Building an online business without resources from Big Government Inc.

It's Coming soon!  

This is the video, created by yours truely for Andersen Studio's upcoming KickStarter Fundraiser.

KickStarter is a private sector invention for raising capital for "creative" businesses be they non-profit or private sector.

A private sector business offers "rewards" in exchange for a contribution which is paid at the time of the project for which the delivery of the rewards is scheduled at a later date.

This is an ideal solution for an under-capitalized micro economy business such as andersen studio, which has a great product with established marketability but does not have the production and order fulfillment capability to meet the instant delivery expectations of eCommerce. 

We offset our delivery six months, although we expect to start delivering on a first come first serve basis as soon as the project closes. The six month delivery is to accommodate the unknown quantity of orders, which we hope will be enough to capitalize a production and order fulfillment facility adequate to serve our market potential. If we do not meet that goal ,we  can still deliver the rewards in our current facility- it just takes longer.

Two of the rewards are collectible ephemera- 

!. Our First KIckStarter Projecct Post Card- a $10.00 reward,

2. An original page from the first catalog that our parents Weston and Brenda Andersen created in the 1950's. 

The other 21 rewards are all products created through ceramic slip casting of our original designs,- designs which have retained their marketability since the 1950's. 

The final and most expensive reward is the primary subject of our KickStarter project- our first documented Limited Edition Sculpture- The Great White Heron- being offered at $1000.00 in a limited edition of 200. We retain the right to do future limited editions of the decorated Heron, which is not possible to achieve until we rework the mold, which is included in our KickStarter Fundraisnig goal of $5000.00. Learn more about Limited Editions on Andersen Studio KickStarter Diaries.

The fundraising goal represents the minimum amount of funds that a project has to raise in order to retain the funds raised. If a project does not meet the minimum goal all funds are returned. Once the minimum goal is reached all funds raised above that goal are retained.

Our Above and Beyond Goal is to raise enough capital to establish a new production space and customer service facility that is adequate to serve the marketing potential of our classic line of designs in the age of the internet. We have put a hold on actively pursuing  online marketing , while we shifted our goal to finding a way to fund a new production and order fulfillment facility. The expectation online is that one orders a product and it is immediately shipped. We cannot meet that expectation working in the limited space that our business currently occupies. 

Our online email list has continued to grow even though we have not been actively pursuing that growth until after we have established a larger production and order fulfillment facility- the "above and beyond" goal of our KickStarter capitalization project.

Kickstarted has its roots in the traditional means for capitalizing micro economy businesses  -  through family and friends. Andersen Studio has many such friends as we know from the many personal letters of appreciation that we have received over the years- but the challenge is to reach all of our friends and let them know about our project, which is why I started Andersen Studio KickStarter Diaries last summer. If you support our goal and our vision, please help to spread the word by sharing our KickStarter project.

To be alerted as soon as we launch our KickStarter project- sign up for our email list HERE

                   *******************************************

Andersen Studio can serve as a poster child for how to build a micro-economy online business without the help of Big Government Inc. Contrary to myth, one is not left without resources when one is excluded from the benefits targeted for special interests by government redistributive programs.

I would like to give credit to the Open Source and Private Sector resources that helped me to learn how to:

Design a website, 

Target our seo so that we are able to maintain a number one position on Google for "ceramic birds" and first page position for some of our other relevant search terms

Learn to make a video and add the sound track as you see above:

Special Thanks to the Open Source Community goes to :

http://www.3schools.com for their excellent tutorials on html. css, xml- and more.
Amaya.com for its online web page designer ap

Joomla.com and Gantry,framework.org  for their eCommerce templates

WAMPSERVER for its desktop server app.

ccmixter.com, Freesound.org, Free-Loops.com, incompetech.com for their invaluable music and sound resources

Flash Video Tools- which has an amazing Free utility for converting a video to FLV,

Creative Commons for their legal resources

Speical Thanks to Private Sector Community goes to:

Rocket Theme for its templates and tutorials offered at a reasonable subscription fee

Adobe for its great reasonably priced subscription to its creative suite

infusionSoft for its small business ecommerce app with many different resources that we have yet to learn. Since we started using InfusionSoft, we have seen a steady growth in our email mailing list. Some of the resources available on InfusionSoft, which we have not yet explored included apps for social networking sales representation.

And special thanks to numerous other online resources that enabled learning how to put all of this together.