After nearly 24 hours we are doing pretty well. 15 funders have given us $2,224 and we are nearly 23% of the way to our goal of $10,000. It's stressful and exciting. There is always more to do, but it's fun! You get to talk to your friends and family and thank them and figure out ways that you get to see them more, but to give you a little bit of a picture of the process. Here is how it went.
We launched our Rocket Hub crowd funding page yesterday. It was a little stressful, because you have to submit your page for approval. You finalize everything, press submit and then think about all of the things that you could have done differently.
Trevor and I made a kind of last minute decision on the funding page as well. He had an idea to do a 'Walk Softly and Carry a Big Stick' option where, like the International Star Registry, we will name a stick after you in a National Park. It is also a throw back to Teddy Roosevelt, who along with John Muir would be considered as one of the Fathers of the National Park idea. We also threw out the idea of a 'Fireside Chat' option, where we would speak in gracious terms about those that donated at this level. Part of me was nervous about this. 'What if people didn't sponsor a day and opted only for the Fireside Chat?' . Another part of me thought, 'this is hilarious, and amazing and an innovative way to engage others'. We went with it and posted the projected for approval.
Saturday morning at 8am Rocket Hub emailed me saying that our project was approved. It was on Facebook by noon. 23 minutes later I got an email saying that John and Honour Thornton had made a gift of $64 to both 'Sponsor a day' and 'Walk Softly and Carry a Big Stick'. This, I felt, was a good omen. Honour requested that we try and find a redwood sealed with lava, so we will do our best to honor Honour's request.
The rest of the day I was working at the brewery, but kept checking my phone for donations. Friends and family have been coming through supporting the trip at various levels. It is being shared on Facebook and we have been having good connections with folks and trying to find times that they can come and join us on the trip.
We also made the main page of Rocket Hub! We got connected with Brian Meece, the CEO of Rocket Hub. He is awesome! He is an Ukulelist and has some great videos about crowd funding. He took the time to talk to some random guys about their small crowd funding idea and give us feedback about how to make it better.
