless fellow here in Portland, not long ago said to me
    "Some of they people I find sleeping on the street, they tell me they used
    to make six figures".
    I find lots of software engineers eating at soup kitchens and sleeping in
    homeless shelters.

wait a minute, what?

Not surprised. I remember having a conversation with a homeless panhandling ex-software engineer in front of the NYC Tower Records store (original one on 4th & B'way) almost 30 years ago. He claimed to make over $500/day panhandling and, from his style, I believed it.

Yes. He really either used to be a programmer or was faking it extremely well!

Realizing that personal anecdote is in no way data, but I've backed 49 Kickstarter projects and have never one watched a video.

Edit: Apparently I've backed 59 projects, 10 didn't reach their funding goal.

I'm in the same boat: I almost never watch the videos. However, I've also run a Kickstarter of my own and, while researching it, found that videos make a huge difference.

We're both HN posters, which puts us in a pretty small demographic. :)