Interesting study:
QuoteSo it turns out that participants in the world's crowdfunding festival didn't do that much crowdfunding.
The amount of crowdfunding money distributed ($363,739) at One Spark 2014 represents just a fraction — about a third of 1 percent — of the total funding goals of creators (approximately $99 million), according to economist Chris Markl's calculations.
"That's a huge gap," said Markl, a former Florida State College at Jacksonville economics professor and entrepreneur. "A massive disconnect between the money a creator says they need and the amount received."
Markl said his purpose in releasing his "One Spark Impact" study this week is not to smear the reputation of the event.
Markl, himself a 2014 participant, wants to point out what he sees as a disparity between One Spark's claim as "the world's crowdfunding festival" and its tangible results.
full article: http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/news/2014/05/19/not-a-lot-of-crowdfunding-dollars-at-worlds.html
While I agree that One Spark isn't everything it is hyped up to be, without looking at why the numbers are the way they are it is meaningless. In my time at One Spark I was asked to vote for projects ranging from well thought out mobile apps to some girls break dancing in Ninja Turtle costumes. Lumping in serious ideas with those who were there to have a good time doesn't tell us anything.
One thing to consider is the heavy emphasis on the voting system. One of the key components of crowd funding is direct funding from individuals to creators. The voting system creates a false equivalency that a vote for a particular project means some kind of automatic funds. Perhaps there needs to be more emphasis on individual contributions?
He does make valid points even if he may have gotten the impression this crowd sourcing was more that it was meant to be.
I can tell you, a lot of people have the impression that their votes actually counted which perhaps One Spark needs to do a better job expressing what it truely is about.
We don't need One Spark to flame out because of mispercieved hype.
These kinds of events are either passing fads or they have staying power. We will see within a couple of years if any struggling start up went to the next level because of One Spark funding or at least exposer of their product/services from the various powers that be that can get these people/organizations bank lines of credit and/or government/university grants and money from private investors not formally assocatiated with One Spark.
If the powers that be with the money begin to think that One Spark is mostly a place that's fun and creative but more of a waste of their time with too many groups who make the equivalent of great high school science class volcanos and/or folk rap dancers then they won't really come in the future.
The sad part was that during mid-day, I personally witnessed people formally presenting their goods and/or services to an empty set of chairs. The only people even listening were the ones who were about to present.
Though, I went to the one on the vacant lot on the wrong side of the library which apparently turned out to be the secondary place to present.
With all of the above said, I'm very happy that so many people and groups were willing to express their creativity at One Spark. These people will remember their positive experience there for the rest of their lives and may even encourage them to advance further in their creative endevors.
I have spoke to several artists, and 90% of them had negative things to say about the experience participating in One Spark. They expressed positives, too, but the negatives outweighed them to the extent that they will not be involved in next year's. The artists I knew in year 1 stayed away from year 2 (which obviously did nothing to hurt the hype).
One Spark was definitely heavy on the "crowd funding" hype. I think the event was great for everyone attending... not so much all of those participating.
I see there are many comments on why I focus on crowdfunding so much. Its because the reason One Spark has been in Time and Entrepreneur magazine is because of the crowdfund. Because one spark claims its main value proposition is the crowdfund. To be overly obvious, according to one spark the crowdfund is the main value proposition. So I analyze One Spark as any other crowdfunding platform.
I think a creator's funding goal is definitely reasonable to discuss. One spark brands itself as an in person kickstarter. Whether its kickstarter or indiegogo, crowdfunding is built upon a creator setting a goal and raising money towards that goal. Kickstarter provides no guidance for how a goal should be developed. Almost no one spark projects made significant progress towards her goal. 43% of kickstarter projects reach 100% of their funding goals.
But lets table creator goals. If we focus on money received, each project received very little money. When costs are included, its likely most projects likely didnt make money.
Again One Spark brands itself as the World's Crowdfunding Festival - thus measuring how that funding is distributed at the end of the festival is reasonable.
I don't have a monopoly on proving impact. Thus I welcome anyone to measure impact of one spark by employing data and logic and reveal methodology and data.
Quote from: stephendare on May 21, 2014, 09:03:36 AM
Meh. the guy seems to have a small ax to grind and a product to sell, if you read the article a bit.
The festival itself is supposed to be crowd funded with a crowd funding element built into the prize money.
What this guy did was a bit of sleight of hand by pretending that the 'goal' of the festival was actually to get everyone who entered it to find 100% funding and then measure how close to that new and imaginary goal the festival dollars actually came.
Which isn't what the festival is trying to achieve in the first place.
Its a red herring.
That said, the festival could probably improve itself by setting up a second tier crowd sourced funding by including all participants who care to participate in an ongoing website that allow creators to crowd fund for between six months and a year beyond the festival itself.
First off, I have no ill will towards one spark, I love one spark. Reporters always try to get you to say something terrible and i have been incredibly reserved. There is no grinding of an axe. I conducted this analysis for free and to make one spark better, and in the analysis I included my consulting business's twitter.
But intention of the study shouldn't matter, what should is the logic and math.
I am fully transparent in my analysis and methodology. For the full study http://www.onesparkimpact.org/ - thus any claim of slight of hand is just incredibly incorrect. Infact compare my openness with the recent UNF tourism study. UNF reveals very little methodology, or data.
But I do appreciate the discussion.
cheers
chris
Quote from: stephendare on May 21, 2014, 10:01:08 AM
Thats ok, its supposed to be like that though. Marketplace of ideas and what have you.
People learned from the first festival and they stepped up their game for the second festival, which made the second event a lot more fun.
Very good way to think about it.
The greatest people in history failed a few times before making their mark.
AARs or After Action Reviews can make some of these people/groups even stronger next year or understand the need for a solid buisness plan or reajust their presentations when they go out to raise funds and awareness at future One Sparks or other financing avenues.
Over all One Spark was a positive.
Though, One Spark itself can learn and adapt and grow. They should understand that there is a misconception out there as to what One Spark is and what can people expect out of One Spark especially has they take their Spark on the road/planes to Germany.
Even before last year's festival, it was easy to see that if you were relying on the voting to allow you to 'fully fund' your project... then you needed to rethink your approach. Simple math would allow you to surmise a pretty realistic distribution of the prize money... and that math (something very useful if you are trying to start a business) would have painted a very clear picture that the 'prize money' would not be substantial.
The smart people use the event to get a) direct market feedback about their idea b) tremendous visibility (which would have relied on a very focused marketing plan to get noticed among all of the 'noise'- seriously, how many people just had a hand out passing business cards saying vote for xxx... that's not a meaningful interaction) c) had a plan that encouraged/incentivized people to give direct donations and d) did research ahead of time to find out what kind of money-people would be attending and had a specific plan to get in front of them and speak to them directly.
The idea is just the first step. Everyone has ideas. The hard part is implementing the idea. One Spark represents a tremendous opportunity to make that idea happen... but it's up to the individual to make the kinds of connection presented at OneSpark to aid in the process.
Having been involved on many sides of the convention business, there are winners and losers... the winners usually don't stand around yelling among all the noise and just hoping they somehow find meaningful business leads.
That said, I would be in favor of things like a bigger prize pool, curated pitch sessions with specific kinds of investors (which is preceded by a very lenghty pre-festival screening process), limiting the amounts of votes per per person/per category and maybe a 50/50 emphasis at the voting booths on the actual direct contribution aspect of the event versus simply voting for projects.
Quote43% of kickstarter projects reach 100% of their funding goals.
To keep that in context, do you have the same data on Kickstarter in it's earlier years (considering One Spark was essentially 'one year old' at the time of the second festival)
BTW, one of the many highlights of the event was your discussion with the Rogers Towers attorney during First Coast Connect. There was an interesting and clear dilleneation as to what the entrepreneur felt they needed, and what the attorney that represents entrepreneur thought they needed.
Quote from: fieldafm on May 21, 2014, 11:01:50 AM
Quote43% of kickstarter projects reach 100% of their funding goals.
To keep that in context, do you have the same data on Kickstarter in it's earlier years (considering One Spark was essentially 'one year old' at the time of the second festival)
BTW, one of the many highlights of the event was your discussion with the Rogers Towers attorney during First Coast Connect. There was an interesting and clear dilleneation as to what the entrepreneur felt they needed, and what the attorney that represents entrepreneur thought they needed.
Thanks link to that interview is here http://news.wjct.org/post/coaching-startups-any-incs-entrepreneur-boot-camp
I ran into Steve Kelly, last week at the KYN DEV+DES event. He is a very nice and smart guy.
Kickstarter data is available here https://www.kickstarter.com/help/stats
if we look at money received 79% received of one spark projects received less than 500 dollars. Thus after expenses most projects lost money.
You would think there would be some huge winners, as other commenters state its a marketplace. But there werent many winners and even the winners just didnt get that much money. A pool of 360k isnt anywhere near big enough to service the needs of 600 project.
If we remove the crowdfund, what is One Spark? Just like 100 other arts and entrepreneur festivals? If so, thats fine, its awesome to attend, but I ask that we be honest about its impact on creators
Please know i do appreciate the discussion.
Welcome to the forums, Chris. You make some good points that could certainly be used to improve the event for the future. I'm sure you understand why your comments may come off as sour grapes to a lot of people who had positive experiences with the event.
You make some interesting points about full funding of projects. But I don't know that's ever going to be a realistic aim for One Spark, at least as far as the $360k crowdfunded amount is concerned (which seems to be what your research focused on). Creators set their own goals and they know going in that the total crowdfunded amount is capped. I expect that any number of them set their goals knowing that anything they got out of that amount was only going to be part of what they needed (I expect the aquarium project, for instance, understood that their multi-million dollar aquarium wouldn't be fully funded even if they got the entire fund). And still others were likely doing it for reasons beyond getting the crowdfunded amount, for instance receiving personal contributions, or just exposure in front of thousands of people.
I don't know that full funding for more projects should ever be a goal, unless the crowd fund increases dramatically. In fact, I'd almost rather that *fewer* projects got funding, so that more could go to the top projects.
Specifically I'll speak to the sour grapes comment. Its just silly. Any thoughts about me or my intentions are irrelevant. I believe focus should always be on data and logic. I don't have a monopoly on proving impact. Thus I welcome anyone to measure impact of one spark by employing data and logic and reveal methodology and data.
Im passionate about impact evaluation. A lot of my work is in very poor countries, where well intentioned people try to 'help'. These same people get angry and upset when their help has no impact. My kenyan friend created a tv show about this - http://aidforaid.org/. In an emerging economy impact can save lives. Obvious the stakes are much lower at One Spark.
When I start any impact evaluation, here or in Africa, I begin by assuming an organization has no impact and work to prove impact through logic and data.
One Spark is founded to help entrepreneurs. One Spark has released almost no data to support its impact on creators.
Thus I am curious if One Spark is like the well intended but misguided visitors to Africa, or the event does help entrepreneurs.
At the end of the day, the interview I linked to above on melissa ross shows that I am incredibly passionate about helping entrepreneurs and this is why I compiled these numbers.
Hats off to chrismarkl for responding so completely to posts in this forum. He certainly didn't have to and, considering the number of ad hominem attacks, albeit fairly mild attacks, he could have just written this all off.
The public image constructed for OneSpark was that good ideas would receive encouragement and funding. I can't count how many promotional messages, images and news stories that focused on all the money that would be flowing through the event. So Markl's analysis is entirely appropriate.
I note that despite the avalanche of opinions on the analysis found here, via news outlets and at the OneSpark site, no one has provided any substantive criticism of the data and the analysis of that data. If the components of the analysis are sound then why not just incorporate the findings into the planning for the next OneSpark instead of all this name-calling and gnashing of teeth?
My personal feeling is that Chris Markl crossed a line when casting a critical eye on an event favored by the opinion-makers and movers/shakers of Jacksonville who are not used to empirical analyses of their pet projects.
It would be very interesting to see what could happen if One Spark could partner up with some of the established crowd funding websites like Kickstarter. The festival could direct attendees to a kickstarter account to help drive up funds raised after the event and Kickstarter could be a source of ideas and entrants. Win-win.
Red herring? I don't think so. If the festival's organizers ignore the low ROI for most "creators," they'll be facing reduced participation in future years. The "world's largest crowd-funding festival" could become merely another excuse for people to walk around downtown with a beer in their hands. It's important to be candid about the numbers and work to avoid such a situation.
There are a lot of you all that have phenomenal points. Field is absolutely right that people need to understand the festival is only a year old. Now that being said business is about improvement and I think that the fact a lot of the numbers were higher in most categories and a lot of the local businesses benefited from the event shows that it is all around an improving event. I didn't agree with everyone's ideas but there were some that weren't that bad. I also agree that there needs to be investors involved the future but as I have learned over he past few months here. you never know who was roaming around looking for opportunity :) I'm looking forward to next year for sure
Quote from: rbirds on May 25, 2014, 01:56:30 PM
Hats off to chrismarkl for responding so completely to posts in this forum. He certainly didn't have to and, considering the number of ad hominem attacks, albeit fairly mild attacks, he could have just written this all off.
The public image constructed for OneSpark was that good ideas would receive encouragement and funding. I can't count how many promotional messages, images and news stories that focused on all the money that would be flowing through the event. So Markl's analysis is entirely appropriate.
I note that despite the avalanche of opinions on the analysis found here, via news outlets and at the OneSpark site, no one has provided any substantive criticism of the data and the analysis of that data. If the components of the analysis are sound then why not just incorporate the findings into the planning for the next OneSpark instead of all this name-calling and gnashing of teeth?
My personal feeling is that Chris Markl crossed a line when casting a critical eye on an event favored by the opinion-makers and movers/shakers of Jacksonville who are not used to empirical analyses of their pet projects.
Thanks for the kind words! At the end of day no hurt feelings on my end. I welcome debate always. I do dislike anyone mentioning me, mainly because I always like to debate numbers and logic. In my mind nothing else matters.
But one of my friends who writes for the harvard business review, he always tries to respond to commenters. When I saw this I thought it was very smart. If someone is taking the time to comment on a study, Im sure that s/he would love to hear from the original author and create a dialogue.
I also feel that its less of 'listen to me' and more of, lets talk and exchange ideas.
Quote from: stephendare on May 25, 2014, 02:21:55 PM
this is dumb. there is no name calling or ad hominem attack going on. Those terms have very specific meanings you know, you should look them up. When people deploy this argument in the absence of name calling or ad hominem attacks, its usually because they are trying to prevent criticism of their own argument and foreclose discussion of its inherent flaws.
This tactic doesn't really work with this group of people, btw. Everyone who comes on the forums and gets sensitive about outside criticism of their ideas deploys it at some point or another.
And chris mark, what is your back ground in entrepreneurialism? Aside from the consulting? business that you have?
Quote"That's a huge gap," said Markl, a former Florida State College at Jacksonville economics professor and entrepreneur. "A massive disconnect between the money a creator says they need and the amount received."
Markl said his purpose in releasing his "One Spark Impact" study this week is not to smear the reputation of the event.
Markl, himself a 2014 participant, wants to point out what he sees as a disparity between One Spark's claim as "the world's crowdfunding festival" and its tangible results.
I find it weird that you think that the goal of the festival is to provide 100% funding for every participant.
No one has ever made this claim except for yourself.
And considering that your business pitch was based on an idea to connect entrepreneurs to funding as detailed in this jbj article:
http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/print-edition/2014/01/31/weekend-warriors-showcase.html?page=all
QuoteReStartUp, a kind of Match.com for entrepreneurs, earned third place. The online platform would connect those who have worked on a startup and now want to transfer ownership of that idea to someone else willing to take it to the next level.
Chris Markl, creator of ReStartup, said what makes the competition so dynamic is the diversity of creative folks it draws. "It brought out this really great cross-section of people, from students to guys in their 40s."
considering that your startup would almost perfectly match up with your criticism of goals that the One Spark Festival doesn't claim to have, doesn't it occur to you that this 'analysis' might seem a little self serving to anyone else?
First off, I know another commenter was saying you were attacking me. No hard feelings. I get it, you don't know me, and its easy to interpret my actions as attacks on one spark. But i do love one spark.
My background, easiest is to check out my linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrismarkl
I've always worked in improving the world. I ran a business in Kenya, built 2 cross country charity bicycle rides, worked as a consultant in africa, and as a professor at community colleges. I was an associate professor at fscj until late 2012, still adjunct online there.
Actually you are right, restartup, which is now Any Inc. is very similar to One Spark. Platforms to help entrepreneurs.
In my own experiences as an entrepreneurs I've realized there are many platforms that attempt to help entrepreneurs but arent good at measuring impact. Thus we are unsure if these programs actually help entrepreneurs.
In africa, william eastery http://williameasterly.org/ is so critical of aid groups in emerging markets, because many of these groups think they are saving lives when infact there is little impact.
In a nonprofit the focus must always be on impact on beneficiaries, in this case entrepreneurs.
Im passionate about helping entrepreneurs, thus I want to figure out, if one spark has an impact, and how it can improve. One Spark has released no analysis on its impact on creators.
I've never said think One spark should provide 100% funding to every or any project. I just think crowdfunding is defined as, an entrepreneur develops a goal, and raises a critical mass of money from a crowd, to reach this goal. I just evaluated one spark, which brands its self as a crowdfunding festival, as a crowdfunding tool.
Quote from: stephendare on May 26, 2014, 02:17:29 PM
that said, its regrettable that they won't be sitting down with markl to see if he has any ideas for improving vc participation.
In the JBJ article, Michael munz stated he wanted to sit down. So i wrote him, elton, and joe sampson the email at the bottom. I would love to talk with them, no pressure to sell them anything.
If you review their team and corresponding linkedin profiles there is no one with monitoring and evaluation experience. The truth is assessing impact is really hard. If i was leading creator impact, would be having real meaningful discussions with each creator, and asking for brutal feedback, but one spark isnt doing this...
Michael - Saw you mentioned in the JBJ article. JBJ failed to provide a link to the study, it can be found here http://onesparkimpact.org/ (methodology is explained at the bottom).
As One Spark expands, monitoring and evaluation is crucial. Unfortunately impact assessment is also quite difficult. One Spark's current creator/voter questionnaires are not sophisticated enough to reveal impact.
If you need assistance in quantifying impact and making One Spark bulletproof, I'm available to talk.
Link to the original JBJ article can be found here:
http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/news/2014/05/19/not-a-lot-of-crowdfunding-dollars-at-worlds.html
Quote from: Fallen Buckeye on May 25, 2014, 02:43:08 PM
It would be very interesting to see what could happen if One Spark could partner up with some of the established crowd funding websites like Kickstarter. The festival could direct attendees to a kickstarter account to help drive up funds raised after the event and Kickstarter could be a source of ideas and entrants. Win-win.
I think this is what they will do next, though it seems they are partnering with rockethub. Great idea
Quote from: johnny_simpatico on May 25, 2014, 02:55:06 PM
Red herring? I don't think so. If the festival's organizers ignore the low ROI for most "creators," they'll be facing reduced participation in future years. The "world's largest crowd-funding festival" could become merely another excuse for people to walk around downtown with a beer in their hands. It's important to be candid about the numbers and work to avoid such a situation.
I totally agree. I do think there is a large supply of first time entrepreneurs. For artists the festival has to be perfect.
I do think if one spark isnt offering a return for entrepreneurs that the quality of entrepreneurs who participate will diminish. The opportunity cost in time money and energy is quite high compared to other entrepreneurial activities
Quote from: stephendare on May 26, 2014, 02:39:50 PM
Thank you Chris. for the direct response.
looking forward to your explanation of applying the illusory 100% capitalization goal as way to measure One Spark's metrics.
Sorry im super slow at typing and thinking through these compared to you!
I dont think there is any expectation that most or all creators should reach their goals. But i think once we remove the financial goals and just look at money each creator received, that the typical return is quite low.
Quote from: stephendare on May 25, 2014, 03:09:56 PM
Quote from: johnny_simpatico on May 25, 2014, 02:55:06 PM
Red herring? I don't think so. If the festival's organizers ignore the low ROI for most "creators," they'll be facing reduced participation in future years. The "world's largest crowd-funding festival" could become merely another excuse for people to walk around downtown with a beer in their hands. It's important to be candid about the numbers and work to avoid such a situation.
shouldn't they also be doing something about poverty abatement as well? World Hunger?
James Markl's business prototype is connecting entrepreneurs to 100% funding.
The One Spark Festival gives prizes based on crowd approval and specific cash prizes by judging panels. Its a sound model, and its how a 'competition' is supposed to work.
Markl is perhaps a little over enthusiastic about his own idea at best. But its ludicrous to project his goals on any other project except his own.
Although Im sure that he has a plan for making it 'better' according to his business model, and probably wouldn't be a bad addition to a consulting team. (And I mean that sincerely. Anything that brings more money and support to a project is usually a good idea) I just wonder about how easily attainable that goal is at this point however----- most people don't actually like this type of a business pitch.
That said, his ideas seem to be worth some merit.
i would like to include that every startup conference in the world has investors and pitch competitions. In my experience its much easier to connect with an investor at a pure startup conference than one spark. Since one spark ive been to two startup conferences, and i could meet with investors much easier. I thought what made one spark unique is the crowdfunding component.
With that said hats off to one spark with every investment they secure. I think its definitely cool.
Quote from: stephendare on May 26, 2014, 03:06:38 PM
Quote from: chrismarkl on May 26, 2014, 03:00:06 PM
Quote from: stephendare on May 26, 2014, 02:39:50 PM
Thank you Chris. for the direct response.
looking forward to your explanation of applying the illusory 100% capitalization goal as way to measure One Spark's metrics.
Sorry im super slow at typing and thinking through these compared to you!
I dont think there is any expectation that most or all creators should reach their goals. But i think once we remove the financial goals and just look at money each creator received, that the typical return is quite low.
And why would that matter enough to merit publication? And Im not trying to be challenging here, Im just trying to understand your thinking.
Surely the festival would also score very low on solving solar energy scalability implementations, despite the number of solar projects entered.
Should the One Spark festival be held accountable for this score as well?
Ok I'm sorry if I'm not being clear.
1) One Spark brands itself as "The World's Crowdfunding Festival"
2) Thus I measure One Spark as a crowdfunding tool
3) In crowdfunding, kickstarter, indiegogo, etc - a creator states a financial goal then raises money from a crowd to reach this goal
4) thus measuring money raised towards these goals is reasonable
5) of 608 One Spark projects only 2 projects reached their goals. Most projects failed to reach 1%
Compare this to kickstarter where 43% reach 100%.
This just shows there is a problem somewhere, if One Spark wants to continue to be "The World's Crowdfunding Festival"
Quote from: stephendare on May 26, 2014, 03:16:49 PM
Quote from: chrismarkl on May 26, 2014, 03:12:15 PM
Quote from: stephendare on May 26, 2014, 03:06:38 PM
Quote from: chrismarkl on May 26, 2014, 03:00:06 PM
Quote from: stephendare on May 26, 2014, 02:39:50 PM
Thank you Chris. for the direct response.
looking forward to your explanation of applying the illusory 100% capitalization goal as way to measure One Spark's metrics.
Sorry im super slow at typing and thinking through these compared to you!
I dont think there is any expectation that most or all creators should reach their goals. But i think once we remove the financial goals and just look at money each creator received, that the typical return is quite low.
And why would that matter enough to merit publication? And Im not trying to be challenging here, Im just trying to understand your thinking.
Surely the festival would also score very low on solving solar energy scalability implementations, despite the number of solar projects entered.
Should the One Spark festival be held accountable for this score as well?
Ok I'm sorry if I'm not being clear.
1) One Spark brands itself as "The World's Crowdfunding Festival"
2) Thus I measure One Spark as a crowdfunding tool
3) In crowdfunding, kickstarter, indiegogo, etc - a creator states a financial goal then raises money from a crowd to reach this goal
4) thus measuring money raised towards these goals is reasonable
5) of 608 One Spark projects only 2 projects reached their goals. Most projects failed to reach 1%
Compare this to kickstarter where 43% reach 100%.
This just shows there is a problem somewhere, if One Spark wants to continue to be "The World's Crowdfunding Festival"
Isn't that a bit of cherry picking of their marketing and slogan? There is, after all, a detailed amount of material about the goals of the festival out there, only one example of which is the tagline.
I never exclude any of the impact that munz and elton discuss. I just conducted an analysis on crowdfunding. I estimate it would take me about 500-1500 man hours, to fully evaluate one spark's impact. Impact is so hard to figure out.
Though i will say, whatever one's tagline should be, that is what will get the most scrutiny in the nonprofit world. If someone runs a soup kitchen im going to measure healthiness of the soup and number of bowls served.
But I was surprised by their reaction because i think there are connections there are business refinements etc that happen at one spark. But I believe its one spark's responsibility to measure these outcomes before/during/after the festival and convince us these are occuring. Until they begin tracking this data we cant say anything about these metrics...
I also believe these guys are smart enough to know that Times, Forbes etc wouldn't be as interested if the word crowdfunding wasn't employed.
Quote from: stephendare on May 26, 2014, 03:21:17 PM
Quote from: chrismarkl on May 26, 2014, 03:12:15 PM
Quote from: stephendare on May 26, 2014, 03:06:38 PM
Quote from: chrismarkl on May 26, 2014, 03:00:06 PM
Quote from: stephendare on May 26, 2014, 02:39:50 PM
Thank you Chris. for the direct response.
looking forward to your explanation of applying the illusory 100% capitalization goal as way to measure One Spark's metrics.
Sorry im super slow at typing and thinking through these compared to you!
I dont think there is any expectation that most or all creators should reach their goals. But i think once we remove the financial goals and just look at money each creator received, that the typical return is quite low.
And why would that matter enough to merit publication? And Im not trying to be challenging here, Im just trying to understand your thinking.
Surely the festival would also score very low on solving solar energy scalability implementations, despite the number of solar projects entered.
Should the One Spark festival be held accountable for this score as well?
Ok I'm sorry if I'm not being clear.
1) One Spark brands itself as "The World's Crowdfunding Festival"
2) Thus I measure One Spark as a crowdfunding tool
3) In crowdfunding, kickstarter, indiegogo, etc - a creator states a financial goal then raises money from a crowd to reach this goal
4) thus measuring money raised towards these goals is reasonable
5) of 608 One Spark projects only 2 projects reached their goals. Most projects failed to reach 1%
Compare this to kickstarter where 43% reach 100%.
This just shows there is a problem somewhere, if One Spark wants to continue to be "The World's Crowdfunding Festival"
Isn't that a bit of cherry picking of their marketing and slogan? There is, after all, a detailed amount of material about the goals of the festival out there, only one example of which is the tagline.
I just think that given that you didn't have access to follow through with the private investors it seems a bit premature to publish an analysis on the impact of the second year.
I do hope that they sit down with you though. Is it possible that the media presentation made your workup a bit more confrontational than you actually intended?
Yes many media outlets constantly tried to get me to say bad things about one spark. I tried my best to be incredibly thoughtful and reserved, though Im not too skilled in media relations.
I do hope they talk with me as well. But from their comments, Im unsure if they value analytics and measurement.
Elton is obviously a brilliant entrepreneur, million times more successful than me. But I do think that people who aren't one spark supporters are going to start taking aim at them and once that ball starts rolling and trust is broken its really hard to recover from.
Quote from: stephendare on May 26, 2014, 03:27:05 PM
Quote from: chrismarkl on May 26, 2014, 03:22:29 PM
Quote from: stephendare on May 26, 2014, 03:16:49 PM
Quote from: chrismarkl on May 26, 2014, 03:12:15 PM
Quote from: stephendare on May 26, 2014, 03:06:38 PM
Quote from: chrismarkl on May 26, 2014, 03:00:06 PM
Quote from: stephendare on May 26, 2014, 02:39:50 PM
Thank you Chris. for the direct response.
looking forward to your explanation of applying the illusory 100% capitalization goal as way to measure One Spark's metrics.
Sorry im super slow at typing and thinking through these compared to you!
I dont think there is any expectation that most or all creators should reach their goals. But i think once we remove the financial goals and just look at money each creator received, that the typical return is quite low.
And why would that matter enough to merit publication? And Im not trying to be challenging here, Im just trying to understand your thinking.
Surely the festival would also score very low on solving solar energy scalability implementations, despite the number of solar projects entered.
Should the One Spark festival be held accountable for this score as well?
Ok I'm sorry if I'm not being clear.
1) One Spark brands itself as "The World's Crowdfunding Festival"
2) Thus I measure One Spark as a crowdfunding tool
3) In crowdfunding, kickstarter, indiegogo, etc - a creator states a financial goal then raises money from a crowd to reach this goal
4) thus measuring money raised towards these goals is reasonable
5) of 608 One Spark projects only 2 projects reached their goals. Most projects failed to reach 1%
Compare this to kickstarter where 43% reach 100%.
This just shows there is a problem somewhere, if One Spark wants to continue to be "The World's Crowdfunding Festival"
Isn't that a bit of cherry picking of their marketing and slogan? There is, after all, a detailed amount of material about the goals of the festival out there, only one example of which is the tagline.
I never exclude any of the impact that munz and elton discuss. I just conducted an analysis on crowdfunding. I estimate it would take me about 500-1500 man hours, to fully evaluate one spark's impact. Impact is so hard to figure out.
Though i will say, whatever one's tagline should be, that is what will get the most scrutiny in the nonprofit world. If someone runs a soup kitchen im going to measure healthiness of the soup and number of bowls served.
But I was surprised by their reaction because i think there are connections there are business refinements etc that happen at one spark. But I believe its one spark's responsibility to measure these outcomes before/during/after the festival and convince us these are occuring. Until they begin tracking this data we cant say anything about these metrics...
I also believe these guys are smart enough to know that Times, Forbes etc wouldn't be as interested if the word crowdfunding wasn't employed.
It seems then, that your intention and the scope of your analysis have been exaggerated somewhat by the reporting.
Yay thats the media's job make everything seem super scary.
Completely agree. I do appreciate you contributing to a discussion. Honestly I mostly write reports & conduct analysis that no one ever reads. It means a lot that people in jacksonville would contribute to a discussion and even push me to explain my points. :)
So thanks!
Cheers
Chris
Quote from: rbirds on May 25, 2014, 01:56:30 PM
I note that despite the avalanche of opinions on the analysis found here, via news outlets and at the OneSpark site, no one has provided any substantive criticism of the data and the analysis of that data. If the components of the analysis are sound then why not just incorporate the findings into the planning for the next OneSpark instead of all this name-calling and gnashing of teeth?
You know rbirds - this is actually one of the most important points. One spark itself doesn't refute my data, they could easily build the same graphs, if the conclusions were different. Instead they just deflect to other lines of unmeasured impact.
Thanks for the support =)
Quote from: chrismarkl on May 26, 2014, 02:56:48 PM
Quote from: Fallen Buckeye on May 25, 2014, 02:43:08 PM
It would be very interesting to see what could happen if One Spark could partner up with some of the established crowd funding websites like Kickstarter. The festival could direct attendees to a kickstarter account to help drive up funds raised after the event and Kickstarter could be a source of ideas and entrants. Win-win.
I think this is what they will do next, though it seems they are partnering with rockethub. Great idea
Rockethub CEO and co-founder Brian Meece lived in Jax and went to UNF. He's very familiar with the city and the connection was obvious since the early days of the festival.
Quote5) of 608 One Spark projects only 2 projects reached their goals. Most projects failed to reach 1%
The results are really the point of the article from UNF, to show the results. Maybe 608 presenters is too many? Maybe they get lost amid a sea of citizens still trying to figure out what the voting thing is all about? After all, many people just come down to eat at the food trucks and bring their dog to another downtown event, and exclaim "Oh, there is a giant goldfish in a pool of water, hmmm", as they eat their Salmon Burger from a food truck.
O-S has potential, but it needs more staying power than just a week in April. It should be discussed and branded and processed locally to show the local impact, so that someone going to a store in their neighborhood can see the impact of a O-S vendor or a O-S meeting in their neighborhood. Because now that O-S is over, its up to the people who really love the O-S event to market and showcase that O-S is not just a week in April, its an everyday thing that benefits real neighbors in our community.
O-S needs to get that message out in the community, and do so with more than just community service events of picking up trash at the beach.
If anyone's interested, i talked the study on first coast connect.
http://news.wjct.org/post/author-critical-one-spark-crowdfunding-analysis-speaks-out
thanks again for the discussion.
cheers
chris
Okay so I put together all of the information and did the best analysis I could with the information available. So here you go.
- There were a total of 609 creators registered.
- Of the 609 creators there is only data reported on 402 ( I am assuming they either 1. Did not participate the day of... or 2. Received no votes or contributions in order to have the system calculate them.)
- The total goal amount asked by all 609 creators was $1,098,732,006
- The total votes collected were 102,747
- The crowd fund generated $199,912.97
- The contributions received for all creators was $50,084.43
% funded based on all data available
more than 50% - 8 which is 1.9% of the field
25-50% - 7 which is 1.7% of the field
1-25% - 219 which is 55% of the field
<1% - 165 which is 41% of the field
Of the total creators who signed up (all 609) the following totals apply for goal amounts.
#of creators asking for over $1,000,000,000 = 1 = 0.2% of the field
#of creators asking for $5,000,000 - $999,999,999 = 6 = 1 % of the field
#of creators asking for $1,000,000 - 4,999,999 = 6 = 1% of the field
#of creators asking for $750,000 - $999,999 = 3 = 0.5% of the field
#of creators asking for $500,000 - $749,999 = 7 = 1.1% of the field
#of creators asking for $250,000 - $499,999 = 45 = 7.4% of the field
#of creators asking for $100,000 - $249,999 = 57 = 9.4% of the field
#of creators asking for $75,000 - $99,999 = 21 = 3.4% of the field
#of creators asking for $50,000 - $74,999 = 43 = 7.1% of the field
#of creators asking for $25,000 - $49,999 = 98 = 16.1% of the field
#of creators asking for $24,999 or less = 322 = 52.9% of the field
Based on that information the majority of the field... Meaning 76.1% or well of 3/4 of the creators registered felt that under $75,000 was an acceptable amount to seek through One Spark.
The project that received the lowest funding was $0.67
Now I do agree that One spark has its issues, but I do believe the majority of the creators need to not enter One Spark using numbers that they think it will take to start their project and use it as a step. For instance, AquaJax went in asking for enough money to put together presentations to pitch to investors. They also were a part of the 52% who asked for 25k or less. I think one spark should be used to take the initial step towards making something greater happen. That is just a personal opinion. There was a creator asking for $1,000,000,000 dollars... seriously... that in itself skewed the numbers off the get go and spiked the average asking amount into the millions. When I capped it at a million the data showed the average was about 84k. I further capped it at 500k and that in turn brought the average to 72k, and then at 250k the average was 61k, then at 100k it was 40k and so forth until i reached what the majority was seeking. It substantially changed the numbers. to say the least.
Now before one takes a bit of information and goes public with it they should take into consideration whether or not they are using numbers where 10 people were asking between 2.5 million and 1 billion dollars a piece.
I think one spark has a lot of potential, but the bottom line is if you are seeking funding do you wait for a bank or investor to come find you? Or do you get you ass out there and make it happen through hard selling and donation collecting. If you are out there putting in an effort people will take notice. However if you sit there and twiddle your thumbs and rely on a award fund, no one would have voted for you anyway. Business is dominated by those who are ambitious, not those who sit back and wait for a handout. So anyone who signed up as a creator that thought it was gonna be a handout should re-evaluate the approach they are taking.
Now on another note. Of all the creators the average that was raised as direct contributions was $273 so if you had a 0 or really low number in that particular column then next time push harder and the donations will come! I haven't seen last years data to make a proper comparison, but seeing how a good majority of the creators were returns I believe the numbers would be fairly similar in regards to the goal category.
I have created a folder containing all the data so before anyone tries and tear it apart just take a look at and do the math yourself. It is as clear as day when you read through descriptions, plans and the data itself. As I have already read here numbers mean the most.
-- Link to my Data File -- http://jmp.sh/5OfkGKi
Thanks for the analysis. As a Statistician I like the data of eliminating outlier data and re-specifying the percentages.
One Spark is so cool that it would stand on its own just as a social gathering or a downtown core promotional tool. It's good that it has promoted a healthy discussion. I believe it has become one of the top annual events in the city after only two years; it has one helluva future.
Quote from: IrvAdams on June 07, 2014, 06:22:22 PM
Thanks for the analysis. As a Statistician I like the data of eliminating outlier data and re-specifying the percentages.
One Spark is so cool that it would stand on its own just as a social gathering or a downtown core promotional tool. It's good that it has promoted a healthy discussion. I believe it has become one of the top annual events in the city after only two years; it has one helluva future.
Thanks irv I appreciate that. Its a practice I like to keep in order to keep things on a more realistic level.