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Summary
Samantha still can’t persuade Paul to get his office cleaned up, so it looks like they’re going to keep discussing anything and everything they can to stave off the dreaded cleaning.
Paul’s been asked some variation of “how do you do a successful Kickstarter” quite a lot, so he decided to write a book about it. It’s not finished, but if you really want a look at it, it’s linked below. The short
answer is basically just to give things away. He uses little things like an e-book of answers he’s given to people on Permies or an old movie to give away as rewards for signing up to the dailyish, then send everyone on the list an email saying that there’s more where that came from in the new Kickstarter. There’s more ways to
profit from things than just selling them directly!
For building communities, rules
should be consistent – if someone busts a gut getting to yours when they know the rules, changing them is just going to piss everyone off and lead to uncertainty. That said, if you have to add a rule such as “no stabbing people” because you simply thought that you wouldn’t need such a rule, then most people would be more than understanding. Paul’s one rule is intentionally very vague to prevent people from trying to pull a “well, actually I didn’t stab him, I impaled him” sort of intentional rule-bending and edge finding.
Permies has similarly vague guidelines and about 40 separate threads explaining why certain things are done the way they are. A lot of people that ask about starting communities seem to be trying to control the other members via rules, while Paul’s approach is to build communities with patience, communication, and kindness. And not changing the rules that people have already signed up to because someone on the internet said “it must be done my way”.
Relevant Threads
response to demands that I change
Kickstarter Techniques eBook - DRAFT
Community forum
permies.com publishing standards
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This podcast was made possible thanks to:
Dr. Hugh Gill Kultur
Kyle Neath
Bill Crim
anonymous
Chris Sugg
Kerry JustTooLazy
Jocelyn Campbell
Bill Erickson
Sasquatch
G Cooper
Dominic Crolius
Penny McLoughlin
Mehron Kugler
Pasquale DeAngelis
havokeachday
Julia Winter, world's slowest mosaic artist
Greg Martin
Mark
Sean Benedict
Rita Bliden
Dana Martin
Candace Dahlk
Keith Kuhnsman
Leanne
Eric Tolbert
Nick DePuy
Nathan Hale
Opalyn
Rose
Polly Jayne Smyth
Todd Gerardot
Katie Young
Ivar Vasara
Brent Lawson
Weston prestage
Candice Crawford
Chris Holtslag
Song Zheng
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