visit/moving to the lab in spring. help and suggestions.

Goin a packin!

Moonbeam does not approve of the new additions.. hippie goats for sure...

Geez plane tickets are steep. For round trip travel for the visit looks like it would be about $700. Sheesh.

kadence blevins wrote:Geez plane tickets are steep. For round trip travel for the visit looks like it would be about $700. Sheesh.

A lot of people come by bus.

Once, when I was speaking in sandy eggo, a couple approached me to say that they traveled by bus for four days to hear me speak. I thought that sounded terrible!

Another idea is the bus/flight combo. Maybe there is cheaper airfare to bigger city that is not so far away. It seems we get a fair number of folks driving here from salt lake city .... Spokane is just a few hours away. Seattle?

Sometimes things fall apart at the perfect time so that you can jump to where you need to be. At least thats what i am hoping in my optimistic hopes right now.

My current living situation has deteriorated. I must be elsewhere by may/june.

I am writing up stuff and will be posting a rough draft tomorrow here for the kickstarter. If anyone wishes to say what they would want to see please put it here. Currently my list is about 30.. so about 336 more days would be left for a video of what you want to see!

If you roll old school and would like to send cash/check please Purple Moosage me.

As well please check out my thread about the fund for earnestness. If people are interested i will set it up.

When you make your kickstarter, make it about the business you are starting. Do not make it about stuff you want to spend your money on.

Your new business is to go to wheaton labs and start a vlog.

paul wheaton wrote:I like kickstarter because it shoots for certain values. I think wethetrees can do it too, but I'm not as familiar with how their stuff works.

The root of kickstarter is: I think people want widget X for $20. If I get $5000 worth of orders of widget X at $20 per order, I will totally make widget X.

Now, it is possible that you are thinking "what *I* want is lovely-thing-Z". And I see a lot of kickstarters that say "help me raise money so I can have nice things." And it seems that most of those don't get funded.

So what I propose is that you say is "If I get funded, I will start a daily vlog at wheaton labs. The funds will be used to get me there." With funding, I promise that I will create a vlog per day, EVERY day.

Now, there is the issue that you might get here and that you HATE it here. Or you get here and we send you down the road. However, we have yet to ask anybody to leave that has listened to ALL of the podcasts. How many have you listened to? But this sort of risk would go in the kickstarter "risks and challenges".

So, now you are committed that if you get funded, you will make 365 vlogs in 365 days.

So, let's say that you need $3000 to get here. So that would be your kickstarter/wethetrees goal. You need to raise about $10 per vlog.

Let's come up with rewards to make it simpler:

First, for $1, you need some candy to cross from not helping to being a supporter. With our last kickstarter, we did the "micro documentary" - you can only see it if you put in a dollar. We uploaded it to youtube as an "unlisted" video. We then sent an email to all of the supporters with the link to the video. So you could do something where you say that you will make six videos a week "for the world" and one video per week that is for kickstarter supporters only.

For $10 of support, the supporter name will appear in ALL videos. This would be something you would have composed once and then you add it to all of the videos when you are editing the video.

For $20 of support, they get to "direct" one video. They get to choose a question for a person, or they get to select the topic. They also get "director" credit for that video.

For $35 they get to "direct" three videos.

For $80 they get to "direct" ten videos.

For $200 they are listed as "associate producer" in the trailing credits for the first 365 videos, plus they get to "direct" ten videos.

For $400 they are listed as "producer" in the opening credits for the first 365 videos, plus they get to "direct" ten videos.

For $600 they are listed as "supreme executive producer with bacon, cheese and sparkles" in the opening and trailing credits for the first 365 videos, plus they get to "direct" ten videos.


You need an awesome and fun video to kick all this off. Bart is freaky good. Maybe if you put together a care package of fun stuff (knittables, fur, etc.) for Bart and his wife he will do the awesome editing for you. Maybe he will want a slice of the final kickstarter (so you might need to ask for a little more). He might even share some of the excellent footage he has of wheaton labs.


Make a list of 200 possible vlog topics.


Video: you don't need to mention your age or that you have a fella. After all the video is supposed to be about the product that people will buy in advance, and not about what are things that you would want. Kickstarter videos do tend to start of with "my name is ______ and my product idea is _____" - that way it is a person and not some big company. I, personally, think that a video that asks for help is not as strong as a video that says "Are there enough people that want this?"


Possible script: "I'm Kadence Blevins. I hear a lot about what is going on at Wheaton Labs, but I want to know more. I want to see more videos. Not just one or two videos. I want to see hundreds of videos of the things I am hearing about. And I know I'm not the only one. So I have an idea. I will go there and make these videos myself. I propose to share a video per day for 365 days. The only thing stopping me is getting there. So kickstarter is the perfect route to trying this. If I get funded, I will be able to move across country to Wheaton Labs and get started. I will then produce one video a day for a year. Topics will include rocket mass heaters, hot water from a compost pile, cattle, hogs, rabbits, guinea pigs, goats, wofati, tipi living, innovations, cooking, art, community, drilling wells, hugelkultur, chickens, green woodworking, skiddable structures, fiber arts, animal harvesting, homesteading and permaculture (all the time). I also want to give you the power to determine the topics that I put into the videos, so I've created rewards where you are the director, and you choose what the topic is, or what question I might put to somebody. Now is the time to present the critical question: are there a few hundred people like me that would like to see these videos? I'm willing to travel across the country and do the legwork - are you willing to support my kickstarter?"

Now also including a new kick ass tripod and camera! Panorama baby!





Oh look! Me! Hahaha

Some of my recent photography skills

As of right now I will be visiting The Labs starting June 25. Anyone wanting to send things out can PM me here on the forums for info.