Low Tech Laboratory Movie 2 - kickstarter starts September 19, 2023!

We did it! I'm through the moon excited to report that we have got over the 1000 mark:

1020 !!

and much more!

Kickstarter will launch this project at 2pm this Tuesday!


Click Here to go to our kickstarter page! What do you think? If you click " notify me on launch " at the top, kickstarter might show the project to more new people!

number of people that have clicked on "notify me on launch" at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paulwheaton/low-tech-0



                              1030!

number of people that have clicked on "notify me on launch" at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paulwheaton/low-tech-0



                              1041!

Early Bird Special!

Tiny House Magazine Issue #127





Here is the link:
https://permies.com/wiki/224220/Tiny-House-Magazine

number of people that have clicked on "notify me on launch" at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paulwheaton/low-tech-0



                              1076!

I think we might be ready.

Andres, I will need a copy of the video that I can put on youtube.

Also, I don't see the earlybird stuff in the preview.

Also, i think kickstarter changed the page layout again - so now there is this thing on the left edge of all the "headlines".  I think that we now need headlines for "earlybird", "overview", "projects", "instructors"

paul wheaton wrote:I think we might be ready.

Andres, I will need a copy of the video that I can put on youtube.

Also, I don't see the earlybird stuff in the preview.

Also, i think kickstarter changed the page layout again - so now there is this thing on the left edge of all the "headlines".  I think that we now need headlines for "earlybird", "overview", "projects", "instructors"

Working on these :)

Maybe right now is a good time to have some english language discussion about the upcoming kickstarter.

First:  I think that this path of the low tech movies subsidizing the event makes it so that we can attempt to snowball the event which snowballs the movies.  And my general strategy for getting permaculture into a thousand times more brains is to create cool permaculture stuff which draws people in.  So this is about creating cool permaculture stuff.   My vibe-a-roonie is that each kickstarter will do better than the last.  And each PTJ will be bigger than the last.  And so on and so on.  

The last low tech movie had 1400 followers at this point, and we are just past 1000.  Is it possing that interest in this is shrinking?  Am I wrong?

continuing with english language discussion:

I think that the $1 level features a full movie about the very latest in rocket mass heater stuff.  I would think that that alone would brin in a few thousand people.   A movie that is worth $15 being sold for $1 - coupled with a pile of other stuff and all the earlybird stuff.  

Interest in rocket mass heater stuff seems about a thousand times less than I think it should be.  But I know, for a fact, that rocket mass heaters not only solve a lot of stuff for a person, but globally as well.  They are rather excellent.  

Mud and I have put hundreds of hours into creating an infographic to help with rmh stuff.  

Dunno - just feeling like this alone is worthy a 100,000 backers.  But maybe there are some hard facts that I am missing here.

continuing with english language discussion:

So far this year we have not had one person say "stop spamming me with your kickstarter bullshit!"  But I suppose it will be coming any day now.  

What we have learned is that if we make a product, and sell it on permies (like the tour movie) and tell everybody once, we get about a hundred buyers at $10 each.  But if we do all this work, we get about 2000 buyers averaging $50 each.  $1000 vs. $100,000.

Sometimes I wonder if we scaled back a little, maybe we could get almost as much for half the effort.  But the weird thing is that it seems like it is a pretty linear thing.  So 10% less effort results in 10% less coin.  

What are your thoughts on the number of emails we send out?

I think that when the emails are good, people like them. Different angles and points of interest. I think that occasionally, when we have a lot of cooks in the kitchen, and they're just churning them out, fatigue may set an a little bit.

paul wheaton wrote:The last low tech movie had 1400 followers at this point, and we are just past 1000.  Is it possing that interest in this is shrinking?  Am I wrong?

I wonder how much of this is happening:

A non-bonkers person who backed LTLM1 sees the email for LTLM2 and thinks, "low tech laboratory movie? Nope, thanks, we've already got one."

I'll add that I was unaware that the free heat movie was part of the $1 gob. But! I haven't been reading every email all the way through.

I love all the kickstarters, and support them all with $$, even if I don't always get around to watching the movie! (Because, mostly, of doing so much permies stuff and having limited screen-time.)

I suspect that one reason for less interest in rocket mass heaters is related to a couple of things which are big for lots of people: safety (not a 'standards approved' product, like wood stoves); can't buy it ready made (a serious draw back as you drop to more casual permies, or permies with different focuses.)

For instance, last year we bought a wood stove. Not because I don't think rocket mass heaters are awesome, and not because I don't think I could do it (I've even taken a workshop with Ernie and Erica), but because in the scope of my year, and other stuff going on, it made more sense to throw money at a manufacturer and do the chimney labour myself, rather than do all the labour myself, and face one of the other big things: bureaucracy. Is is insurable? Will my rates go up? Does my municipality even allow it? Will the fire department put me on a naughty list?

Other limitations that came up for us: Will my house be able to hold all the weight? Will my partner think it looks ugly?

Of course, none of these problems are insurmountable, but they all take time to figure out, and if your top projects of the season or the next few seasons are based more in planting trees, or consulting, or livelihoods - it can get to be too much.

Also, some other reasons we didn't do it: the work of finding all the materials, many of which come from different places, and if you want to do it on the cheap, you have to find more unusual places to seek out the supplies. This can be really time consuming, depending on where you live. Also, if you don't have access to earth moving equipment, even accessing enough of the cob materials is a bunch of phone calls and sometimes big delivery charges.

Anyway, all the said, I think the Low Tech Lab style ones are great. If you are a little bit into five or six things being featured, it's worth it to support, even if you are not that into the other ten things.

A couple of suggestions to get more people on board: keep some basic stuff for efficient or awesomely cool gardening, and small animal stuff in every video - that feeds newbies, and people still living in houses with small yards, or rentals, etc. Keep stuff like herbal medicine in there - a big audience for that, so many casual fans. Also, the DIY things with plans attract a certain crowd, which is quite large.  Keep wicked cool stuff like rocket forges that are more advanced, but appeal to a slightly different crowd.

One thing to consider with (apparently) dropping interest: can the movie/kickstarter process be slightly more efficient, or somehow cost less or take less time due to experience of those involved?

Is there enough interest in a bonus product that is practically raw footage (so not much to produce), but costs a chunk of change (because of it being exclusive). I think you've already done this in the past.

Nothing more at the moment, but best of luck, and look forward to supporting as an early bird tomorrow. Got to get back to potato harvest.

Ex epidemiologist here, fwiw. With shared ambition to go fully pandemic with actionable stuff, also fwiw.

When numbers are less than expected there's a myriad explanations but I'd look at the denominator: How many have read this and do they have everything already and are we really targeting a different population that have different immunity to offers?

I live in Scotland. Rocket mass heaters yell "regulation, insurance" so I won't look at them much, but would love people capable of installing them to do look at them much, so maybe that's an angle. (Locally there's current David vs Goliath fight re windfalls owned by other countries.)

Yeah, also price and ecosystem and soon to happen migrations. (I'm a catastrophologist with years of flu planning. Only worst cases, thank you.)

So, in practice, to judge impact (and to do better!) I'd say look at the underlying structure of the intended epidemic, as numbers only tell part of the story.

Also, in case it helps, I saw something on twitter a couple of days ago, tagged @paulwheaton, by the guy from @lowtechmagazine. They were talking hot water bottles, which tells me there may be many more people in the lower steps of the ladder. Stoves are hard for most.

Yes, it's been a lot of emails, but these days one expects that. It's a vicious cycle; we get so many we ignore them (til we don't), so we get more.
In my climate (warm) and economic status (comfortable) and age (getting pretty rickety, set in my ways) and housing type (more to lose than to gain by DIY), RMH & free heat, though obviously a huge deal to the world, are not going to be my thing, no matter how good the movie is. Not will I have the patience to watch it. I'm a reader, not a viewer, until I have specific questions that a short video demonstrates the answer to.
If I could hire someone I would.
I want word to spread. I know there are people who can and will use this. Maybe the urban US is not where they will be most immediately valuable. I keep worrying about all those women cooking on smoky kerosene in places I'm glad I don't live.

thanks for the opportunity to provide feedback. The metrics on return vs effort are interesting.
I think you should not be shy about sending out too many emails. Sure, some people may get annoyed, but it's so easy to ignore/delete/unsubscribe an email.
If you're worried about turning off loyal subscribers perhaps target repeat promotions to those that haven't responded/clicked thru/ purchased etc
It's true that folks are inundated with emails these days, but from personal experience I know that even for things I want to do it might take several prompts; I don't resent it.
Regarding Videos/movies in general; these days I'm more including to want to read text/diagrams that watch a video, unless it's for entertainment or some specific instruction that benefits from video ie vehicle repair
Consequently I've avoided most of the videos of workshops/general information. I just don't have the time or patience, find it quicker to read a book/article (online or paper)

Keep up the good work.

On the subject of emails, I currently am looking at 1097 emails in my mailbox, and that is not counting the 40-50 folders I have emails being filtered into.  Just to check, I have received 37 emails in September(!) from the various permies emails (dailyish, weekylish, monthlyish (lately twiceweekylish), plotsish, movieish, etc), about half of which I have read. TOO MANY EMAILS.  

I keep funding your kickstarters since I believe in your message, even if I will not build a RMH myself.  I love love getting all the free stuff for supporting your kickstarters, but I really wish we could get all the rewards stuff in ONE email, or even ONE page to see them all at once. I find myself adding bookmarks to them to read later...but then I have to catch all the pertinent emails with the rewards, and that is getting to be too much.  


Sandy

Where do you believe a RMH falls on the Wheaton Scale for the average urban/suburban email recipient? I'm a big fan of the RMH, but where I'm currently located I don't believe it's a good fit. For my neighbor who is level 0-1, I'd guess a RMH is level 4+ to them, thus it's "crazy". Obviously a wood stove user would see a RMH as closer to normal and is a better fit.

I expect a good percentage of backers are also previous backers, so if the movie or the extras feel too similar, people may be less interested.

The number of emails recently has felt like a lot, perhaps because the text only format I get makes them all feel similar or repetitive.

Mark Brunnr wrote:Where do you believe a RMH falls on the Wheaton Scale for the average urban/suburban email recipient? I'm a big fan of the RMH, but where I'm currently located I don't believe it's a good fit. For my neighbor who is level 0-1, I'd guess a RMH is level 4+ to them, thus it's "crazy".

Does this person know what a wood stove is?  Do they know what a nuclear reactor is?  If they know both things, then I want to find brain space in their head for a rocket mass heater.  

Maybe me answering your question which is an answer to my question has a bit of an answer:  for the sake of world domination, instead of making another "how to" about how to build a nuclear power plant, make a "why" movie.    So maybe some sort of movie that is hyper focused on problems AND solutions - with a primary solution being rocket mass heaters.

??

I don't mind the emails.
it does feel like a lot of emails to me, since i am signed up for the daily-ish, weekly-ish, monthly-ish etc and have supported several kickstarters, but that doesn't bother me, i filter them into a folder so i don't miss them. I'm not sure why, but i'm not much of an emails person these days. I don't read emails for fun. I scan my emails for anything urgent or important that i need to add to my to-do list. I might not check my email closely every day- sometimes i skip a day, especially on the weekends. I am trying to get a hold on stress levels by cutting down on the number of tasks i try to do each day, but even when i don't have much extra time, i still want to be there for the important things. It does help when the urgent items are in bold or otherwise standing out from the other parts of the email.

When i do sit down to relax for a minute on my own, i am more likely to go to TikTok, or YouTube, to watch the people i have subscribed to. What they are teaching me is in the context of the story they are telling about their lives and/or a journey of discovery in their life or work, and i love learning that way.

I like the movies.
At dinner my family will often watch something together while we eat, and sometimes that's a permaculture movie or show, so i love the videos for that reason. I love it when they are well-edited because it has a higher chance of the whole family watching it all the way through. It's possible that I'm a bit of a workaholic *grin* but it makes me happy when dinner-watching is improving our lives as well as being fun and together.

I like the plans too.
I second what people have been saying about keeping the range of content wide in the LTL- entry level, mid level and difficult projects. Although i do aspire to difficult and love to jump in over my head, i haven't completed entry level, as most of my weekly tasks do not involve construction, so it takes quite a bit of changing gears and a chunk of time i have specifically set aside for learning new skills and making mistakes. I love coming out to a PTJ because it is dedicated time, i don't have to change gears as often, and i'm not alone. If i can't go do it right now at least i can get closer to it by watching it. If i have the plans, it's more likely i will do the thing someday.

I love the idea that the kickstarter would snowball the PTJ and then the PTJ would create the next movie / set of plans for the kickstarter. I think it's worth a try.

I plan to support every kickstarter. It's very hard to get out of the river of modern culture and our broken systems, but permaculture seems to have systems that are not broken that i desperately want to be a part of. Even if i am being swept down the river most of the time, i hope that by being in the community, i can help strengthen and normalize those good systems and create markets. Sometimes I can see where i want to be, but i can't see the steps to take me from here to there. Supporting the kickstarters gives me hope.

I don't know why there would not be more LTLM followers for this one, it seems awesome.
I am bad at predicting people. Maybe it's the time of year? Do they mistake it for the same movie as LTLM1? Do they have less money right now? (are kickstarters in general getting less traction?) My understanding of marketing: find the people who want the thing and show them that this is, in fact, the thing they want. It seems like you're already great at the second part so how can we find more of the people?

paul wheaton wrote: Is it possing that interest in this is shrinking?  Am I wrong?

I think it come down to the subject and what is going on in the world. If there was some one on TV, Youtube, in print, etc. saying "I saved $1,000 year by jumping on one foot". Then I feel a Kickstarter about jumping around would take off.  Another thing I think would help is making things easier. I find the easier something is to do the faster it will happen. Think about someone who has never supported a Kickstarter or is new to permaculture. Years ago a short Youtube video was made to explain how to up your pledge on Kickstarter. What about another video but talking about how to make an account on Kickstarter and explaining how to start a Permies one. Aimed at first time users.

Rob Read wrote: Is is insurable? Will my rates go up? Does my municipality even allow it? Will the fire department put me on a naughty list?
Other limitations that came up for us: Will my house be able to hold all the weight? Will my partner think it looks ugly?

This were my questions too about RHM. For me two things are stopping me from building a RMH and they are:
1. legal issues, how to explain this project to all the departments of making you sad. So they understand what is going on and would say yes.
2. People and money, from what I have read and podcasts listened to (I am on podcast  #411 right now). It takes maybe 20 or more people to build an RHM. That also brings up other issues like food, materials for the project and places for people to sleep. And that takes money!    

Yeehaw!

1100 !!

people have clicked 'notify on launch'.

Less than 24 hours before launch!! So exciting and nerve-wracking.

number of people that have clicked on "notify me on launch" at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paulwheaton/low-tech-0



                              1124!

Monica Truong wrote:Less than 24 hours before launch!! So exciting and nerve-wracking.

What are we forgetting?

Early Bird Special!  


Grow Fruit Trees Fast:
A Beginner's Guide to Healthy Harvest in Record Time
by Susan Poizner



Here is the link:
https://permies.com/wiki/221301/ebooks/Grow-Fruit-Trees-Fast-Susan

paul wheaton wrote:First:  I think that this path of the low tech movies subsidizing the event makes it so that we can attempt to snowball the event which snowballs the movies.  And my general strategy for getting permaculture into a thousand times more brains is to create cool permaculture stuff which draws people in.

The last low tech movie had 1400 followers at this point, and we are just past 1000.  Is it possing that interest in this is shrinking?  Am I wrong?

It's possible lots of peoples interest is up and down over time/they may not be catching or seeing it (I totally missed the last one because i'm not a regular email checker, i'm just not, i've missed a number of goodies that way) - I used to study some marketing stuff back at one time (i dont mean going to college to be one of the manipulative pricks, I mean self studying because I was trying to make a small business I was starting function) and one of the most important lessons was to never assume you know why something is happening... just try and research and find out why it's happening.

Asking people for feedback, having public polls, seeing whether the most common readers of the site who have their finger on the pulse of the public have any insights, etc.  I'm more than happy to volunteer my own "failure to be more involved" - i'm someone who WANTS to be doing permaculture but CANT right now because i'm stuck living in the city, still going to college, still managing certain health issues that even if I could move rurally tomorrow I still couldn't until they were more under control or repaired.  So permaculture is more of a dream for me...  not quite a passing fancy, i've held an interest for many years, but it's why I come and go crossing paths with it like two sailboats in the ocean that sometimes cross.

At times it looks like i'm closer to FINALLY getting some land "within a year" to be able to do something and the planning stage ramps up, then something bad happens and it kicks it out to "2-3 years at earliest" and the interest wanes and fades.  Or at times I post things online and maybe they don't get the feedback response I was hoping for, and i'm left stymied how to solve 'future me problem #8839' on the list of things to research...  or sometimes I post myself, I DO get feedback, but I was demoralized from last time when I didn't get the response I hoped and haven't checked back in for a week or three because I got busy with life again.  : P


I don't know if any of this is useful, I just mean the reason why it's 1000 instead of 1400 could be because you offered it in a different month, or because wherever people have permies.com in their mental priority list there's just something more immediately relevant and important to them which can't wait.  Like I just started another semester of school, but not where I wanted or planned because I couldn't get moved out of where I was in time and so now i've had a rush of having to move stuff out of storage to get thru the next two semesters since a mid winter move is unlikely too.  So I almost missed this one.  I got lucky, saw that it's only a dollar, and you've got my dollar - and I probably wont get to any of the cool bonus material for months to come at my current rate...  I hope I can save it and it's not like only online streaming for some limited period or something or I wont at all.

This is one reason why I made a post somewhat related to wanting to figure out 'social permaculture', we have all these solutions for the physical problems of how to live figured out so the bigger resistance is really things like the established order which profits by everything by keeping everything f___ked up.  If youre in the prison business you dont want there to be no more crime, if youre in the cancer treatment business you dont want people finding natural therapies, etc.  Learning about permaculture proved that we DO have solutions for every physical problem - having those insights and ideas is no longer our biggest problem as humans.  It's overcoming the inertia of doing nothing or the momentum of a negative vicious circle society where we profit by tearing each other down and screwing each over and the future over.  : P  And that challenge seems to be the hardest one in the world.

Hello Brian!

Thanks for posting this.  I totally know what you mean!

Thanks for being here!  

launching in a moment.

Is the new page ready?

paul wheaton wrote:number of people that have clicked on "notify me on launch" at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paulwheaton/low-tech-0



                              1124!

for future reference, we hit 1148 just before launch.

There we go, I backed within 3 mintues :D
Good luck!

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Back the Kickstarter!

Click here: kickstarter.com/projects/paulwheaton/low-tech-0