How I Crowdfunded My Online Course During Quarantine
It took a lot of experimentation, elbow grease, and community support
I recently ran a campaign on Kickstarter to create an affordable online video course on typeface design. It received an overwhelming amount of support and funding from the community, so I wanted to write about what I learned to express my gratitude. I’ve included practical tips, insight, and financial details that might be helpful for anyone interested in doing something similar.
Promo video for the Kickstarter campaign, launched May 2020
What I set out to do with my new online series:
- Create the internet’s most comprehensive type design course, ever
- Keep it at an affordable price for everyone
- Make type design an approachable subject
I’m happy to report that by the end of the project I had:
- Created an ongoing scholarship for BIPoC students (with over 300 spots given out at the time of writing)
- Improved accessibility by adding English and Spanish subtitles (with Portuguese coming soon)
- Made a total of seven chapters with 51 lectures — all in all, about eight and a half hours of videos
The course now has a total of seven chapters with 51 lectures!
My primary goal for the course was to be an affordable course for everyone
I wanted to keep the budget as low as possible while providing quality lectures and paying myself a sustainable wage during that process. I had to become my own project manager, customer service agent, finance team, IT manager, producer, designer, and lecturer for the project. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, I also couldn’t go anywhere, so I had to do everything in my one-bedroom apartment. The place became super chaotic — half my dining table was the de facto recording/production studio, and I’d put up green screen cloth on the wall when it was time to record lectures. It really wasn’t…
