Ariel Publicity

“The In-Crowd” is an inside look at crowdfunding, with Ariel Publicity Artist Phil Putnam and RocketHub.com co-founder Brian Meece.  Each Monday, the boys are giving us an honest look at a crowdfunding project in action and dish on how things are going each week.
What is crowdfunding?  Find out here.

What does it look like?  See here.
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THE END:  75 days in, 0 days remaining.  Not enough raised, a lot more was needed.

Phil Says:

I’m not going to beguile you with all the typical “it’s the end of the journey but the beginning of a new one, we fought a good fight” crap.  I believe that crap, and don’t think I don’t, but I’m not going to do that here.  Here, I’m just going to tell you the truth.

The truth is that the most shocking realization about this crowdfunding experience is that I couldn’t be completely, open-heartedly honest.  Quite early in the process I began to see the signs that it was not going well, and this made me feel like crap on toast.  Where I would normally go to facebook and type “It’s not going well.  This makes me feel like crap on toast,” the Banker in my brain stopped me and warned “People don’t give money to a leader who expresses less that full confidence in his project.”  And BLAM-O.  That’s the moment this project was over.  I hated what the Banker said, but I knew he was right.  I realized that I had put myself in a situation where I could not be myself, and thus I could not succeed.

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“The In-Crowd” is an inside look at crowdfunding, with Ariel Publicity Artist Phil Putnam and RocketHub.com co-founder Brian Meece.  Each Monday, the boys are giving us an honest look at a crowdfunding project in action and dish on how things are going each week.
What is crowdfunding?  Find out here.

What does it look like?  See here.
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WEEK 9-ish:  60 days in, 15 days remaining.  $3,888 raised (39% of the $10,000 goal), $6,112 needed.

Phil Says:

Having been raised in a WASP-ish household, I grew up understanding that social graces matter.  RSVP to invitations.  Never arrive at a party empty-handed (extra points if what you have in your hand is vodka).  A drunk bride is unforgivably tacky.  Don’t overstay your welcome.  Wear clean underwear, in case you get hit by a car, go to the hospital, and the medical community concludes that you’re a filthy slut.  And above all, handle every circumstance, good or bad, with style, satin wit, and grace.

You gotta recognize when people aren’t laughing at your jokes.  You gotta know when you’ve lost the room.  You just gotta be able to see when they’re not interested.  And that’s what I’ve done.  In general, people just aren’t interested in my crowdfunding project.  Besides the 60 sensational, faithful, deeply cherished friends and fans of mine who have supported the project, the rest of my community of fans/friends just don’t care.  Well, maybe they care, but the best I can see is that they’re indifferent.  Indifference speaks.  Caring acts.  Over the past 60 days, over 200,000 people have heard about this project directly from me, whether during podcast and radio interviews, videos they’ve viewed, facebook posts they’ve commented on and liked.  Over 200,000 people are aware of this project, and only 60 have taken action to support it.  That’s a 0.0003% response rate.  Three thousandths of a percent.  There’s no pretty way to paint that; it’s just not happening.  They’re just not interested, so I’m just not trying to push them to be.  Not anymore.  The party has crested, I’ve grabbed my coat, and I’m making the goodbye rounds gracefully.

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“The In-Crowd” is an inside look at crowdfunding, with Ariel Publicity Artist Phil Putnam and RocketHub.com co-founder Brian Meece.  Each Monday, the boys are giving us an honest look at a crowdfunding project in action and dish on how things are going each week.

What is crowdfunding?  Find out here.

What does it look like?  See here.
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WEEK 7:

44 days in, 31 days remaining.  $3,753 raised (38% of the $10,000 goal), $6,247 needed.

Phil Says:

Songs About You is at a point that has felt far off and surreal up until this moment: there’s one month left until the deadline.  This snuck up on me, mostly because I’ve been thinking of the timeline in thirds and I know that the middle third always feels the longest and most difficult.  Well, it was difficult, but it just flew right by and now I’m on the precipice of the last leg of the journey.  I’ll be honest, there is a sense of relief due to seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.  This experience has worn on me more than I anticipated, in ways I didn’t imagine it would.  The relief isn’t the lone sentiment in my heart, though.  I’m excited by the possibility that this could still work, that all the money could be raised.  It feels like a long shot, but it’s still in the realm of reality.

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“The In-Crowd” is an inside look at crowdfunding, with Ariel Publicity Artist Phil Putnam and RocketHub.com co-founder Brian Meece.  Each Monday, the boys are giving us an honest look at a crowdfunding project in action and dish on how things are going each week.
What is crowdfunding?  Find out here.

What does it look like?  See here.
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WEEK 6:

37 days in, 38 days remaining.  $3,443 raised (35% of the $10,000 goal), $6,557 needed.

Phil Says:

There are many things that I do, tasks that I can perform repeatedly, consistently, over and over again, simultaneously with other tasks of varying degrees of difficulty.  I can do these repetitive simultaneous tasks several times a day, or week, or month, and to them every day, week or month.  I can type, write, speak, sing, play, teach, eat, run, count, plan, book shows, compose songs, chat online, post status messages, tweet, send newsletters, host dinners, fly, drive, ride, float, sail, design, direct, consume, inspire, empower, evoke, contrast, compare, seal, close, end, debrief, reopen, communicate, and sell.  I can do all these things every day, all day, day after day, and just get better at it and more energized about it.  There are so many things that I can do, but with all these things I do, there is one thing I just can not, do not, will not do.  I do not stop.

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“The In-Crowd” is an inside look at crowdfunding, with Ariel Publicity Artist Phil Putnam and RocketHub.com co-founder Brian Meece.  Each Monday, the boys are giving us an honest look at a crowdfunding project in action and dish on how things are going each week.
What is crowdfunding?  Find out here.

What does it look like?  See here.
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WEEK 5:

29 days in, 46 days remaining.  $2,598 raised (26% of the $10,000 goal), $7,402 needed.

Phil Says:

I’m convinced that milestones and kidney stones are of the same material.  They’re as tough as hell to pass, and the immense sense of relief you feel once they’re behind you is akin to making the final payment on your student loans, or successfully avoiding the fish tacos served at a restaurant where the cleanliness of both the space and the staff are questionable.  Brian had let me know that it was crucial for “Songs About You” to hit the 25% funded milestone before the first third (25 days) of the campaign had passed.  As if timed to the minute, that 25% mark came and went in the last hour of day 25.  Though, as a person, I am prone to hyperbole, especially for comic effect, these kind of dramatics are not really my style.  I was, shall we say, on heightened nerves as Day 25 wore on, and then just as heightened in excitement and gratitude when the mark was passed.

One element of the push to 25% that stood out to me is how much better the support response was among my fans/friends when there was a quickly ticking clock.  Several hundred dollars was given in the 36 hours before the Day 25 deadline in response to the facebook posts I was making about it.  Brian and Vlad and Jed, the RocketHub boys, have been telling me that people respond strongly to urgency, and it bolstered me to see that come to life.  That urgency is going to be even more important when we get to the last third of this project’s time line, as stats show that the last third is where the majority of the support is raised, provided that you’ve built enough momentum up to that point.  With crowdfunding, the consensus is that “momentum” is having at least 50% of the goal amount raised.

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“The In-Crowd” is an inside look at crowdfunding, with Ariel Publicity Artist Phil Putnam and RocketHub.com co-founder Brian Meece.  Each Monday, the boys are giving us an honest look at a crowdfunding project in action and dish on how things are going each week.

What is crowdfunding?  Find out here.

What does it look like?  See here.
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WEEK 3:

15 days in, 60 days remaining.  $1,313 raised (14% of the $10,000 goal), $8,687 needed.  Contributions have been consistent over the past week, but in small amounts.  The Cover Song Vote continues to excite Phil’s fans/friends and generate high volumes of interaction and site traffic.  The conversion from fan/friends to “Fuelers” is happening slowly, but it is happening.

Brian Says:

It’s the end of week two and Phil is rocking steady with his crowdfunding campaign.  20 Fuelers have jumped in and the conversation online is lively and fun.  Phil has done a good job of getting consistent contributions every day, and he’s already at about $1300 – so he’s clicking at about $100 a day.  Not too shabby!  However – his goal of $10K is an ambitious one, so he will need to have more “high-impact” Fuelers to jump in over the next few weeks.

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