Is your project a Purple Cow?

Once you come up with some specific goals and outcomes, start thinking about all the creative things you can do with your project. You want to make the idea of what you are doing as interesting as possible. Remarkable ideas have a much easier time getting funded. Spend some time to think about how you can make your project as wacky, zany and fun as possible.

There are so many people that want to make films, albums, books, games, etc. that you need to do something to make your idea stand out. But what makes an idea remarkable? It depends on the people who are going to like your project. If they think it’s cool, then they will talk about it. I will talk more about audience in the next section. For now, just think about all the different ways you could spice up your project.

I won’t pretend to be a master at creating remarkable ideas. I’m still learning myself. If you really need help making your idea cool, check out Seth Godin’s book Purple Cow. It’s all about how to make your product, idea or business remarkable. I’ve read it several times and each time I learn something new.

A great example of a “purple cow” was a project to build a statue of Robocop in downtown Detroit. The idea was so remarkable that it got featured on high profile blogs and was overfunded by $17,000. The project was very successful even though the project video was nothing more than a ten-minute recap of the movie. Remarkable ideas spread on their own and don’t need a lot of help to catch people’s attention.

Detroit Needs A Statue of Robocop! by Imagination Station Detroit — Kickstarter

Making an idea creative and interesting is very hard and you may not get it right the first time. I know I didn’t. Just keep working at it and getting feedback from friends. When people start to say “Hey that’s a neat idea!” then you might be on to something.

A Kickstart’s Guide to Kickstarter TOC:

pssst…you can read all of this offline by downloading the e-book.