Introducing Backer: crowd funding for features

https://backer.app.net/

by steveklabnik • 12 years ago

169 25 12 years ago

backer.app.net

We just had great success trying this idea out. It was via CrowdTilt, not Backer, but our customers pre-paid over $50k for push-to-cards: http://blog.balancedpayments.com/push-to-cards/

I'm also really excited about open source projects self-funding via this. Or at least, paying for someone to do design, write documentation, or all the other non-development expenses. Think NPM raising that money to keep the service going.

opendomain• 12 years ago

I think what you did is the best way to build features for paid apps - by giving a discount or other advantage by pre-paying. For open source projects, it makes sence for a donation to gauge interest, but I think I would still like a "contribution" or other way to recognize people that paid for features.

thruflo• 12 years ago

This looks excellent.

We've been crowdfunding an open feature roadmap on WikiHouse.cc and, internally, have been very concerned to build credibility by shipping the funded features before asking for more funds - especially because, with a simple paypal setup, we've been getting paid in advance.

I can see the payment on delivery and project curation being very valuable trust builders, if administered soundly / well governed.

robbles• 12 years ago

Great idea! Is this connected to App.net at all, or just built by the company?

dalton3• 12 years ago

Thanks

We are using it (and plan to continue using it) for our own market validation tests, and so yes it is connected. We are also making use of a few App.net API features to power it.

MWil3• 12 years ago

I understand the appeal of a single page "corresponds to a single feature" but is there a way to display the status of a full project?

Let's say I have UmbrellaApp, a website which offers a service. I create a Backer page for a mobile app, and 4 more Backer pages for optional features which I'd be interested in building into both the website and the mobile app but I'd want to gauge interest individually before committing to development.

Can there be an UmbrellaApp page, not a Backer page, but which lists all the possible configurations which Backer would enable (if successful) and their real-time status?

dalton3• 12 years ago

My instinct is that trying to run multiple Backers at the same time might make it harder for any one of them to succeed, and thus it might make sense to run them serially.

We are certainly open to trying things like this out, and sharing the best practices of what works best with the public.

MWil3• 12 years ago

I'd like to see it attempted (or am interested in being the guinea pig if need be) of building almost an entire service the way I described. It works for the project I'm thinking of because I work with the law and it's jurisdictional and categorical. To devote finite resources to a different area of the law or different jurisdiction might not be worth it if there is such demonstrable demand to expand features within an area/jx already present. For example, I could build a product for attorneys and law students in my home state that focuses on a small area of law and never expand outside of that area/jx - if those customers/clients are gracious enough that they can effectively block any attempt to expand elsewhere, why wouldn't I reward them? Conversely, if another area or jx can steal my attention with their efforts...

Sure, you could use surveys and contact forms but even if the amount you're raising is not correlated to the development cost, you're awarding your most valuable customers first - those that are willing to put their money where their mouth is. For example, if every major feature, regardless of actual or estimated cost, had a $2000 Backer page - the order in which the Backer succeeds would determine priorities.

Obviously, I'm just spit-balling b/c I just saw this but it's got me thinking. I wouldn't want it to look like a nickel-and-dime operation but one where it actually makes sense to use this method. I think the law lends itself well in that situation.

iandanforth• 12 years ago

I think this is really cool! I can see these campaigns dropping into one of two buckets. 1. Funding to pay for development time and 2. Validating the idea. I think it's up to the campaign runner to determine how much to ask for for bucket 1 type campaigns, but it could be immensely helpful for Backer to offer clear guidance for the second.

For example, lets say I have an existing user base of 100,000 people, and I normally charge $15 / m for my service, of which 5% of my users actually pay. What is a sufficient contribution to validate the idea of a new feature for the paid version? For the free version? Over time, finding the proper heuristics/weightings for Backer users could be very very helpful.

muratmutlu2• 12 years ago

Great idea, can the page be branded under my startups name or is it app.net?

dalton3• 12 years ago

I think we are going to offer it under backer.app.net/project-name. It's something worth testing I think.

fwiw I have personally witnessed a significant percentage of consumers accusing a crowdfunding project of being a "scam" if it is hosted on their own domain rather than an impartial 3rd party like Kickstarter. I think that is one of the reasons consumers like Kickstarter vs self-hosted crowdfunding.

Additionally, in the Bitcoin use-case, if you have a page on your subdomain powered by Backer that accept Bitcoin, consumers will be confused and angrily say that you already accept Bitcoin because that page exists. That is also something we learned first-hand.

muratmutlu2• 12 years ago

Ah I see, although wouldn't backers mostly be our users or people who are familiar with our product if it was on our own site funding features?

I think we'd go with credit card option as that's what we plan to use on the site

Either way it's awesome idea congrats on launching

lifeisstillgood• 12 years ago

It's a nice idea, but I think the "can I get my paying customers to visit kickstarter" is the smallest and least useful of the possible markets.

Kickstarter is attractive because it serves people who do not (yet) have paying customers and so is audience building as well as validation. This requires an existing audience (afaik) so it's less vital.

the area I think this will truly shine is in corporate budget allocation. A backer for internally committing budgetary funds to new features will allow a huge range of options and voting preferences to be put within a company - hell it's pretty much the first step on the road to democracy within corporations (franchise for the owners of budgets)

this is actually one of those ideas I would want to actually do - it's got legs. anyone else got any thoughts?

belluchan• 12 years ago

Very nice, but it does looks like a hard pivot.

volkk• 12 years ago

this is rather funny because a friend and i were seriously contemplating building this exact thing for a while. unfortunately we deemed it pointless to build because there would just be too many various ramifications when dealing with people attempting to fund other companies.

e.g -- imagine a company like.....amazon gets some "request" to add a feature. say the feature is to add bitcoin as their payments (to use one of your examples from the site). okay, that is a large integration that costs lots of money and a lot of decision making. it will also take quite some time, naturally. it will bounce around the higher ups, then time will be prioritized for it, and a team will be assigned to work on this. thats the ideal situation, correct? except what will really happen is that the higher ups will hear about say....5k people that want bitcoin accepted that have donated maybe...10k-15k total for this cause. they have about 250 other things on their internal company pipeline that are probably higher priority. they will simply throw this request out. it's just too naive to think companies will adhere to the whims of the public. I can perhaps see small indie companies doing this but even then, there will be plenty of hurdles such as "well technically this is impossible in its current state, but we can work on something very similar except now we have $15k to work on this but the similar thing is a bit easier to do and slightly different, so now we need a new campaign to re calculate the costs?" -- it's a great idea, but unless you have some genius way to cope with company internals, i don't see a bright future for this product, unfortunately.

samatman• 12 years ago

This is a good idea. Not, necessarily, a great one; I feel more can be done with crytocurrency platforms than attaching them to a Kickstarter.

I have questions, but only one that's pressing. It appears that Backer pays out when the project is complete. Given that they accept Bitcoin, what happens if Bitcoin substantially depreciates or appreciates in value in the interim? Is the house floating both risks, or either?

wikwocket• 12 years ago

This is a cool idea. If the creators are watching this channel, might I suggest a few ideas?

- Tweak the campaign page layout to more closely match Kickstarter et al. Big hero graphic/video, packages down the right, extensive sales pitch down the left. This layout is effective, flexible, and more importantly, the de facto standard for crowdfunding. You want people to immediately grok what the campaign is and how it works.

- Allow projects to have screenshots/mockups/videos/slideshow/etc. If you want campaigns to succeed, let people put some sexy graphics up there, maybe even the occasional high-production-value Kickstarer-esque video. Worth a thousand words, and all that.

- If you get critical mass, allow people to browse projects. This will allow potential clients to see all the campaigns out there, and may even build a community of backers. This is one of the real assets of Kickstarter - a community of early adopters, ready to spend cash for fun projects, frequently checking the "popular projects" page.

aagha• 12 years ago

LOVE this idea, but I think it needs to be "flipped". I like how they're letting developers test a feature idea/theory, but it'd be great too if they'd let users of products suggest features for software they use and suggest how much they'd be willing to pay for it.

For example, I use (and love!) Workflowy, and I'd pay $20 to have the ability to upload images directly into an outline-item and $50 for an Android client (yes, BTW, yes I would).

These could be considered pledges which the developer could get people to commit to before they build the feature out.

quadrangle2• 12 years ago

This is NOT a new idea. This is just a feature-focused threshold system the same as using Kickstarter. There are also tons of feature focused sites.

Here's the exact same thing already: http://catincan.com/ There's also tons of bounty-style feature systems like http://www.freedomsponsors.org/

I could go on and on. There's no particular reason this variation is going to fail, but it's not new. The only thing notable is the no-fee for Open Source. The Bitcoin focus isn't even remarkable, because there's http://bitcoinstarter.com/

Oh, and the idea-validation is already inherent to crowdfunding. Anyway, I wish people didn't keep wheel reinventing all the time. At least recognize it.

edoceo• 12 years ago

A site at http://bitkick.org/ has been working in a similar space. Also offering no fees for open source projects.

quadrangle2• 12 years ago

Gah, why in the heck does that exist? We already have the failed systems: CoFundOS, BountyOSS, Public Software Fund, and many others. There's BountySource (which is a rip-off that charges a fee up-front) and the most viable actually functioning site: freedomsponsors.org

There's tons of others. Open Funding, Bounty Funding, FOSS Factory… and this new thing that this posting is about.

If bounties really worked, we'd see them working by now after tons of attempts and years of trials. And they do work sorta: freedomsponsors.org is the best we've got.

Bitkick.org needs to give up. They're just clutter in an already failing concept. People need to do the research to know what already exists before throwing up another waste-of-time site.

Stenerson• 12 years ago

This is a good way to show everyone that you have a limited amount of time and resources and that a company can't deliver everything in a reasonable amount of time. We do something similar with our product management process but instead of customers buying features we have internal stakeholders purchase them.

We'll take some percentage of a release and set feature "prices" based on a swag of effort. Then we allocate a percentage of release time as "dollars" to the stakeholders. We just keep track of it manually since it's all internal but we've found the process works nicely for feature prioritization.

Introducing Backer: crowd funding for features

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