Still spinning from this idea in 's "Making in Public": that when the economics of consumption don't work—e.g. because the product is a public good—a more viable model may exist around the economics of *production*. That is: when might production *be* the product?
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This is a compelling angle for many (especially older) Kickstarter projects: when what you're buying as a backer is not the eventual product, but rather causing the product to be made at all. You're buying its production. The eventual product is like a positive externality.
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Subscription content producers have a similar vibe. Buyers aren't paying to unlock some article's paywall; they're buying into creation of future work. I wonder if this is more compelling if purchases plausibly cause marginal output: "I'll write fulltime when I get X subscribers"
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Nadia observes that sometimes the production "product" being bought is access—feeling closer to the creator, a private community, sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes, etc. My instinct is that this offering can only scale so far, but I'd be curious to learn about counter-examples!
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This has been a compelling angle to think about funding my work. In this frame, my output artifacts are public goods (essays, interfaces)—positive externalities from an ongoing process which is itself the product. My "customers" buy a verb, not a noun.
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Of course, I don't know what it means to make my production process a product. Patreon still has a "charity" vibe that doesn't seem right. I'm increasingly thinking of it more as "crowdfunding an NSF CAREER grant," which captures the causative angle. Still feels like not enough.
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Very thought-provoking. Have similar feeling about Patreon - been considering adding a paid bit to the Substack, which at least feels like ppl would pay for my work rather than charity - but not til I can completely commit to it!
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Why not incorporate a nonprofit? Research around innovation and production is a public good. Presumably some donors would find that valuable, + there's the possibility of scaling the research
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Yes, this may be the best approach long-term. Scaling a crowdfunded-grant approach seems unlikely to be viable. But I'm interested in pushing the model b/c 1. I've found traditional grantseeking to be fairly corrosive; and 2. having 100's of small donors creates stability.
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80 20 rule applies to most non profits, 80% of funding from 20% of donors. It's possible to build relationships with donors for general funds so you can avoid grants, but it takes time
It helps if you have a coherent narrative of research
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Interesting! I've been surprised to notice that I have three funding tiers ($5, $20, $100/mo), and revenues are roughly evenly distributed among them.
has pursued bigger donors so we can scale. Our goals require it. We're structured like a typical think tank for that reason.
If you want to institutionalize your research, hire additional people, etc, I'm happy to advise about what's worked for us
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Thank you! I may take you up on that as the work becomes more coherent! 🙌🙇♂️
Aside: are there any great books on the history of / structures of think tanks as institutions?
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