The New Disruptors

Maxwell Salzberg of Backerkit knows what it's like to have a lot of people giving him money who want something in return: he and three colleagues credited the Diaspora project, one of Kickstarter's early blockbusters. He co-founded BackerKit with Rosanna Yau to help people with the problem of managing crowdfunding backers' responses and expectations.

This episode is sponsored by Media Temple: Web hosting for artists, designers, and Web developers since 1998. Media Temple hosts beautiful websites and great ideas. Sign up with coupon code "tnd" to get 25% off your first month of hosting. http://bit.ly/1d3kEq8

We're also sponsored by Born SQL, who can help small- and medium-sized businesses who use Microsoft SQL Server without a dedicated database administrator. New Disruptors' listeners can get a Cdn$750 discount on Born SQL's analysis report, which examines your instances and provides extensive, implementable recommendations about making improvements. https://bornsql.ca/nd/

Dan Shapiro created the game Robot Turtles out of scissors, clip art, and a printer to offer asymmetric play: kids and adults can play together and both can enjoy the experience. He brought it to Kickstarter to sell a few hundred copies, and wound selling over 25,000. In his workshop, Dan explains how the game developed, the Kickstarter proceeded, and how he's fulfilling it.

This episode is sponsored by Media Temple, where New Disruptors listeners receive 25% off their first month of hosting at http://mediatemple.net/ with the coupon code "tnd". And by Audible.com, where you can get a free audiobook and a 30-day free trial by visiting http://audiblepodcast.com/disruptors

Guest host Jason Snell talks to regular host Glenn Fleishman about Glenn's recent Kickstarter campaign to fund a book of non-fiction articles from The Magazine. Jason, host of The Incomparable and an editorial director at a major magazine firm, quizzes Glenn about failure, success, fulfillment (product and otherwise), and the reason we solicit funds from our fans, friends, family, and strangers.

This episode is sponsored by Media Temple: Web hosting for artists, designers, and Web developers since 1998. Use code "tnd" at mediatemple.net to get 25% off your first month of hosting. Also sponsored by Smile Software's time-saving TextExpander http://smilesoftware.com/nd

Take a picture and put it under glass, but not quite the way you think. The folks at Fracture have a built a business that connects several different technologies into one new way to make large-format photos printed on glass suitable for hanging. Today I talk to Abhi Lokesh, one of Fracture's founders, about the journey from a small village in Africa to a whizz-bang printing and distribution company.

This episode is sponsored by Media Temple: Web hosting for artists, designers, and Web developers since 1998. Use code "tnd" to get 25% off your first month.

Double Union is a new community workshop in San Francisco designed for women, and intended to provide a comfortable, welcoming environment to make things. In this podcast, I visit the pre-renovation space with Amelia Greenhall, one of the people who helped create the non-profit organization. She explains why Double Union is necessary, and the path that led to it and others like it.

This episode is sponsored by Media Temple, where a Grid plan gives you 100 Web sites, 100 GB of storage, and a terabyte of data transfer each month. Sign up with coupon code "tnd" to get 25% off your first month of hosting. http://mediatemple.net

In September 2013, I interviewed at the XOXO conference and festival the four lead editors of Boing Boing, an online, thriving descendent of zine culture that is one of the most popular blogs on the Internet. For the day after Christmas, it seems appropriate to celebrate generosity and gift culture with Mark Frauenfelder, David Pescovitz, Cory Doctorow, and Xeni Jardin.

As with all the sessions at XOXO, the presentation is Creative Commons licensed, and I separately obtained permission from Andy Baio and Andy McMillan. Thanks, too, to Mike Gebhardt and Betty Farrier of brytCAST.com, the folks who videotaped throughout XOXO 2012 and 2013, for providing the high-quality audio file.

Jay Fanelli and Nathan Peretic know how to go it on their own. They've done it not just once, not just twice, but now three times. They formed the interactive-services company Full Stop Interactive, out of which United Pixelworkers was formed, a company that produces fine wearable merchandise. And United Pixelworkers gave birth to Cotton Bureau, a site that uses crowdfunding to pick which shirts should get printed. Now they're doubling down and focusing entirely on the T-shirt and merchandise businesses. (Support The New Disruptors at http://www.patreon.com/glennf directly as a patron.)

The New Disruptors launched on December 5, 2012. I wanted to talk to people making stuff, creating art, or helping others get their work out there. The show is now at episode 53, and it's been a delightful year. I wanted to look back at early guests, and was able to get the folks who appeared on the first four episodes to chat briefly about what happened next. I talk in this show with Lisanne Pajot and James Swirksy, Indie Game: The Movie; Chris Anderson, then Wired and now 3DRobotics; Tony Konecny, Tonx (coffee); and Evan Ratliff, of The Atavist and Creativist. This episode is sponsored by TextExpander from Smile Software. http://smilesoftware.com/nd

Jean MacDonald was formerly best known for her role as a software marketing and public-relations guru for a major Macintosh software developer, but her work to create App Camp for Girls has eclipsed that. Jean and her colleagues raised over $100,000 on Indiegogo to fund an initial two sessions of a week each in her hometown of Portland, Oregon, and the next step is national. Jean talks about the particular challenges of bootstrapping a non-profit from zero through crowdfunding, and the group's efforts in navigating their way to the next steps.

Since January 2009, Jonathan Mann has posted a song every day. Not five days a week: seven days a week. There is no rest for the wickedly productive. While he makes his living by writing and performing bespoke songs for organizations, Jonathan never stops creating for himself — and his fans.