Video website Innovation work
Kickstarter Video Final Project (15%)
Each student will be responsible to build on ideas they have generated throughout the course so far to create an idea that has multiple impacts – that is economically sustainable but also fulfills a greater purpose by achieving a social or environmental impact and/or by enabling some positive aspect of our humanity. Ultimately, we are looking for ideas that are compelling enough that your peers, your professors, and the public at large will think: THIS INNOVATION NEEDS TO EXIST!
As you have likely noticed, it is difficult to come up with a truly new-to-the-world product or service. Thus, although your ultimate offering is likely to be a product or service, other forms of innovation—process, management, or business model—as well as multi-bottom-line impact innovations are typically critical to making the idea novel and high-impact enough to satisfy the ‘NEEDS TO EXIST’ criteria (not just meh, it would be nice if this existed – something that absolutely MUST be brought into existence).
As a platform to describe your idea we are using the format of Kickstarter since this is the most popular crowdfunding platform. The Kickstartarter community (the ‘crowd’), and other funding courses for that matter, are looking for things that need to exist. If you can make a compelling argument that your idea needs to exist the Kickstarter community will fund your idea into existence. This submission requires a Kickstarter style video pitch and short webpage-like write-up (don’t worry making a video is easier than you might think). As per the syllabus you can work alone or in small groups (up to 3 people) on this.
Kickstarter (kickstarter.com) is an example of a crowdfunding platform. It may be a great way for some of you to eventually get funding to launch one of your ideas as a business. These short (2-4 minute) video pitches and visually-appealing webpage-like write-ups help teach you to be clear, concise, and practical while also making your ideas interesting and compelling. This should really improve your elevator pitch (an important skill for all innovative people and especially entrepreneurs). You should plan to spend a good amount of time on this project during the final few weeks of the semester.
Find Your Purpose!
This project is designed to help you find your purpose since Kickstarter, like the rest of the world, supports ideas with purpose more than those driven solely by profits! Your purpose should be core to this Kickstarter business idea (i.e., linked to the core capabilities of the organization you have conceptualized – selling T-shirts and donating a portion of the profits to xyz non-profit is not particularly creative or innovative and will not get a high grade for this project). This is the final creative challenge you undertake in this course – identifying a double or triple bottom-line version of a company or concept you would like to explore.
There are many good example videos on the site and the following pages give some direction:
· Overall instructions / explanation for how it works: http://www.kickstarter.com/start
· FAQ- All your questions will be answered: http://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq
· Also here: http://www.kickstarter.com/help / http://www.kickstarter.com/blog
· Kickstarter School (really comprehensive advice section – just added in 2012 so make the most of it): http://www.kickstarter.com/help/school/defining_your_project
· Practicalities- creating a good video: http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/creators-guide-to-video
For this assignments:
· Please post your video on Youtube as an unlisted video (these do not show up in searches but can be easily viewed if a person has the weblink): http://support.google.com/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=181547
· For the “webpage” you can use a free site like Weebly or simply create a formatted / attractive document with images / graphics in MS Word or something similar. It does not need to be on the web, however, it should be formatted and visually appealing (i.e., include pictures, diagrams, etc…) like a webpage—this is not a report or whitepaper—use Kickstater as a guide.
· I generally prefer that students do NOT create an actual Kickstarter project (even a draft one) – we want to maintain the reputation of Temple University and so it is critical that we do not put half-baked projects out that might detract from the impact of more developed projects.
At a minimum this project should include:
· Video (2-4 minutes)
· WebPage-like document (850 -1000 words + images)
· Reward Levels (usually 3 to 7 or so levels -- be creative and link to company concept but also be realistic about what you can provide at different costs… you can’t give a car away for $50!)
· Content to cover / convey (across both video and webpage):
· Who your company is
· What you do
· How you do it
· Why you do it!!! (your purpose)
Grades for this assignment are based on:
· Creativity / Novelty (20 pts): Did student explain a creative, new-to-the-world idea that leveraged macro-trends and modern business models (10 pts)?
· Overall Feasibility (20 pts): Did student describe a clearly explained and conceptualized Kickstarter-appropriate idea that offered potential and had more strengths than limitations; was economically feasible (i.e., the requested donations would help launch the business); had few unexplored unknowns; and seems to be free from unexplored, incorrect assumptions (10 pts)?
· Purpose / ‘Needs to Exist’ (40 pts): Did student provide convincing arguments that this idea needs to exist in the world? Have you motivated Kickstarter investors that they need to help you launch this idea or new venture? Both innovative products / services and novel multi-bottom-line business models (positive impact) can accomplish this. However, it is often difficult to come up with features or functionality that are truly new to the world and it is frequently easier to connect purpose to a business concept in a novel way.