pdc streaming kickstarter

I am about to start my sixth kickstarter and could use advice before starting it:



https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paulwheaton/248228217?token=1d2ffa79

Do the rewards look okay?

Is the description okay?

Is the video okay?

Is the thumbnail okay?

What have I left out?

the PDC class photo is from 2015, not 2016

In the big description, it might be good to list the evening presentations under the $10 level, instead of, or in addition to the $30 level.

In the big description of CANDY, it needs to say 'and everything in "THANKS"'

Fred Tyler wrote:the PDC class photo is from 2015, not 2016

In the big description, it might be good to list the evening presentations under the $10 level, instead of, or in addition to the $30 level.

In the big description of CANDY, it needs to say 'and everything in "THANKS"'

Good ones fred!  Changes made.

The picture of Thomas is not there.

K Putnam wrote:The picture of Thomas is not there.

This is what i see:

Paul - in the $100 level, it says both PDC and ATC in the title, but only 100 hours of ATC in the desc. Maybe list hours for PDC as well in desc if both are to be provided.
I think the price points are very fair, I would be willing to do the 100$ level to get access to all the video.  It might be good to specify how people will be able to get the videos, will they be downloadable(my preference), or just viewable.

I think this is great, will allow many more to view the events.
Kevin

Now it's there.

Kevin Derheimer wrote:Paul - in the $100 level, it says both PDC and ATC in the title, but only 100 hours of ATC in the desc. Maybe list hours for PDC as well in desc if both are to be provided.

Good catch!  Fixed!

I think the price points are very fair, I would be willing to do the 100$ level to get access to all the video.  It might be good to specify how people will be able to get the videos, will they be downloadable(my preference), or just viewable.

Oh right!  I forgot about that.  Will explore.

Something is off with the beginning of the description.  Suggestions?

Paul - not trying to be picky, but in addition to putting 220 hours in $100 level, you might want to say "... collected during the PDC and ATC. This will be about 220 hours of video."

Kevin

Kevin Derheimer wrote:Paul - not trying to be picky, but in addition to putting 220 hours in $100 level, you might want to say "... collected during the PDC and ATC. This will be about 220 hours of video."

Another great catch!  Fixed!

Paul- on producers, if you do 'producer for a day', would you be an 'associate' producer if someone did the next level 'producer for ATC or PDC' ?  Higher $$ higher billing?
Kevin

How much creativity are you allowing as producer? Real sounding name? Say they wanted to be:

Hillary for president
Or
Trump 2020

Raise the price of all rewards  $50 and higher is my $0.02.  

$60, $90, $110, $175, $250 (the rest are fine)

Most people are going to go for the $50 package and you have costs to deliver the video.

Good luck!

Looks lovely!  Generous gifts and a great lineup of instructors.  But there are 10 people in the opening photo of instructors, and only 9 descriptions!

Byron Joel is missing...

Right at the top, you've got

We are giving a Permaculture Design Certificate Course and an Appropriate Technology Course, back to back,

I think it might sound better if you say "We are teaching a Permaculture Design . . . "  teaching instead of giving.  Giving sounds too passive, maybe there's a better verb - anybody?

Much lower down, you've got

You can read all about the courses here: the Permaculture Design Course and the Appropriate Technology Course.

and the words "Permaculture Design Course" and "Appropriate Technology Course" are indeed links, but for the less internet savvy among us, I would suggest you underline the text that is a link, or make it blue, or use some other signifier that this particular bit of text is a link to another web page.

(fooled you there - I underlined it, but it's not a link!!)  

Julia; Unfortunately, they do not have an 'underline' function. I'll have to just tell people they are links, I guess.

EDIT to add: The links actually already show as blue when I look at the page.

Agreeing with comments above. How do I get the 200 hours of video? Download? Forever access online? My preference is DVD or Blu-ray so I can just pop it in an watch whenever I want in any tv without an internet connection, but would add considerably to cost.

Do people that watch all the video get the certificate?

Brett Hammond wrote:Agreeing with comments above. How do I get the 200 hours of video? Download? Forever access online? My preference is DVD or Blu-ray so I can just pop it in an watch whenever I want in any tv without an internet connection, but would add considerably to cost.

Do people that watch all the video get the certificate?

I was going to ask the same, how am I watching? Limited time access or a download that's forever available? A DVD? Will you reserve the right to make it into a DVD at a later time? I have all the RMH and Gardening World Domination DVDs and would love to add the ATC 2017 to the collection!

Keep up the great content and thanks for all that you do and share with us!

Kevin Derheimer wrote:Paul- on producers, if you do 'producer for a day', would you be an 'associate' producer if someone did the next level 'producer for ATC or PDC' ?  Higher $$ higher billing?
Kevin

I think I am cool with calling is "Associate Producer" or "Ass. Producer" if that is what the producer wanted.   We only got two producers last time, so this time, I'm not too worried about a crowd hogging all the glory.

wayne fajkus wrote:How much creativity are you allowing as producer? Real sounding name? Say they wanted to be:

Hillary for president
Or
Trump 2020

I very much like oodles of creativity. But I would not be okay with a political campaign message.  

gordon walton wrote:Raise the price of all rewards  $50 and higher is my $0.02.  

$60, $90, $110, $175, $250 (the rest are fine)

Most people are going to go for the $50 package and you have costs to deliver the video.

Good luck!

I was thinking that damn near everybody was gonna go for the $100 or $150 level.  

Are you thinking that you are going to go for the $50 level?  Maybe we should start a poor man's poll.  

What level are you all gonna support?  What level would you all support if the prices were different?

Rose Dallal wrote:
Byron Joel is missing...

As with any event this large, there are .... variables ...   and, it is not my "stuff" to discuss, especially publicly.   There was talk of changes between the time that the image was made and the time that the descriptions were made.  Let's see how things play out over the next few weeks.

Julia Winter wrote:Right at the top, you've got

We are giving a Permaculture Design Certificate Course and an Appropriate Technology Course, back to back,

I think it might sound better if you say "We are teaching a Permaculture Design . . . "  teaching instead of giving.  Giving sounds too passive, maybe there's a better verb - anybody?

I just put in "Tim Barker and I are leading a Permaculture Design Certificate Course and an Appropriate Technology Course, back to back, May 28 through June 10, and June 12 through June 23, 2017."  - how's that?

Brett Hammond wrote:Agreeing with comments above. How do I get the 200 hours of video? Download? Forever access online? My preference is DVD or Blu-ray so I can just pop it in an watch whenever I want in any tv without an internet connection, but would add considerably to cost.

Do people that watch all the video get the certificate?

We talked about that.   That would be about 100 DVDs.  Way, way, too much.

In earlier discussions, somebody brought this up and suggested that we try to mash the 360p stuff onto a 128g jump drive.   So maybe all the $100 level stuff for $300 on a jump drive?

Kristal Cravener wrote:
I was going to ask the same, how am I watching? Limited time access or a download that's forever available? A DVD? Will you reserve the right to make it into a DVD at a later time? I have all the RMH and Gardening World Domination DVDs and would love to add the ATC 2017 to the collection!

We are thinking of adding to the FAQ after this starts to answer this.  

Q:   What will be the resolution?

A:   We need to get the equipment and test it to be certain, but so far we are leaning toward 360p for live streaming and 720p (HD) for the recorded stuff.   We thought about doing 720p all around, but feel that the need for the stream to be uninterrupted, and the streaming sound to be of the highest quality comes before adding resolution that will probably make no visible difference.  The recorded stuff will be via streaming.

gordon walton wrote:Raise the price of all rewards  $50 and higher is my $0.02.  

Due to your suggestion, I did contemplate the prices a bit more.  In the end, the price for the ATC did seem too low, so I bumped it up to $60.

At $100 for both, I am hoping that we get at least 70 people at this level and then we break even.  

click on the thumbs up for this post if you prefer digital download at 360p over hd streaming at 720p.

Click on the thumbs up for this post if you are willing to pay $300 for a jump drive with 220 hours of 360p footage.

Hey Paul,

The main thing I'm noticing is that a lot of the pictures are pretty dark/under-expose, especially against the white background of the kickstarter site. Should be an easy fix in any photo editing software and definitely not a big deal. The main place I noticed were all the faces on the initial image.

Let me know if I can help somehow!

Nick

I was interested in the ATC more than the PDC, so I'll be going for the $60 ATC & goodies bundle. I'd prefer something I can download once, rather than streaming over and over on my internet connection. However, whatever solution you come up with, I'm still going to get the ATC & goodies bundle.

P.S. Have you already posted this kickstarter to social media? I think there are many people like me that would love to take time off work and get to see, do and learn at events like these and would be interested in purchasing the videos even after the events have been held. We have a habit of finding out after the fact and missing the opportunity. Plus, you can continue to raise funds even after the kickstarter, right?

I will definitely fund at $100 for video access. I start feeling squeamish at $300, not because I don't think it's worth it for 220 hours, but because I know I will never personally watch 220 hours. I'll probably watch 5-15 hours over a year or two at most and would likely skip around to view topics that are of most relevant to current and future projects. Which 5-15 hours I cannot guess, so the bundle's option value is attractive. Streaming would theoretically work best for me, but my home internet is crap so I lean toward downloads where I can grab the files at work. It would be a bummer if my access expired before I got to the relevant sections.

I post this because I think there are probably others like me. It should be least 10x the number that would actually attend or park in front of a livestream for 2 weeks. I'll probably never do a full PDC - just looking for some tools to grow things better. If I can support the community and get access to materials that are very likely to be relevant to my projects, it's an easy decision.

Nick Jennison wrote:The main thing I'm noticing is that a lot of the pictures are pretty dark/under-expose, especially against the white background of the kickstarter site. Should be an easy fix in any photo editing software and definitely not a big deal. The main place I noticed were all the faces on the initial image.

Tracy made that image.  I asked her to reply about that.

Kristal Cravener wrote: I'd prefer something I can download once, rather than streaming over and over on my internet connection.

Josiah was telling me that most of his peeps prefer the downloads because they live in the sticks where they have lame internet or no internet.   So it sounds like we need to figure this out.

My impression right now is that most people far prefer something like netflix instant view over downloading an mp4 file.   But, I'll try to have something figured out before the kickstarter begins.

P.S. Have you already posted this kickstarter to social media? I think there are many people like me that would love to take time off work and get to see, do and learn at events like these and would be interested in purchasing the videos even after the events have been held. We have a habit of finding out after the fact and missing the opportunity. Plus, you can continue to raise funds even after the kickstarter, right?

The kickstarter has not started yet.  We are still trying to sort out the details before starting it.  

I think there is a good chance that we will attempt to sell this, at a higher price, after the kickstarter.

Wow!  I am SOOOO supporting this kickstarter!
Looks real good to me!  I plan on buying it for my hubby's birthday gift.
The reward are a bit complicated, and maybe a few too many levels for contribution.  But given the sophistication of the existing community, I think you will be ok.  First timers might be a bit overwhelmed...

I'm also glad that you are offering the ATC by itself. I will be attending the PDC, but I couldn't take another two weeks off from work to attend the ATC. Now I still get to watch!

I also think you could reduce the levels of contribution and eliminate everything under the "one full day" level.