Analysis: Not enough crowdfunding dollars at 'world's crowdfunding festival'

[Fallen Buckeye]

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.

[johnny_simpatico]

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.

[AuditoreEnterprise]

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

[chrismarkl]

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. 

[chrismarkl]

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?

“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

ReStartUp, 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. 

 

[chrismarkl]

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

[chrismarkl]

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

[chrismarkl]

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

[chrismarkl]

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.

[chrismarkl]

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.

[chrismarkl]

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"

[chrismarkl]

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. 

[chrismarkl]

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.

[chrismarkl]

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. 

[chrismarkl]

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