You know how, in certain subjects, it’s really cool to have a teacher who’s also a practitioner? Well, even though I started Youth CITIES 4 years ago after having run the same company I founded over a decade ago, I am back in the trenches. Practicing what I often talk about in the Youth CITIES classes, I’ve combined my experience/background in the videogame industry with my personal interest in raising my young kids to be bilingual.
Being a practitioner puts me back in the hot seat, just like all of you who’ve been through the Youth CITIES March-to-May bootcamp. I may have found a valid pain point and what my value proposition is, but I’ve been re-working and refining my elevator pitch over and over again. (It is always much easier to tell someone else how they can improve their elevator pitch than it is to create a good one of your own…LOL). As Youth CITIES expands, I had considered helping Youth CITIES alum get funding by leveraging Kickstarter. What better way to help the students with a Kickstarter project than going through one first? Let me tell you….it is a nerve-wracking process.
I don’t believe that the success or failure of raising funds on Kickstarter (or other crowdfunding platform) defines whether your project is good or not…but it definitely gives you a lot of food for thought. I’m learning a lot about the Kickstarter process, and still trying to figure out if it’s the right way to go for us. I’m making notes and hypothesizing along the way, and figured…hey, why don’t I share this experience with others. Things we think we’ve done right, things we think we’ve done wrong…things we’re still trying to figure out.
Our Kickstarter campaign, called Peach Ice Cream Adventures, ends December 17. Over the next couple of weeks, I will try to openly share our experience. The teacher is now the student.