Startup Sherpa (Kickstarter): Going Direct To The Audience For Crowdsourced Funding

If you want to crowdsource the funding for a project?whether it is a product, album, or a film?one of the best places to find both patrons and early customers is Kickstarter. In this week's episode of Startup Sherpa, host Chris Dixon dives deep into the crowdsourced-funding phenomenon with Kickstarter founder Perry Chen. The majority of projects on Kickstarter are creative ones involving film, art, or music. But product design and startups can be just as creative. Chen describes the funding model on Kickstarter as "somewhere between commerce and patronage." And some of the most notable projects are technology products, including open social network Diaspora and the TikTok iPod Nano watch that raised almost $1 million. In the videos below, Dixon and Chen discuss what made those two projects take off. Chen also offers advice for how to kickstart your own project on his site.

Shanna Moakler Portia de Rossi Jolene Blalock Nichole Robinson Monet Mazur