
Craigstarter: DIY Replacement for Kickstarter - peter_l_downs
https://github.com/cmod/craigstarter
======
EricE
As more and more “curation” happens with the big providers, it’s fun to see
people rediscover the benefits of running their own sites that they control.

I’d love to see more distributed models around forming and maintaining
communities start to pop up. A distributed directory similar to DNS that no
one entity totally controls pointing to independent content publishers.

It’s time for the Internet to get back more on the distributed side of things,
especially since the modern equivalent of a nuclear attack is a large site
just up and banning someone for a vague TOS violation with no human to appeal
to unless you get lucky in shaming them enough on Twitter to respond. Yeah, I
want my livelihood dependent on that service model.

~~~
marban
I did the same thing right from the start with my newsletter* — referral
engine, editor, archives, mail stuff, etc. Nothing worse than building a
massive audience on the back of substack & co.

* [https://briefingday.com](https://briefingday.com)

~~~
toomuchtodo
Have a blog post or other documentation on your endeavors to own your destiny
to share with other content creators? I think there's enormous value in
communicating to those folks the value prop of what you describe.

~~~
marban
I guess your handle would be the reason why not — but will consider it ;)

~~~
toomuchtodo
I feel you :) Appreciate it!

------
dgrin91
My initial reaction to this was that this was dumb because Kickstarter gives
you something very important: a large userbase.

But Craigstarter makes a good point - > if you already have a community built
up, and have communication channels in place (via a newsletter, for example),
and already run an online shop, then Kickstarter can be unnecessarily
cumbersome.

I'm sure there are lots who meet that criteria. Now I just need to build my
newletter mailing list...

~~~
ValentineC
> _But Craigstarter makes a good point - > if you already have a community
> built up, and have communication channels in place (via a newsletter, for
> example), and already run an online shop, then Kickstarter can be
> unnecessarily cumbersome._

I think the above mainly applies for projects that are looking for minimum
viable funding (for example, to fulfill a minimum order quantity).

For projects that are looking to sell as much as possible, Kickstarter's value
comes from the discovery they provide, including them emailing a user's
followers whenever the user backs something.

------
Cenk
A (now sold out) example: [https://shop.specialprojects.jp/products/kissa-by-
kissa](https://shop.specialprojects.jp/products/kissa-by-kissa)

~~~
RyJones
That's really cool - wish I would have caught it when it was being funded. I'd
love to take a more walking-focused trip to Japan

~~~
dewey
According to the newsletter there'll be a second, slightly different print
coming out later this year. So you might be able to!

------
gigantor
Successful crowdfunding campaigns require substantial marketing efforts
outside the crowdfunding platform, such as email lists, a community or
customer base familiar with the brand/product/team, social media ads, etc.
Exceptions exist, such as getting funded solely by being featured on the
homepage or having an extraordinary product featured by the media, but those
are relatively rare. Thus a campaign's success is mostly decoupled from the
platform itself.

This is a great idea to avoid substantial platform usage fees in exchange for
the ever reducing value proposition that Kickstarter or other centralized
crowdfunding platforms provide.

~~~
postalrat
Kickstarer's search is useless. Not sure what value they provide other than
collecting money and a page to describe the proposal.

------
seige
Book maker here. This is a great idea! For my 2nd book, I kinda hacked my own
system to just do this. I was targeting a low amount and paying a middleman
any % of that was atrocious to me.

Kudos on this. Craig always delivers when it comes to making books.

What will it take to make it Wordpress friendly?

~~~
pmiller2
It sounds like you were self-publishing, right? If so, did you consider a POD
solution like Lulu or any of the others out there?

~~~
seige
I did not consider Lulu or other such platforms. I was only focused on
crowdfunding at that stage and most of these platforms felt overwhelming/doing
too much to me.

------
dpix
Isn't there some amount of trust in backers using kickstarter that the funds
are returned if they don't reach their targets?

While this looks great, it seems like you are donating directly to the
creators. Are people willing to hand over their money that easily?

~~~
cmod
I believe this value proposition was more important at the start of
contemporary crowdfunding (~2010), in order for folks to trust crowdfunding.
As I note in the Craigstarter README:

> The lack of goal-triggered payments is probably the biggest "downside" to
> Craigstarter. Technically, I believe you can have charges be authorized on
> checkout, but only pushed through on "shipping" — allowing one to
> approximate the Kickstarter experience on Shopify. However, these charge
> authorizations are short lived, and this would only work (as far as I can
> tell) for quick campaigns.

> That said, many Kickstarter campaigns are run as promotional tools more than
> strict fundraising tools, with the intent by creators to ship no matter
> what. In theory, one could set a minimum goal on Shopify which, if not met,
> would trigger a manual refunding of all backers (minus the ~2.8% processing
> fees). Robin Sloan rigged up something similar with his 2020 Sloanstarter
> campaign.

> In the end, if you have an audience, and you have reasonable baseline goals,
> then the issue of "raising enough funds" for a project launch is often not
> an issue.

------
chx
As with all tools, they can be used for good or bad but as a frequent
contributor to /r/shittykickstarters I am afraid my worldview might be warped
and I think this will be used a lot more by scammers to sidestep whatever
meagre checks Kickstarter has in place.

------
arijun
I assumed this was so named because it was supposed to disrupt kickstarters
cut in the same way craigslist disrupted classifieds, but it seems it’s
because the creators name is Craig. A happy accident, then, because I think my
interpretation still works

~~~
youeseh
This won't stop Craigslist from sending him a Cease and Desist anyway, but
hopefully they won't back it up with a lawsuit, wasting everyone's time.

~~~
robbrown451
I'd bet they'd actually have strong case.

------
lxe
I looked through the tutorial video, and it doesn't seem very simple...
thought Shopify would have a plugin system where everything would be wired up
without you having to edit templates and code.

~~~
hundchenkatze
Shopify does have a plugin system, and there are several freemium/paid
crowdfunding plugins that seem to require minimal configuration.

[https://apps.shopify.com/search?q=crowdfunding](https://apps.shopify.com/search?q=crowdfunding)

------
wishinghand
I've been meaning to do something like this, but imagined it as an interface
that takes information, saves Stripe payment tokens, and only charges them
when the goal had been met and optionally the timer was up. I'd provide a
minimally styled HTML template for the low-code crowd and let others style it
however they like after grabbing the info from an API. Still losing about 3%
but then the user wouldn't be beholden to Shopify.

------
kennywinker
Built on shopify, so presumably shopify is taking their usual cut of payments.
Seems weird to me to self-host with another middle-man...

~~~
mmcwilliams
The project is pretty clear that the benefit is you're merely paying 2.8%
instead of 10%. It's not about completely cutting out the payment processor as
a middleman--that's essentially a requirement for credit card transactions--
it's about clawing back the 7.2% you're paying for the platform. I think it's
great.

~~~
kennywinker
Interesting, you are right. I was under the impression that shopify added a
pretty sizable transaction fee, above the base rate of the payment processor,
but that is not really the case. Shopify's base rate is basically the same as
paypal and stripe's base cc processing rate. Cynicism retracted!

