Click.
I sat glued to my screen, hitting refresh, knowing that in 15 minutes time it would all be over.
The last time this happened to me was when we came to the end of our crowd funding campaign last year. We knew that the outcome of the campaign would determine our future: would we be moving to Jordan and studying Arabic after all?
Click.
This time it was a good friend’s Kickstarter project for a new album they’ve been writing. It was to be their first in 8 years.
Click.
The way Kickstarter works is that you set a financial target, upload a video, share your plans as best you know how, then click ‘start’. Your campaign runs for a specific timeframe, during which you post updates. Friends pledge money towards your project, and you offer rewards for different amounts pledged.
If, at the end of your campaign, you have reached your financial target, you get all the money (minus Kickstarter’s %).
If you don’t reach your target, you get nothing.
Click.
My friend was trying to raise $10,000 for the recording of her album.
1 day before the campaign closed, she had $8,761.
With 2 hours to go, she had reached $8,996
At 50 seconds, she had $9,161.
Click.
And that’s the figure it stopped at.
$839 shy of her target, with $0 to show for it.
I was crushed.
How could the world be so unfair?
Will this (unquestionably beautiful) album ever see the light of day?
And I got to thinking how often this must happen in the course of each day. People get so close but don’t quite make it across the line. And they end up with nothing to show for it. Nada.
Now I know this friend of mine well enough to know that this little setback isn’t going to stop her making music. In fact, she’ll probably take some valuable lessons from this experience and do something even better with it.
But I’m still a little pissed off with the process.
(Image credit: Tim Norris)
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