How to use Kickstarter to Fund your Project - Community Education Series

Hi, I'm Chef Dennis Littley, and tonight we're here for our community education series, and we have How to Use Kickstarter to Fund Your Next Project. And my guest tonight is the singing chef Jackie Gordon, and she's actually using Kickstarter to fund one of her projects that we're going to talk about too. 2, but she's going to give you some insights on what she did, how to use Kickstarter, and how you could use it to possibly get something you've always wanted to do off the ground. It's a great concept and it takes a little bit of information and we're going to give it to you tonight so you might be able to start yourself up in that new business you've always wanted. Alright, Jackie, I'm going to turn it over to you.

Thanks, Dennis. Hi everyone, I don't know who's out there. This is such an odd experience, I feel like I'm just talking to Dennis here, but I know some of you are out there, so howdy doody. The Kickstarter Show! That was my little singing bit just to break in as the singing chef. So yes, Kickstarter. So Kickstarter, and we're talking about Kickstarter, and when I'm talking about Kickstarter, I don't just mean Kickstarter. We're talking about crowdfunding. So Kickstarter is just one of the platforms that people use to bring their projects to reality, but there's many, many of them. There's Indiegogo, there's a lot of different There's food-specific Kickstarters. I think Kickstarter is almost like a verb these days because when you say, "Oh, I'm Kickstartering something," people are like, "Oh, I understand what you mean because it's Kickstarter." But that's actually just a brand. So what I'm really talking about is how to use crowdfunding to bring your food projects or your food business or to market yourself, your business, successfully. And I'm in the midst of attempting to make this successful, and I've certainly been working on it for, oh God, since September. I've been working on my Kickstarter, which is for Chalk Cabaret, which is where an artisan chocolate tasting meets a cabaret show. It's also, so it's a cabaret show and chocolate tasting, all with New York chocolate makers. And I had originally, I've been working on this project since September. It just launched last Tuesday and we've been getting a lot of great feedback and we've been getting some people funding it. I think we're on track to raise our money in a month, which is cool. The way Kickstarter works is that you set up a project. You can decide to Kickstarter in the food area. Lots of people Kickstarter expanding their business or their restaurant, perhaps adding more features to it or improving it or putting out a product. Maybe you've been baking at home and you've decided you want to take your business to the next level and start making a product and getting it out there. Some people use it that are already in business to test a product. You could say that there was a company that I saw recently that put out a new line of pickles in addition to what they've already put out. They're testing a product. There's lots of ways to use Kickstarter to— or any crowdfunding platform to actually raise the money that you need. But there are some things that you really need to be aware of when you're looking at it. You know, you can see some amazing projects. Like there was a woman who wanted to raise a couple of thousand dollars to grow— to make her marshmallow business. I guess she had been making them for friends at home, and then she decided that she wanted to start an actual business. So she put up a goal of $2,000 and she wound up raising over $100,000 all in marshmallows, which is one of the very successful Kickstarter projects. I funded recently a Garden Tower project where they were trying to raise about $28,000 with these amazing 50-gallon drum planters that had 50 holes in them and you can grow plants out of them and they have a compost system in the center. And they weren't cheap. That was like a $240 product. But it was such an interesting product for people who have small spaces to grow stuff that they tried to raise $28,000 and they wound up raising 4 times that, so about almost $90,000 on their Kickstarter. Another company with coffee cubes, they're making these coffee cubes. I don't even know really what they are. They're— I guess you put them in water and they turn into coffee. Maybe they have sugar or they're flavored already.. And they went in for $15,000 and wound up raising about $80,000. So with a product is really the most successful stories, and I've been following Kickstarter for months and months, the most successful Kickstarters I've seen have been around products. Mine is more finite because it's an actual show, so, and those are successful. You see there's many different categories, and Kickstarter food is just one of them. Obviously games and technology do really well, but for food people, it's a really cool opportunity because you can bring a new product to market, you can try and get something off the ground, you can expand your business. So it's really a cool thing to do. In terms of coming up with an idea or being inspired, I really suggest that you look at a lot of Kickstarter projects. That's where I would begin. So maybe you have an inkling, and a lot of people have, um, you know, "Oh, I want to do this, but oh, I don't know if it's possible." You know, we often, when we want to do something, we dream of it. So what's cool to do is to go through the Kickstarter, go to Kickstarter or Indiegogo or one of these crowdfunding platforms, go to a few of them and look at projects and see how they work. And see, you'll see Once you put a project on Kickstarter, it stays there forever, whether it's been successful or not successful. And some of the things you can learn are really from the not successful ones, which is what I did. I learned, you know, watching and seeing how people— one of the pitfalls that I've seen on Kickstarter is that people don't have a lot of fat on their rewards. So the way that it works, and I'm not— if I'm not being clear, Please interrupt me and say, Dennis, Jackie, you're not being clear. You pick a project, then you decide how much money you need to raise, and then you create rewards that people get for helping you fund your project. One of the pitfalls that I've seen in Kickstarter from studying it is that people create rewards that have no fat on them. So you'll see someone do a reward— the Pickle Man again did a reward where you got 2 jars of pickles for $10 shipped. To you. So it didn't matter really what you were putting in the box. To ship 2 jars of pickles is $10. So the idea that you're creating rewards that have no fat on them so that at the end of the day all you've done is— even if, I mean, it may be negative, not even making money, it may be losing money. Because when I did the math, I couldn't figure out how he could possibly ship those pickles for $10. So you see some Kickstarters that are successful, but at the end of the day, by the time they fulfilled their rewards, they didn't make any money. The other side of that is having the— is trying to figure out how to give a reward that people will be able to enjoy and want to support without feeling— without putting that fat in. So there's a little bit of like, you struggle with it. I mean, I spent a really long time looking at the rewards and trying to figure out how I can make this Kickstarter work for you. You have to make sure you set it up so that it actually works for you. And that's by being brave enough to ask for rewards that may not be exactly tit for tat. With products, it's easier because you're giving them something, they're actually helping you make a product. So the marshmallow lady who went from— what did I say? She went to raise $2,000 and wound up raising $104,000. I figured it out. I sat there and did the math on the marshmallows. She had to make almost a quarter of a million marshmallows by the end of the day. So I'm like, I was like, man, that's a lot of marshmallows. I was like, I sat there and like charted the whole thing out. I said, wow, that's amazing that she's— but she was doing it at such a low margin that all she was going to be doing was making marshmallows, which is fine. Marshmallows don't cost a lot of money to make, but there's a lot of money in the labor around wrapping them and packing them and shipping them and, you know, doing all the things. So when you, you come up first of all with your Kickstarter idea, and then you really have to be very thorough about figuring out how much is this actually going to cost me. And I'm not saying this to scare you from doing it. I'm just telling you, to do it, you want to be prepared to do it win it. You don't want to set it up so that you're losing from the beginning. So you go in and you figure out every cost that goes in it. And the two costs that people forget about is that it costs money to use Kickstarter. So Kickstarter gets 5%, and then Amazon, who processes your Kickstarter reward, the pledges, gets between 3% and 5%. So 10% of those— of that— for my Kickstarter is $11,500. Right off the top, $10,000— $1,000, more than $1,000 goes right back to Kickstarter. Then you're figuring out how you're going to fulfill your rewards, you know, all the costs that go with shipping if you're doing a product or whatever you've promised. You have to make sure that you build all of those costs into your actual campaign. And when you figure out how much money you're asking for, that that money is seriously going to cover your costs. The other thing that people can be wobbly with, and I've watched a lot of video related to Kickstarter, is making sure that your video is really short, very catchy, and clear. When I originally went to do this Chalk Cabaret project, it was a different project. We were doing a virtual show, so I was gonna be able to do the show live in New York City, and you're gonna be able to watch the show live streamed in Idaho. All the chocolates would be delivered to your house. And so I did this video where I was like, I'm gonna be doing the show live in New York and live in your living room. Live in New York and live in your— and we worked on it and we shot it and we cut it and I even had like a professional director. And then we tested it, which you must do, test it in front of people to make sure they understand it. And people were like, I don't get it. What is she talking about? They could not get the concept of that I would be doing the show live in New York and it would be virtually streamed to anywhere in the world and you could watch it. So finally, that's why the project changed, because I went, okay, I can't explain this. I can either do a virtual show or a live show, but I can't explain both in a 2-minute video. So whatever you're doing with your Kickstarter, your project, whatever you wanna Tell people, use the KISS principle. Keep it simple, keep it clear. Does anyone have any questions out there now?

I just asked if they did and told them to put them in the bar, and we don't have anything coming up yet.

Okay, so the other— so then you put together your Kickstarter, you're clear, you got your video, you have to write copy that's compelling. That again reinforces your video. So you have this whole page of copy to fill in. You'll see on my Kickstarter there's a lot of content because I'm the queen of overkill. I always go for overkill as opposed to underkill. But if your product is really simple, then maybe you don't have to do that. I think clarity is key again, even in the copy. But because my show is so unusual, I decided to make it more robust and to use images because people react more to pictures, and to use graphics, because people react to graphics. My theory was to do anything I could to try and make it as clear as I possibly could. So that's— and I needed to have— my show is very local, it's a specific show that's happening in New York City, but I wanted to try and appeal to people that were across the country. So you have to understand for your Kickstarter— my friend Gareth Hughes, Dub Pies, he just did a food truck He raised the money to get his food truck. His thing was very specific, but he wound up getting coverage in New Zealand— because he's from New Zealand— in the newspaper, and it really drove his Kickstarter. So you want to make sure you have rewards in there that, even if your project is specific, that you can fulfill outside of your area. So people can still get my t-shirt shipped overseas. There are things that can go around the country. All the chocolates can be shipped in the United States. These are all things that you set up in the rewards, but you want to make sure you set it up so you have some, some breadth— breadth with the T, not breath— you want to have some range. You want to be able to appeal widely because that's who's in the pool. So when you're talking about who you're appealing to, that's the next part of the Kickstarter, asking for people to give you Money. So you set up your Kickstarter, you've written your beautiful copy, you've got your rewards all organized, you have a nice range of rewards. They can be as little as a buck and go as high as you think you can possibly interest people in doing it. Mine go from $5 to $10,000. The $10,000 one is completely over the top. I always suggest you have a completely over-the-top one because you never know who's actually going to see your Kickstarter. So have something that is outrageous. Mine is getting me and my band and a team of chefs to come and cook a dinner and put on Chalk Cabaret for you and your friends wherever you are, not including airfare and transportation. But that's, you know, who wouldn't want that if you had an extra $10,000 laying around? And some people do. So I'm hoping you're out there. Come talk to me.

You never know who might just be watching you. That's a good point.

Exactly, so you want to make sure you have a wide range of appeal and don't keep just— even if you're doing something local, you don't want to keep it too local because you want to have some stuff for people out there who just really champion you. We all, especially with this new virtual world, you know, where we have so much connection on Google+ and Twitter and Facebook, wherever, you're reaching people that you may never ever meet, but they may love you. I mean, Jenny Fields wrote the most incredible blog post about me today. I've never actually touched this woman or been in the same room with her, but she's like one of my champions. I was just blown away. I was like, really? I cried, but I'm not going to cry now. You never know who's out there watching you and who's going to be your champions and really want you to win, especially bloggers, because your readership is wide. These people are all over the world, so you want to make sure you can appeal to all of them.

Do you find that with your initial campaign though that you really reach the people that are closest to you or that are local to you, that know you?

The way— well, it's funny because I really worked on this very hard, and then I worked on it and tried to be super, super organized. I read the books, I did the— and when it came— when push came to shove, I wound up launching without being as organized as I wished I had been. I wound up so busy the week leading up to my launch. I taught a workshop. I did all these things that had nothing to do with the Kickstarter. So I was like running to try and get everything done in time, and I left out the most important people. So the funding that has happened on my Kickstarter so far is only from my virtual people. I haven't— my normal, my closest friends and my closest champions are begging me to send them the link. They're like, "Please send us the link!" They still haven't got it a week later. So that— it was the most— you can read about it on my blog post. It was the most crazy experience, but that's the way it went down. And so, but that's what— they are your highest leverage people when you're talking about your Kickstarter, when you start thinking about who I'm going to ask and who it's going to appeal to. The people who know you and love you are your friends first. Your friends are going to be your highest leverage people. Depending upon what you're doing, you want to try and get some press coverage if you can for your Kickstarter. There's a guy who just is doing these cookbooks, he— that just got funded. He really— he did really well on Kickstarter. He's doing little cookbooks, they're standalone or— I can't remember the name, but it's on the Kickstarter page today. He was in the Village Voice. His I saw his Kickstarter in the Village Voice today, or the other day. So it's great if you can get some press coverage. I've been very lucky to have some bloggers blogging about my Kickstarter, which is wonderful, like Jenny Fields and, and Kathy Blake and some other cool, wonderful people that I know. So you want to try and get press, but really your highest leverage investors are going to be the people who know you. And you also wind up getting people that you've never even connected with. There are people who troll Kickstarter looking for projects to fund. So I've had people like that as well. So that's, that's kind of cool. The issue in which what I found, um, and if you read my blog you can see that, is that it's very uncomfortable to ask people for money. There's a— when I put on a normal show, normally the way that my shows work I've been doing— I'm a singing chef. I've been doing edutainment since 1999. I have an idea. Oh, I want to do a show about fried chicken. I want to do a soul food and soul music show. I'm going to find a sponsor, and then I'm going to use them to fund the show, or part of the show, and then I'm going to go and send out a mad media campaign and find a venue and put on— write the whole thing together, and then you cross your fingers and hope that someone's going to come and fund your project. I mean, come and buy tickets to your show, rather. So, which is completely the opposite of how you do a Kickstarter. The Kickstarter, you do all the creative part of thinking about your project and how it's going to work first, and then you ask your friends to fund it. So what happened the last time I did a show in New York City for the public is it didn't make any money. I mean, it made enough, it made some money, but it didn't wind up— it wound up losing like $20,000, which was very devastating to me. And I'd only ever had one show that lost money. All of my other shows were sold out. And that's a lot to do with putting on a show in New York City. It is very expensive to put on a show here, which is how I wound up coming to Kickstarter, because I figured if I could figure out all the costs involved with putting this project together, then I could figure them out ahead of time and get people to fund, help me help produce it, and then I would go into the show having not to worry about whether tickets were selling. That's what's cool about crowdfunding. That was something that wasn't around when I did my, my last show in New York City.— which is what— so what you wind up doing with crowdfunding is struggling between what you dream and asking people to support your dream. And there can be an uncomfortableness, a fear, because there's a lot of fear. You spend all this time— and I spent a lot of time building this Kickstarter— and then you turn around and you're like, oh my God, what if nobody gives me any money? No, what if everybody hates me? I'm sure everybody hates me. You go on this crazy roller coaster ride of emotions where you think, oh my God, I'm a genius, and then the other guy, you're like, I'm a loser, I'm a loser. And every emotion in between. I mean, it's like one day I'm up and the next day I'm down. So my point is, it's not for the faint-hearted. And anybody can do it. You just have to have people around you to kind of, for me anyway, to kind of be like your anchors, your ballasts, to stroke you and tell you, you're okay, you're not a loser, you're good, you know. And then you, you know, I mean, I have a lot of champions, which is wonderful. But even with them, you know, some one minute you think, oh, great, and the next minute you're like, ah. So you really have to, become very centered with it. Become, like, you know, Zen about it at times. And that's how I've kind of, you know, breathing. I mean, I don't know if you guys are familiar with something called Rescue Remedy. There's a Bach flower essence called Rescue Remedy that when you start getting really stressed, I know Dennis Littley was getting a lot of stress. It's a Bach, it's a flower remedy. I mean, I kind of keep, I have the little pastilles and I have the liquid, and I'm like, as soon as my nerves start getting a little rattled, I try and, like, chill out out, maybe meditate. I went for a long walk, you know, trying to— you know, this is a conflict inside all of us between, especially around money. You know, we all are like, oh my God, I can't ask anybody for money. You know, makes you feel like, you know, I don't know, is it that you're kind of cheap? Or, you know, there's all the thoughts. This will bring up every thought you have doing this crowdfunding. So my advice to you is to keep your feet on the ground. And breathe. And know that what you want is the key. Keeping your eye on, this is what's happening now and it's okay, I'm not going to implode or combust from these weird feelings I'm having. And keeping your other eye on, that is what I want. I want this show to go up in October. And I know it's going to be really cool. And all my shows have been really successful. And this is going to be great. I just have to get from here to there, and I'm putting myself out there. For me, I kind of throw myself at it and go, okay, here I am, I'm all vulnerable, love me. You just put yourself out there because that's all you can do. You're not going to fund your Kickstarter being shy or being scared, but you can say, here I am, and I'm not feeling fabulous. You know, if any of you follow me on Twitter or on Facebook, you'll know that I don't hold back. I try and keep how I'm feeling very real. I try to be very honest because I want other people— I'm trained as a business coach, so I want other people to actually know that it's okay to feel these things. This is what happens in life when you're struggling. To get what you want. And a lot of people don't want to have these feelings, so they don't bother to ever— I'm not going to even go there. You know, that's what they're like, "I'm not—" because that's what happens. That's why people don't have what they want, because when you go for it, these feelings come up and they don't feel good. And so you're just like, "I'd rather not, thank you. I'll just stay here and watch TV and drink, or do that job that I hate," or, you know, just, you know, You people will totally do that because feelings are no joke. And, um, but I, I really would like to inspire you to go for it. You know, the worst thing that can happen with the Kickstarter is it doesn't get funded. I mean, I don't want that to happen to mine, and I wouldn't want it to happen to any of yours. But by preparing for it, really doing your homework about it, figuring out what you're going to sell, being clear about it You know, and having people getting feedback while you're in the process of building it is also really important so that you're not like— the idea of like, I know this, I got this, is not a good way to go at it. The better way to go at it is like, I'm not sure, look at this, tell me what you think, tell me what you think, what do you think of the video? What, you know, you test it with your friends, you test it with people, and you ask them to help you.

I do have a question here from Jenny Fields, she put up earlier. It's, "When you're promoting your Kickstarter, how much is too much, or is there such a thing? But you do have to sustain the in-your-face-ness for 30 days, so what's your strategy?" Well, my strategy with this was to get people to help me ahead of time.

This is one way that I prepared for it, was that I lined up people to especially on the social media side. I asked ahead of time for my friends to help me tweet about it, and Marnelli, awesome Cooking with Books blogger, she, she and I sat and we talked about strategy. We did have a different strategy, which I found out you can't do, which is you can't do any giveaways or contests related to Kickstarter. So, so not at any level, not like on your blog to drive traffic to any Nothing. If they find out that you're doing that, they will take your project away. So my strategy kind of lost a lot of it. What I was going to do was going to be really smart, and I thought I was being really smart, but as it turned out, like last week or the week before, I found that I couldn't do that, and I went, oh, yuck. So what I did was I sent— I asked a lot of people to help me, and many people stood up to help me, and that's been great. So prepare. That way, by, you know, you can also, you know, by using your friends for feedback, you're enrolling them early into your project and figuring out ahead of time who is your relevant audience for what you're doing. So that's also important. So you have to have, like, amplification. In terms of Jenny's question, you gotta, you know, I talk a lot on social media already. So my strategy is to mix in my project with what I normally talk about, which is the cat or food, or— and I also am very conscious of still pushing other people's stuff. So I funded a Kickstarter while I've been doing my Kickstarter. So I've been helping Michael Green push out his stuff because he's doing the Matzo Movie. I'm also very conscious of trying to share other people's content that appeals to me. So I'll still be on Twitter. You can't be like this about your Kickstarter. I think that that's a very dangerous move, and pushing out just you, just you, just you. It's the same thing with your regular content. You need to mix it up. You need to find people to help you. I reached out to a lot of people who I know who have big lists and asked them, hey, send a tweet for me. Mister, can you spare a tweet? Can you spare a Facebook post? You know, asking people to help, I think, is, um, and then it's not from you. Because the most powerful driver to Kickstarter is Facebook, after your friends. Facebook is the most powerful mover to Kickstarter. So you need people in your network to help you push out your Kickstarter. And also, the other thing I did was I knew that I was going to launch last week, But I also knew that Memorial Day weekend was happening, so I made sure that I had some people blogging last week about it and tweeting last week. And then this week I knew that after the weekend I was going to lose the whole weekend, so I set it up so I could have more people. And I still have other people who are going to be blogging next week. So I tried to be strategic. You know, one of the things, one of the keys to it is strategy and persistence and Being conscious not to drive the people who follow you crazy. 'Cause they're not, you know, the interesting thing about my project, because it's not a product, and I'm sure it would be different if it were, is that, what was the thing I was gonna say about it? The interesting thing about my, what was I talking about 2 seconds ago, Dennis? I just had a brain freeze. You don't remember? I think it's a good one. Yeah, we were, you got me on that one too. I'm trying to remember. It's not relevant. It's the lack of relevance pushing it out, pushing it out, pushing it out. Oh, because my project is very local, even though my rewards aren't local, the people who are helping me— the— what was I saying? I just sort of lost the flow there. The people who are— a lot of the social media isn't driving a lot of the traffic. The social media is about just getting the words out there. Do you know what I mean? It's like amplification as opposed to actual driving traffic. What drives traffic there, some people are going there from the blog post, but a lot of people— I had a lot of tweets today, and some of the traffic is coming from there, but not a huge amount. What you're trying to do is get people talking about you, talking about what you're doing, having conversations. So that's really about— that's what a lot of the social media side of the Kickstarter is. And I think if you have a more specific product base, then it would actually be more effective for driving specific traffic. So that was one of the things that— so the other thing that you need to do when you're setting up a Kickstarter, and I did this way ahead of time, is Make it easy for people to help you. So a lot of people, when they're— there's this desperate feeling to trying to get your— get it out there. And what you really want to do is make it easy for people to share your stuff. So for my Kickstarter, has a landing page. You can go straight to the page, but there's also this really cool page that I learned from some incredible guys who did an incredible Kickstarter around a product.— not a food product, well it's a water pitcher but it's— and they created a landing page so that you can go on there and you can share it on Twitter, you can share it on Facebook, and then you can go and watch the video. So it's 3 clicks and people can help you. So as simple as you can make it for people to share your stuff to help you, that is the trick. Because a lot of people will be like, oh my God, I need help and I need to do this and I need to do that and that and that and that, and they send out this huge email and it's like, whoa, when you say, hey, here's a really easy link, click this link, share it. I also wrote emails for people, so I send them the link and then I say, here's an email I already wrote, so you can just cut, paste it, send it to some of your friends for me. So you want to make it easy for people to help you and not blow their minds, because, you know, people are busy, we're all busy, and that's a, that's very good strategy with the Kickstarter. Ask your friends to help you. Make it easy for them to do so. And what's the most important part of your Kickstarter is remembering to thank everybody. The gratitude. Every time somebody funds my Kickstarter, I send a tweet to— if I know them from Twitter, I'll tweet it. If I know them from Facebook, I'll Facebook post it. Every time anybody says, you know, sends me $5, a buck, whatever it is, I don't care, any little amount, it all goes to the good cause. You have to remember to thank them. Thank the people who funded you. I put a big list of all the people who helped me on my Kickstarter page at the bottom of the page. You know, I had a lot of champions early on in terms of getting, getting the stuff done. Remember to thank them. So that's It's kind of like— Kickstarter is like life, you know, the kind of strategies you try and use to just get through the day and, you know, do what you do in terms of being a blogger or whatever you do professionally. It's the same things. So there's a really great speaker, inspiring— I don't know, do you know Seth Godin? He's a great marketer, he's an amazing— Seth Godin, you should all follow him. He's a genius when it comes to permission marketing and content, and he's just a great guy. And he had a blog post that had this heptagram in it that talked about a project and how— and the components of doing a project to make it a success. And he talked about 7 things that had to be in that in order to make it work. And if one of those things was not working, that would be where your where you're falling down in your project. So one of the things was desire. So you have to want to do your Kickstarter, you know, that's— and you have to want it more than anything because it's not, it's not for the faint hearted. It's hard. It's a lot of work. You know, I've taken off this entire month to be like Kickstarter, that's what I'm doing. If anybody's looking for me, you'll find me in front of the computer. You have to have a strategy. The second thing is strategy. You have to know how you're going to make it work. And the other thing you have to know with strategy is that when it's not working, you have to know how to U-turn and not get caught up in like, oh, I screwed that up and it didn't work and da da da. You're going to make mistakes. I've made mistakes. Everybody, we all make mistakes. You've got to have the good sense to flip and go. You have to be persistent. It's another thing. Persistence is everything. You've got to keep getting up and dusting yourself off and coming back in here and getting your Kickstarter, finding new ways to get the word out, looking for new avenues. Even though I've already set up a lot of stuff ahead of time, I spend every day sending out more information to people that I didn't think of before. Fear is on his list. You have to know how to handle that part of yourself. The fear will come up, you're going to be uncomfortable. You got to have strategies to get over it. Meditate, like I said. Drink the Rescue Remedy by the gallon. It works. It makes you feel really calm. Maybe drugs. I don't know what you're going to do, but you're going to need to do something to make it work. And then you're going to have tactics, tactics to get through. And also, one of the things that Tim Ferriss, who's The 4-Hour Body, do you know that? Tim Ferriss, he's a writer and inspiring, another guru. The 4-Hour Body, The 4-Hour Workweek, The 4-Hour Chef. He talks about, you know, you don't have to throw everything at your Kickstarter. You have to figure out the most important things to do. So you cannot drive yourself crazy with this. I took the day off from it yesterday. I was like, okay, I can't Kickstarter today. It's Memorial Day. I went and sat in the sun. Another thing that's going to affect your Kickstarter is your reputation. When in terms of Seth Godin's work, the reputation, how people perceive you, is very important. If people don't like you or you have a lot of bad press out there on the internet, that might hope be make it less successful. But on the other hand, if you have a great reputation and you're really connected to your network, then it's a bonus. And how you execute. So we've talked about execution of your Kickstarter Putting it all together in an organized fashion and pressing the button. And I also think there's another thing in there that, that isn't on this list, and I think that's your own forgiveness. Because like I said, you're not going to get all these things right, and you're going to have— there's going to be moments where you're going to be like, oh my God, I screwed this up. And you have to be able to go, you know what, you're doing the best you can. You did this as best you could. And having that ability to be compassionate for yourself and having the ability to recognize that you really have put your all into this and you did the best you could and letting it go is a very powerful move with a Kickstarter or anything where you're really, where it's really confronting and you're putting yourself out there. So that's kind of my overview. Does anybody have any questions?

Nothing else since Jenny's, but I have a question. When you started your Kickstarter, I mean, it seems like it's going to be a year before it finally goes full circle and you're gonna have your show. So you've really put a lot of thought into it, a lot of work into it. Would you do this again?

Well, interesting thing was it was supposed to launch before Hurricane Sandy. It wasn't supposed to be me taking 9 months to do it. Okay. Then my house got flooded by Hurricane Sandy. I was gonna launch the following week after I— after Pi Party Potluck Live, I was gonna launch the the Kickstarter, and there was no way. My house was flooded. I had to clean up my house. Everybody was asking for money. There was, you know, there was so much want here in New York City, there was no appropriate to be like, "Hi, I'm doing a little show about chocolate." Not appropriate. So then I had to put it on hold, and then the holidays came. There was no way I was gonna launch. Timing is also important with Kickstarter. You have to be very conscious of when you're actually launching and giving yourself some room. I actually thought at various times that I was going to launch and then do the show, like right next to it. And then I realized, because I widened my scope, that I didn't have to do it that way. I was actually trying to get the show up before the summer, but I realized, wait a minute, I'm writing this. I can choose what actually is going to work best. So that's why the show is being Kickstarter'd now, and then the actual show doesn't happen until October, because how much pressure does that take off me? I can— I don't have to— first of all, finding a venue in New York City is really difficult. So if I book a venue in October and the Kickstarter doesn't work out, let's not let that happen. But if it doesn't work out, there's no big deal for me to cancel that. You know what I mean? So I needed to have certain parameters set. Just give me some scope. Would I do it again? I don't know if I would do it again for— I would do— so this show is supposed— is a— Choc Cabaret is a tasting of New York artisan chocolate makers set to music. That's what I do. I create shows that combine food, music, and humor. I sing about food, and I'm going to take people through the tasting and match each one of the chocolates that we're tasting to a song. You're also going to learn how chocolate goes from bean to bar, the history of chocolate, how to choose a great chocolate, how to taste chocolate like a pro. So my shows are kind of like entertainment that's educational at the same time. The way I conceived the show this time was to do all New York artisan chocolates. The next time I do the show, it's going to be all my own chocolates. It's going to be a similar concept, but the shows— I did a line of chocolates when I had my chocolate store, they were based all on divas. So there was a Billie chocolate and an Ella chocolate and a lean a chocolate. And I have a show called Black Pearls and Strange Fruit, so I knew their history, and I matched something about them to the chocolates. Like, like, uh, Eartha Kitt loved peanuts, so I made a peanut chocolate. And Aretha Franklin, the chocolate was one of her flavors. I don't remember what flavor it was, but it was the shape of a crown because she's the queen. So the next show version would be that version. I don't know whether I'll Kickstarter or just do the show, but I'm not sure. But I think the next Kickstarter I would do would definitely be a product. I think this is a little bit harder because, like I said at the beginning, it's not virtual. It's not a product that I can just ship to everybody along around the world. If you're doing a cookbook, maybe an ebook, you know, you have much more scope in terms of who is my audience and what am I selling them. This show was supposed to be virtual when I decided to do the Kickstarter, and then I had to shift it and change it because it wasn't clear. And I said, oh, let me just do a little baby version of it. And this is the baby version of it. So we'll see where it goes. I think I love this idea of virtual tastings, you know. I love this idea of being able to get to people who are not in New York City, who can't go to all the hot restaurants and, or, you know, eat the latest food. Or, you know, if I could do my cheese and wine show and people could have the cheeses and wines delivered to their house and then following along while, you know, my audience in New York is following along. How cool would that be? I mean, how much more exposure would people have to amazing food if it could be brought to them and then they could learn how to enjoy it from a show where they're being entertained at the same time? That's the power of what I'm trying to create with this first version of Chuck Cabaret. So we'll see how I go with this one. I have some other ideas for products that are not— that are more like entertaining food, non-perishable food products. Non-perishable food products. Non-perishable food products that were— that I think— I have one product that I think is going to be hysterical as a, as a crowdfunded— if I do it by crowdfunding, I think it'll go really well and it's going to be really funny. But who knows? I mean, if I survive this, you know, how many times can you ask everybody you know for money? I mean, right, you can't get away with that too So the next project has to be something that's bigger than my immediate people, right? More scope, yeah. It's got more scope, so that would be my answer to that. Very good.

Well, you shared a lot of insights with us for this, and you really— I think if anyone was thinking about doing this, I think they're gonna rethink it and really make sure that they plan it because you've set really set standards for what needs to be done to be successful.

Oh, oh, oh, sorry, I forgot my most important tip about Kickstarter, which I think is pretty interesting. You can actually create a Kickstarter to just market yourself. So think about it. I've seen people do it, so that's how I know it's possible. You could put up a Kickstarter, not spend so much energy on it, put it out there in just a way to market yourself. I've seen people put up ridiculous goals that would never get met just to build buzz for whatever project they were doing. So it's like a marketing exercise as opposed to an actual crowdfunding. I mean, it's not— I wouldn't say it's the right thing to do, but I've certainly seen it done, and I thought it was— I thought, okay, well, that's a little interesting. You could do that, and I've seen it done. Where they knew that it wasn't going to fund, but they put it out there anyway because just the action of putting up the crowdfunding platform creates buzz and gets you attention, and you can show people what you're doing and, and get some interest. And maybe your Kickstarter doesn't work, but you've attracted the person to get your project off the ground. So that's another interesting thing that I didn't share with you guys. I don't know if the Kickstarter people really want you doing that. And probably they don't, but it is a way to market yourself. Interesting concept.

Oh well. Well, I don't have any questions here. If you've got anything else you'd like to talk about, or maybe you could—

Well, I would love you all to come and support my Kickstarter.

Woohoo! Absolutely. Is there anything else about your show we should know?

Let's see. So it's going up in October. We have wonderful— I'm wearing one of my rewards. Whoops, I'm trapped in my shirt again, Dennis Littley. It's ridiculous. It's going to be 90 degrees in New York. Whoever's looking elsewhere, know that we're not going to be so hot. And I can't even get— oh, there it is. So this is one of the rewards in my show. I have designed a line of t-shirts. This is my hot chocolate because it's cold in New York. It's winter here tonight. And then on the back, which I don't know if you can see, is the recipe for Very good.

That's neat. They're called recipes.

And that was one of my— that's one of my— there's hot chocolate, and there's brownies, and there's triple chocolate brownies, chocolate pudding, chocolate truffles, and chocolate cupcakes. So they're all chocolate desserts. And that's one of the rewards in the Kickstarter. And I have some really cool stuff, whether you're here or you're not in New York, that you can get for supporting the Kickstarter. And we're happy to take any donations, you know, a buck, $5, anything up to— and anything up to the sky's the limit. I think that it's going to be a successful show. I think that, that, um, people are really going to have a good time there. And I love the next version to be able to just bring it to everybody and do the actual virtual show. They— the, the one with the Divas will be a virtual show, so each of the tunes will be match to the singer that I made the chocolate for. So this one we're gonna match— and that's how I do it. Maybe people have a quick question about— a lot of people ask me, how does it work, the food and the music thing? So what I do is I try and find something about the food that is in a popular song. In my cheese show, I did a show with Artisanal Cheese Center where I matched the cheeses to songs, and people— and so the The example I use is there's a cheese called Brie au Savarin. I don't know if you're familiar with Brie au Savarin. It's a soft, rind-ripened cheese. And it's a beautiful French cheese. And what I wanted people to remember about the cheese is that the proper way to eat a brie is that you don't eat the skin. So I sang, I've got you under my skin. So we'll be making similar clever, hopefully seemingly clever, connections between the chocolates. The— I have 9 chocolate makers that are going to be in the show. They're all New York chocolate makers. Some of them make our baking bonbons, some of them making bars. And I'm going to take you through a tasting of all their chocolates and match each one of their chocolates to a tune. So we'll— we're not— we don't know which chocolates we're using because we have— once the show is funded, then we can start creating the show. But some amazing chocolate makers like Fruition Chocolate and Ronnie Sue's Chocolate and Fine and Raw and Oliver and Bika, this incredible chocolate maker. We're just really lucky to have such an incredible— and I'm making chocolate. I'm a chocolate maker too, so yeah, it'll be cool.

It'll be cool. Well, are the songs original tunes that you'll be doing, or are you going to be using other people's numbers?

Well, I always write one song for the show. I do. I'm writing a new song called, that's the sound people make when they love chocolate. Because people make very interesting sounds. Oh yeah. When they love chocolate. So the idea of the song is that I'm, I'm orchestrating all the little ooh, ah, ooh la la, I want to take a bath in you and feel you on my tongue. They say things that you might not think they're talking about chocolate. So I'm going to write, I'm writing that song for that show, and then I usually match the I might write a little— like, for the cheese show, I had a song about how to taste cheeses and wines that went something like, smell the cheese, but bear in mind the scent is not the taste. Take a bite and chew, but please don't spit. Cheese is a terrible thing to waste. Once you cleanse your palate, sip the Sterling Chardonnay. Something about this— determine if the combo is a yippee Arené. So I'll write a jingle for it that'll kind of illustrate like one of the things I want you to remember about how to taste chocolate, because there is an entire process to mindfully tasting anything, and chocolate is no different. So I might write a little jingle about that, but mostly I use songs that people know already so that when there's something I want you to remember, like the 90% Chocolate is not for everyone, I might sing, "I can't make you love me if you don't," because that would be the thing that I want you to remember is this chocolate is not for everybody. Right.

Good point. But there is a chocolate for everyone. That's what we need to remember. There is a chocolate for everyone.

But Dennis Littley, there are people who don't like chocolate.

I don't know. Unless you're allergic, I don't want to hear it. I mean, that's the only excuse you have.

I had a chocolate store in New York City for 5 years, and I had people who would come in— I mean, I had people who come in and be like, oh my God, I'm in heaven! This is my most favorite place! I want to be here all the time! And then I'd have people who come in and be like, I don't like chocolate. Like this kind of like, you know, I can stand in a chocolate store, but I don't like chocolate. So I always thought those I was like, well, okay. And they'd be like, aren't I amazing? I bet you've never met anyone that doesn't like chocolate.

Oh yeah, we get, I can't say the word though, like you all the time.

Exactly, I'm like, oh good. Believe me, they're on every corner. You're just so unique. Yes, so I think it's funny.

Some of them have found their way onto Google+ too.

Oh, those people, yeah. They're everywhere. They are not unique. They should be in their own community somewhere.

Ah, that would be nice. But, well, it's been a very interesting evening.

I'm glad you asked me to come on. I'm very happy that you could.

And I think people that may have not had a chance to watch it live will come back and watch it later because I'm telling you, everybody has a problem project and everybody envisions them with the best idea ever and how if they only had an opportunity they could make it work. Well, here's your opportunity to make it work. Exactly. Learn these lessons that Jackie has shared with us on making sure that you're not sending yourself into bankruptcy.

Exactly. Or into insanity. Yeah, or into insanity or both.

At least if you go into insanity they got to put you away and treat you well for a while.

Exactly, and we shared some links. I think we'll put some links in the, that are really good places to look at, to like think about what you're going to do and strategy in terms of how you're going to do it.

Great, very good. Can you put those links up for them in the comment bar for us later?

Yeah, I will. I'll drop them up there.

And if anyone has any questions for Jackie and you didn't have time to leave them, leave them later and when she has time We'll check the comments later and see if there's anything.

And there's also a Kickstarter community on Google+ that I joined with like 400 or 500 people. I've always found Google+ to be so helpful, so I joined that community. If you're thinking about it or you want to talk to people who are doing Kickstarter, they're there. I'm here if you want to ask me any questions.

And also the link to your landing page. So we can go share it for you.

Yes, please share my landing page and please make a contribution to the donation to make Chalk Cabaret happen. I would so appreciate it. I cry every time I get the little new backer alert. I feel like, what's her face? Sally Field? I totally feel like Sally Field.

No, you like me, you really, really like me.

You like me, you really like me. Oh God. It's so like that. I'm sorry, it's just this Kickstarter stuff makes you like raw.

I'm sure you're going to be successful and I can't wait to see your show. Great. Well, thank you very much for tonight. Everyone for coming, thank you. It's, uh, I'm Chef Dennis Littley and this was the Google+ Community Education Series. I'm losing my mind here a little bit too, and Jackie Gordon, the singing chef, and she did sing a little for us, was here as our guest. And y'all have a great night, and we'll see you soon.