bounty style crowdfunding - is there such a thing?

Somebody on permies asked one of the staff a question which led to a lot of conversation amongst the staff.   There is a lot more conversation that popped out and still more to hash through, but there is one idea in the middle of all this that might be plausible if this already exists.

One person, let's call this person "bob", goes to a website called, say bountycrowdfunding.com (not a real site, i just made it up) and creates a bounty:  "I will put in $100 to somebody that joins the wheaton labs bootcamp and posts a picture a day for 30 days".    And then 30 other people come and add pledges to that bounty.  Eventually it grows to, say, $400.  And then somebody, susan, joins and does it and says "i collect this bounty".  Bob confirms and bountycrowdfunding.com processes the pledges and sends the coin to susan.

In time, a dozen different people may have started 30 different bounties like this.  Maybe one will say "to see a video of hogs sealing a pond at wheaton labs".  And another will say "to see video proof of an air well generating more than a gallon of water in a day."  Another might say "a video a day in the bootcamp program for 365 days".  Another could be "video of a 7 foot diameter dry stack moon gate at wheaton labs."  

Maybe a huge project will start off with a $20 bounty, and after three years it might have a $12,000 bounty.

So it is sort of a reverse kickstarter.  Rather than a person stating "I will make this thing for this much money and here are the rewards" a person states "here is the reward i want and how much i am willing to put in for that reward."  

Maybe other people can tag onto the project to have a similar reward .... so that a kickstarter starts to organically grow, complete with a bunch of rewards ....  ??

So ... is there such a website?

For people who want to see more, Paul talked about this idea in more detail here:

https://permies.com/t/52199/bounty-based-kickstarter

I've never heard of this actually existing, but I think it's an interesting idea.

I wonder if there would be quality control issues. Like me saying "I'll give $10 for a video of how to seal a pond with pigs" and then someone takes a really crappy video that isn't particularly helpful and then demands the $10.

At the same time I guess that's kind of how buying anything works, especially with any kind of crowdfunding.

I think that people coming through on their pledges (potentially) years later might also present some challenges.

Would be interested in seeing this in action.

I think it is something where if you pledge $100 and then three years later somebody says "I did it, pay up" then you can look at and say:

    - i changed my mind, i don't want it anymore
    - that is not what i am looking for
    - that is not what i asked for

etc.  

So a person can pledge and then when the times comes, totally back out of the pledge - for any or no reason.  Or maybe they can say "I pledged $100, but what you offer is only worth $4 to me".

Another possible approach is that somebody could create a kickstarter to fullfill something very similar, so all of the people that pledged can get an email about the new kickstarter.

paul wheaton wrote:I think it is something where if you pledge $100 and then three years later somebody says "I did it, pay up" then you can look at and say:

    - i changed my mind, i don't want it anymore
    - that is not what i am looking for
    - that is not what i asked for

etc.  

So a person can pledge and then when the times comes, totally back out of the pledge - for any or no reason.  Or maybe they can say "I pledged $100, but what you offer is only worth $4 to me".

I could see this causing some grief for content creators who spend a bunch of time creating something expecting they would get $10,000 and then only $1,000 worth of pledges actually come through for some reason or another.

I guess another way to look at it though is idea validation. As a content creator, you'd have to look and say something like "there are this many people theoretically willing to give me $x for this" instead of "I will for sure get this much." With that in mind it could be a very powerful tool.

paul wheaton wrote:Another possible approach is that somebody could create a kickstarter to fullfill something very similar, so all of the people that pledged can get an email about the new kickstarter.

I think that this could work well for some folks. I think that for others (eg. a pic a day) it might not. I like the idea that when you pledge, you do actually give your credit card info. That way (even though you can cancel later) you're really testing to see if someone might really give money for such a project. I know that sometimes pledges aren't fulfilled for mysterious reasons, but I think most of the time people are good for them.

I like the idea that if I'm strapped for cash I could look at this site and say "hey, what kind of cool opportunities are there for me to make a little extra cash on the side doing projects I'm already interested in or planning on doing?"

I can't see it gaining much traction if not paying a pledge was as simple as saying not good enough. I think you have a pod cast about the dangers of obligation and this would be setting up that relationship between pledger and pledgee.
Maybe this could need to be something like paying into a trust, with set guidelines and time limits, when you offer the pledge. Perform X task in X time frame or the money returns to the pledger. Possibly give the pledger the option to designate a third party to judge whether a pledgee has met the criteria. Even if the pledger is making the decision, that money could theoretically return to the pledger. Most people are less attached to theory than to the cold hard cash in their pocket at that moment.

Seeing the response that posted while mine was being typed, maybe I'm just not enough of a risk taker to see the full appeal.

I don't like it. I LOVE it.

For quality control, I'm thinking Yelp or Uber or any other app-based site. You start out with no cred, do some small projects to build your "acorns" or whatever- like post a picture a day for a week for $10, then the pledgers can see your prior work and vote to extend or not extend the bounty for another project. How well and soon you fulfill the bounty means more or less acorns for your next project.

This might be a big step in moving past the Youtube model of getting $100 of ad money and passing on $10 to the creators of the content.  

How about Patreon?  Is it close enough to what you envision?

https://www.patreon.com/

I had asked about sponsoring someone to become a Boot, but got no reply.  Is this thread the reply?

Tyler Ludens wrote:I had asked about sponsoring someone to become a Boot, but got no reply.  Is this thread the reply?

I think the discussion about the reply is still happening.  :)

Oh thank you!  I didn't know it was such an unusual inquiry!  

This sounds like a really good fit for crypto-currencies. I know you can do things with crypto like create a transaction with a time limit, where the sender locks up funds for a specified amount of time but can also finalize the transaction early. Code could be added so that, for example, if 50+% of fellow contributors finalize, all others will too.

A quick search finds some projects that sound similar. https://bounty0x.io/ is one that got listed, that sounds at first glance worth checking out. I haven't looked into it, and it isn't ready yet, but maybe there is something that is. Or maybe there's something that will be soon and folks might want to contribute to.

Tyler Ludens wrote:I had asked about sponsoring someone to become a Boot, but got no reply.  Is this thread the reply?

I'd asked Paul because I didn't have the answer to your question, and it got his gears turning and this thread came forth from that gear turning! You are so awesome to ask to sponsor a boot!