Tokyo Hackerspace Kickstarter

[Akiba]

I’ll start off with some ideas I have on a KS for THS.

We’ll need to take care of admin stuff first. We’ll need a legal entity in the US so we can get a bank account. KS needs this to transfer the funds to. We can set up a nonprofit corporation in the US quite easily. The 501C3 takes time since that goes through the IRS, but in the meantime, we can quickly get nonprofit corporate status for a bank account, although we’ll still have tax liabilities.

 

After that, we’ll need to raise money to move the space and for equipment. A big part of the KS will be to figure out what we want to do with the KS money. Some obvious choices will be for deposit to move THS and also for equipment. I think we should set the bar low since we also need to have rewards for contributions. Those rewards need to be good enough to entice people to contribute money which is generally not an easy task. Without that, getting contributions for free or for shwag type things would only get us a fraction of what we’d probably be asking for. The best way to approach it would be to do a Kickstarter for a specific purpose, ie: we want to move so we want it to cover the deposit of a move. We need to figure out how much that is, tack on the Kickstarter fees, the amazon fees, the costs of the reward, the shipping fees, and also figure out potential tax liabilities. It’s doable but will take a bit of planning. We should set the bar around something like that. Then we can have stretch goals where if we hit certain levels, we could use it for equipment or something. I’m currently helping out with a Kickstarter for Mothership Hackermoms and also we did two Kickstarters for Safecast so these observations are based on those experiences. Anyways. those are my initial ideas.

 

Akiba

FreakLabs Open Source Wireless

Web: http://www.freaklabs.org

Shop:http://www.freaklabsstore.com

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/freaklabs

 

 

[lauren shannon]

Delaware for incorp. (no tax state)
Lauren

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[Akiba]

Actually, I'm familiar with Nevada (same as Delaware) and already have a
registered agent and postal forwarded there.

Akiba
FreakLabs Open Source Wireless
Web: http://www.freaklabs.org
Shop:http://www.freaklabsstore.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/freaklabs

[Chris Shannon]

yes, Nevada is just as good. And remember what happens in the Vega system stays in the Vega system.

c

[Akiba]

Can we get someone to ban Chris for a week whenever he feels the urge to crack jokes? Anyone?

 

Akiba

FreakLabs Open Source Wireless

Web: http://www.freaklabs.org

Shop:http://www.freaklabsstore.com

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/freaklabs

 

[Evan]

... it gave me a bit of a giggle, yes.

(I'm sorry.)

Right on re: the planning; most of the sub-standard kickstarters I've seen failed to plan their way through, or a lack of direction. If you want me to make some phone calls or help out from here in CA, just holler.

Re: rewards: from what I've seen the kickstarter reward funnel typically goes "general" to "specific," and I don't think there's a lack of specificity at the hackerspace, so you can probably throw backers some cool stuff. :)

Ev.

[Quadrant]

hi Akiba,

             Not sure if its going to effect this in anyway but KickStart i know changed some of the rules on the 20th of September and also introduced ten

new rules. You may want to take a look incase there is anything relevant.

 

cheers

regards

Quadrant2005

---

From: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com [mailto:tokyohac...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Akiba
Sent: 28 October 2012 12:53
To: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [THS:20763] Tokyo Hackerspace Kickstarter

--

[MRE]

Successful kickstarters also usually have GOOD, well edited videos.

[Akiba]

Yeah, I saw the rule change, but it shouldn’t affect us much. Most of it was to prevent backers from being overpromised and underdelivered. A lot of it hinges on limiting what you can say about a product, especially if its in development stage. There were also some additional rules on limiting the quantity you can sell to a single backer through kickstarter, etc. It shouldn’t matter too much since I don’t think we’ll be running a shop through kickstarter. We’ll have an actual shop for that.

 

Akiba

FreakLabs Open Source Wireless

Web: http://www.freaklabs.org

Shop:http://www.freaklabsstore.com

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/freaklabs

 

[Torsten Wagner]

+1 for the video... I think this is really important.

As for the rewards I observed that successful projects have a good
mix of "easy-entry"-backers rewards as well as some awesome high-class
rewards
The most simple reward might be to place the backers name on the THS website.
A THS badge might be the first "physical" reward.
As for the high-end rewards, I saw rather often stuff like a "dinner
with the crew" etc.
"Exclusive Akihabara tours" jump to my mind for THS. Or an inviting
them to the move-in party.
I think some good time might be more appealing to some backers rather
then "just" another PCB.

If backers really pay much, we might see Akiba in a maid-costume
performing some fancy dance ;)

Totti

On 29 October 2012 09:34, MRE <epre...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Successful kickstarters also usually have GOOD, well edited videos.
>

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[Akiba]

+1 to Akiba in a maid costume doing a fancy dance.
Hey wait a sec...

Akiba
FreakLabs Open Source Wireless
Web: http://www.freaklabs.org
Shop:http://www.freaklabsstore.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/freaklabs

> -----Original Message-----
> From: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com
> [mailto:tokyohac...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Torsten Wagner
> Sent: Monday, October 29, 2012 12:25 PM
> To: tokyohac...@googlegroups.com

[Evan]

"Lifetime membership" would be a good high-end one.

Possibly a plaque with some names on it? :)

ev.

[Robert Gravina]

BTW, I just discovered this if using Kickstarter does not work for
you. If someone knows how to modify/deploy a Rails app somewhere, it's
an option.
http://selfstarter.us/

Also if you wanted to get funding for Hackerspace hardware projects,
you could use that also.

Not that I'm suggesting doing all that work instead of just using
Kickstarter. Just FYI!

Robert

[MRE]

Might be a cool project to run on our site, as a way to propose and fund local projects and THS projects.

[Akiba]

Which project are you referring to? The PiCade?

For the Kickstarter, I think the main goal I have is to figure out a way to fund our way past the nasty deposits on the office space so we can get a nice place and some good equipment.

 

Akiba

FreakLabs Open Source Wireless

Web: http://www.freaklabs.org

Shop:http://www.freaklabsstore.com

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/freaklabs

 

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[MRE]

Nah nah.
For KS your original plan us good. Run it similar to hackermoms. Their plan is great, and spells out exactly how the money is going to be spent.

I was referring to the DIY crowd source thing as a duture way to fund our own projects, internally. Sort of like:
You THS members, I need 800 usd to fund this cool kit idea I have. Anyone who gives 30 dollars oe more gets a kit. 5 dollars is gratitude, 15 is a mention on the online assembly instructions.