Hey folks! I'd love to answer any questions folks might have about running the Kickstarter or Font Awesome in general!
-Dave Gandy
-Dave Gandy
People who previously have made icons for free will now want some of the money, and you only have enough for about 10 people for a year.
I've seen too many companies get money and suddenly, instead of being extremely frugal like they used to, because they had to be, start spending money because they can afford it.
And then the company dies.
This happens to lottery winners too.
Do you have plan to avoid it? You should plan to make the $1 million last at least 10 years without earning any additional money except interest.
We're 4 senior designers and developers that have been around. We can design beautiful, usable software and deliver it ontime. Honestly, I wake up every morning excited to go to work with such excellent and admirable folks. I could not imagine a better job. Honestly.
As far as the icons, no one else contributed. Just me. We tried external submissions before, but they were more work to manage than making them myself. And I think we've kept a somewhat consistent aesthetic. Starting over lets us tighten all of that up, too.
> Simplest answer is we're going to use the money to build a product that people want.
Obviously. But will spend money on extras? A nice sign for the office? A better office? Nice chairs? Phones for the conference room? These are the kind of not-very-expensive extras companies spend on when they get money. But it adds up, and without an ongoing revenue source it's not worth it.
If you can budget no more than $100K per year, you'll keep your company alive for a long time.
If it sounds that way, then it's just because I don't know any other way to write it.
We are and will continue to be so. Two of us are sharing a 100 square foot office that we're subletting from a bigger startup. The other two of us work from home. We have no interest in flashy office space or things that won't help us get more done. With age sometimes comes maturity, and I think we're pretty pragmatic.
> If you can budget no more than $100K per year, you'll keep your company alive for a long time.
It's four of us, all very, very senior with family responsibilities. $100k isn't in the cards. But I don't think it needs to be. There's a chance that folks will buy Font Awesome Pro after the Kickstarter is over, so we're going to try that.
Also, this team is absurdly talented. We're told repeatedly that we're the only team at our stage that reliably delivers what we've planned. I'd put us up against any team of 4 on the planet to design beautiful, usable web software and deliver it on time. These folks are amazing.
Seriously appreciate your thoughts. :)
If you are willing to accept a bit more advice: Don't rely on that.
Anyone who would buy that already did, via the kickstarter. Anyone who didn't and wants to, probably won't because they'll feel like their getting a bad deal (obviously some people will buy, but it won't be a lot of people).
So don't rely on that, add something new.
> Seriously appreciate your thoughts. :)
Thanks. I hope you don't feel like I was insulting you, because that was not my intent (although it seems some people thought it was).
I'll be kicking in $20 after I finish browsing HN, and I could see using Pro in developing for clients then having them get their own license (or doing so as part of the project cost). In fact, that kind of seems to be how it's intended to work.
We aren't entirely. But we've had 15 million folks on Font Awesome in the past year. Not all of them have seen the Kickstarter, so we're hoping some of them will buy. Other plans too. Definitely not relying solely on this, but we're going to take Font Awesome Pro everywhere we can.
I remember reading somewhere that 8% of what the Kickstarter made per month is somewhat normal. Time will tell though. But it's a good lead for us to try and see what happens.
> So don't rely on that, add something new.
Agreed.
> Thanks. I hope you don't feel like I was insulting you, because that was not my intent (although it seems some people thought it was).
I'll be honest, it came off a bit gruff. But I've learned that often goes along with folks that know what they're talking about. (And the 20k karma here helps you out too.)
Again, thanks. I take the livelihoods of 4 families seriously. We'll do what we can to keep making things better.
When I first saw it I thought that commercial itself must've cost around the ballpark of the amount you were trying to raise (30k) and can't possibly be worth it. But turns out it was a brilliant move!
Also, how many nights of shooting in the bakery were required?
It also talks about the company that produced it.
Edit: fixed URL
edit: apparently they paid 15k in hopes of raising 30k, which is still a lot.
Sandwich Video (a much bigger name in this space) starts at $250k for a video. And if you have the budget, they're worth it. Knox Avenue is ridiculously awesome and we were excited to be able to still afford them!
Please consider open sourcing the SVG framework, even if you don't fully make the million.
SVG icons clearly are the future, imo.
See this article for a comparison: https://css-tricks.com/icon-fonts-vs-svg/
Would you consider open-sourcing the JavaScript component apps if the $1 mil stretch goal isn't reached? Even as a pro backer, I want as many eyes (and contributions!) on said components as possible.
Font Awesome 5 will have a Free and Pro version. The Free version will be completely open source and you can use it however you like. The Pro version will have 2500-ish more icons and an SVG framework. Pro is the only one to worry about for distribution. :)
That said, we're letting open source projects use Font Awesome Pro CDN for free so this is hopefully mitigated. We want folks to use Font Awesome Pro, just don't want it distributed. :)
And the CDN at least helps mitigate any deployment issues with not being able to keep the images in the repo.
I backed Font Awesome Pro but I was afraid I'd only ever be able to use the Free version since all my projects are open-source.
My only concern left is for offline apps (like NW.js apps). I can make do with Font Awesome Free's icon set, but it'd be nice to have those SVG icons...
I currently do this(tf2manu994/manmeetgill.com on github, gitlab and bitbucket), and I am a backer for pro. Does this mean I can not use the pro icons on my site without forcing a user to download the entire iconfont?
[Yes I know, the markup on my site is crap, currently in the process of reworking without mdl]
It's a good area for us to think about and be more specific about. I'll talk to the team and see what we can do.