

Georgia Tech Researchers Reveal Phrases that Pay on Kickstarter - nkvl
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/news/georgia-tech-researchers-reveal-phrases-pay-kickstarter

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minimax
The phrase at the top of the list for phrases signaling that the project _won
't_ be funded is "pledged" but the 3rd, 4th and 5th ranked phrases signaling
that the project _will_ be funded are "has pledged", "pledged will", and
"pledged and". How are you supposed to interpret those seemingly conflicting
results?

Another fishy thing is that the top of the list for phrases signaling that the
project _will_ be funded is the phrase "project will be". It's fishy because
whenever you meet your funding goal, Kickstarter puts a blurb on your page
saying "This project will be funded on <deadline>"†. It makes me wonder
whether their scraper accidentally picked up some text that was not part of
the user created promotional text.

†
[https://www.google.com/#q=%22This+project+will+be+funded%22+...](https://www.google.com/#q=%22This+project+will+be+funded%22+site%3Akickstarter.com)

Edit: One more thing. I would be much more convinced of the model accuracy if
they had tested it on provably out of sample data. I.e. Take their model as it
stands today and use it to generate a prediction for the next 1000 campaigns
posted to Kickstarter. Compare the prediction results to the actual outcomes
and post the results.

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themodelplumber
Man, tough read, having been away from academia! I tried to write up what
would be, according to the paper, pretty much the most effective Kickstarter
pitch ever:

"We are domain experts on Christina Aguilera, and we've teamed up with one of
the top production teams to shoot a full documentary WITH her participation!!!
We're so excited!!!

Everyone who has pledged will get our incredible supporter rewards package. In
addition, when you sign up at level 2, we'll mention your name in the credits
and you'll receive two VIP tickets to our premiere. That's right--you'll be
able to hang out with tons of top industry experts and performers! We have
spared no expense and our friends in the industry are excited to see the
result. This option won't last long (expires on February 1) so grab the chance
to lock in these extra goodies while you have the opportunity. All that plus
the good old-fashioned karma you'll receive by being a supporter.

We've also learned that a wave of people from website X just pledged. This is
so incredibly humbling and awesome! Your pledges will go a long way toward
enhancing the creative potential of people everywhere. Thanks also for your
support and encouragement on Twitter, Facebook, and every other social network
where we have a presence.

I'm off to feed my cat and tell him the good news. Thanks again everybody!"

~~~
greendestiny
I know your comment was mostly a joke but thats actually a great distillation
of the paper. Apart from not caring about a Christina Aguilera documentary, it
does seem like a powerful pitch to me. I guess it reads somewhat more like an
request to help make something happen that otherwise wouldn't rather than a
presales channel.

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nkvl
The paper:
[http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw14.crowdfunding.mit...](http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw14.crowdfunding.mitra.pdf)

~~~
thirdtruck
Thanks! This will be the first technical paper that I've read in too long.

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wikwocket
This seems like a really cool idea, but I'm not sure if the results are
meaningful, and I'm very doubtful that any of the results are actionable.
Reading the actual paper, all of the phrases are just 2-3 words, and most are
extremely generic phrases. ("used in a", "all supporters", "pledged",
"information at", etc)

These phrases may have predictive power due to some broad trends in language,
but I don't see how to extract meaning or intuition from the lists of top 100
positive and negative words. Perhaps I just lack an understanding of the
statistics though.

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taeric
Just glancing, I'm not sure anything new was learned here. Seems to just
confirm what sales types have known for a while.

~~~
thirdtruck
I'm not one of those sales-types (at least not yet), so I'm glad to have this
info now, even if I missed the window to use it with my last Kickstarter. :)

That leaves me wondering: how well do sales tactics work on selling _yourself_
on things like regular exercise, better food habits, and the like?

~~~
Spearchucker
You could do worse than start with Robert Cialdini's book, Influence, the
Physchology of Persuasion. See also
[https://www.wittenburg.co.uk/Entry.aspx?id=d8c54975-bd0a-410...](https://www.wittenburg.co.uk/Entry.aspx?id=d8c54975-bd0a-410b-b266-d73c1f45c641).

~~~
dclara
Thank you for your reference. It tells the real tactics about how to win the
trust from people and how to put influence on others. But the same tactics may
generate different results from person to person. The same for every
Kickstarter project. We all like to be positive, consistent and with
integrity. We show our expertise and authority, be friendly. Unfortunately,
things turn out to be not working that well. Maybe you guys can help me a
little bit on how to improve my Kickstarter project:
[http://kck.st/JNqv8z](http://kck.st/JNqv8z)

~~~
thirdtruck
I just launched a successful Kickstarter campaign back in November, so I'll
share what feedback that I can:

* The copy focuses too much on the product features, rather than on how you, the backer, will improve as a person for using it.

* The video sounds and feels too corporate. Many Kickstarter backers seem to seek out interesting _people_ as much if not more so than interesting projects. I only watched more than 10 seconds of it for the sake of offering feedback.

* This particular input will hurt to read: the example website's just plain ugly as sin. All those buttons and fields contradict the "one place" promise central to the whole offering, too.

* The service tries to do too do much, straining my imagination rather than exciting it.

* Online services seem to have hard a hard time of it on Kickstarter. Services as a deliverable are also hard to picture (in contrast to the concrete images of books, gourmet chocolate, etc.).

* Millions of dollars couldn't fix web portals for Yahoo and other corporate giants. The offering is a 1990s-style web portal, as far as I can tell.

My actionable advice:

* Start with something much smaller, ideally something you could complete or attempt out of your own pocket. A single-purpose, single-platform app, for example.

* Tim Ferris blogged about running a Kickstarter campaign. Treat that as your bible (scaling your efforts accordingly). I'm including the advice to hire a virtual assistant in this. You will have no free time for mundane tasks while running the Kickstarter.

* Shut down the current Kickstarter. Kicktraq will confirm that it has no chance of succeeding. Keeping the "sunk cost" fallacy in mind, better to devote your time and limited mental energy to starting again.

* Keep trying. I might have succeeded on my own first Kickstarter, but with years of creative effort and outreach preceding that.

Good luck!

~~~
dclara
Thank you so much for your advice. I love to hear feedback from people,
especially from online and Kickstarter project. I'm sorry that I just found
your comment today.

I've talked to various kinds of people in real life. It takes about 5-min for
them to understand the benefit since it's a brand new Web 3.0 solution. Most
of them are convinced and very impressed. They don't need to lie because we
didn't know each other before.

I accept some of your comments, but I cannot agree on your conclusion, which
is: it's doomed to fail, don't continue. I guess part of the reason is that
you haven't seen the entire video which is about 75 seconds long. Even the
first question may make sense if you are the people who are looking for more
efficient way to find things online. Some people blamed me: why do you even
need to ask? Of course everybody wants.

I agree that the BingoBo.com website UI is not fully implemented using the
HTML5/CSS3 since I don't have time and resource to do so. The Kickstarter
image is boring, but it really show you a pair of public/private views. It
means a lot to you. I saw another online calendar project was next to mine
looking exactly the same as mine. I know there are two reasons for sure that
it's going to fail on Kickstarter, just like one of the project I've backed:
lacking of traffic and not being a widget or gadget. I've got hardware product
to show, but that's not going to be exciting in most backers' eyes either
because those are the applications which will fundamentally change how
people's daily life, which they are not quite familiar with.

Before I launched the project, I never expect to have it successful in the
first round. My purpose is to have a place for me to explain to people and get
the message across. I provided sufficient reasons and evidences to show that
it's going to be an important application. If you watch all the videos, you
will understand it better.

With all that said, I know that no matter how many reasons I have, if I cannot
make people happy to accept in the first place, it's my fault. But that does
not equal to: it's not valuable. Look here, another thread when I discussed
the similar issues other people raised:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7086320](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7086320)

As you can see, he cannot reject my solution which really can resolve the fair
common problem he raised. What he cannot accept is my solution is not an open
solution.

I put all three benefit clearly on the top because I need to meet various
kinds of people's needs. I do have backers who I never knew before, they do
believe in my vision and the solution. And I have a few bets testers who
really come back to test and try again and again. It does help people in the
long run. Are you sure you don't need a Private Web of your own if you can
create it by a few clicks? It's a matter of time and efficient way to
articulate and convey the idea.

I agree that Kickstarter project eats me so much time, not only on the
information I provided along with my blogs, but also I have to acquire viewers
organically from HN and Raddit. It's too time consuming. However, I'm not
going to change my direction and I have no idea or intention to create small
apps. Those small, cute products everybody loves in the Shark Tank usually
have very short product life on the market, just like the apps on the
smartphone. See the following blog from the successful company which raised
$23M recently. This first point is to have a large vision. And I'll stick to
it. It may take longer time to reach the goal.

[http://insideintercom.io/silicon-valley-outsider-
raised-30m-...](http://insideintercom.io/silicon-valley-outsider-
raised-30m-30-months/)

From action point of view, I've been using virtual assistance to record the
voice over. Some people told me that the voice makes people additive to
listen. Not many VAs are able to understand this project either. Even if yes,
it will cost me a fortune to let him drive the project through.

Last point is: it's not a web portal. I'll explain what the difference is from
Yahoo directory in my future blog post.

The Kickstart project is served as my bible where you can find all the
important information and frequently asked questions and debates in the daily
updates with links to my blogs.

Anyway, your comments are precious to me. I hope that you will have time to
get more information from the project, and I'll be happy to discuss with you
via email.

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nathancahill
Markov chain seeded with the positive phrases:

Fall locations it goes well striving to the builds. If you want one thing: her
new crown. Realize the card quarterly, make sure your host will likely school.
Free access completing the offer of this new room and achieve their win.
Showing the hard work, serious about playing with the builds.

And negative phrases:

For kids, know you mission is meeting pearl. You select a panels way of life
at the eyes of the ancient and seem like digging. Make up akin to a thousand
dollar professional. To get great, expand and extremely this option a broaden
to feeling that stands. Needs a crowd and makes a broaden to come see explored
ears. Items that college students and write using some much closer.

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phodo
If anyone is interested, the buckets mentioned are derived from a book by
Cialdini (I didn't read the paper to see if properly attributed - probably
was) that I read in grad school, and has had an impact on how I think about
negotiation, business, marketing, product, etc. It's one of those great books
whose lessons you carry with you many years later. Hope you find it useful.

[http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-
Busine...](http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Business-
Essentials/dp/006124189X)

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mathattack
This seems very consistent with Cialdini's pioneering work on influence and
persuasion.

[http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~a0083545/cloud/Robert%20Caldini_...](http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~a0083545/cloud/Robert%20Caldini_Influence,%20Psychology%20of%20Persuasion.pdf)

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danso
OK, so I'm betraying my ignorance of statistics here...but aren't there just
too many other variables that far outweigh the one studied here, and despite
attempts to control for them...aren't easily quantified?

The actual product, for one thing. How do the researchers quantify the real
world (or hyped) appeal of Pebble and Ninja Baseball? Do they look at the
respective markets for such products? Such a factor seems to so far outweigh a
textual description that it almost seem a low ROI to spend an inordinate time
on exact phrasing.

Edit: OK I read the paper. Seems to be no or very little mention of inherent
product qualities...thus, this study seems very limited, and missing the
forest for the trees

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yetanotherphd
You are right, the emperor/empress really has no clothes on.

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mbesto
So the research shows that good marketing works.

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cordie
So you're telling us that copywriting matters. Duh.

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catshirt
no, they're telling us what specific subset of copywriting is effective.

