This is One Powerful Crowd

Over the last 13 months since being with LiveCode the strength and loyalty of this community has never failed to amaze me. We are a bigger & stronger community than we have ever been and that is very powerful. It means that all of us together can control the future of our product.

In 2013 we ran our first Crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter and this is where we stood up and showed the world that the LiveCode community is here to make a difference. We are here to make a better coding experience and we are not stopping until we achieve that.

A few months ago Kevin Miller LiveCode CEO (my boss) approached me about running a crowd funding campaign to bring HTML5 Web Output into LiveCode. My first thought was not worry or fear, it was excitement. I was so impressed that we were making a decision to go big, we were not sitting back on our 2013 success, we were saying, well we ain’t done yet, so let’s make a better LiveCode and let’s do it now. My second thought came in the form of about a million questions and I want to try and take you through that journey now.

Do we have an engaged community?

Are you kidding me? We have the best community in the world. I can feel you share the same passion of wanting a better LiveCode. Full Stop on that question, no doubts.

Let’s assess the demand?

Over the last 12 months one thing has kept popping up that is not currently in our roadmap and it needs to be in order for us to truly fulfil our goal: True Web Apps. But do you really want that? We asked the question.

You told us that we need to bring HTML5 Web delivery into LiveCode. We sent out a survey a few months back and the results were incredible, 85% of the LiveCode community want this ASAP.

By this stage the project is becoming a reality, we know how great a community we have and 85% of you wanted it. Exciting times ahead.

Kickstarter or No Kickstarter?

I would be lying if I didn’t consider running this campaign on Kickstarter, but quite quickly I realised we can do this on our own site. Kickstarter has its benefits but when you have a community like ours and the ability to set-up a Crowdfunding site it really became a more exciting solution to run this ourselves. Plus Kickstarter take a percentage of the funds raised as their fee. We can use that money towards making a better LiveCode.

Let’s make sure we give great rewards!

By this point we know that 85% of the best community in the world are interested in bringing HTML5 into LiveCode. Job done? No.

We needed to ensure that we came up with some tasty rewards to make it as easy as possible for you guys to get involved. Crowdfunding is not just about handing over your money, you need to get great value in return for your incredible support.

We came up with a list of rewards to hopefully suit everyone that wants to get involved, although if we missed anything then let us know, we will try to make it right.

Can we create a crowd funding style website on LiveCode.com?

Another thing I have been super impressed with since joining The LiveCode Team is the talent within the company. Prior to joining LiveCode I was managing the digital marketing / online brand for a multi million pound company and let me tell you, it is not that easy to find excellent website developers. In fact it can be a very frustrating experience. For those of you that don’t already know, Arnaud is the lead web developer at LiveCode and not only does he understand the tech, he gets the marketing and the business rationale behind what we are trying to achieve. It’s rare.

So when I said to him, we need to create a Crowdfunding style site on LiveCode.com it was no problem, we planned out what it needed to be and created it.

It now feels like we are doing something quite innovative, a new way to achieve what we want as a community.

It’s Go Time.

There were lots of other questions asked and work completed to get to the stage of launching this to you, but I think that covers the main areas. It was now time to bring in the strongest player in the team, First name LiveCode, Last name Community.

We have been sending out mailers, newsletters, tweets and blog posts, and you have responded, you have been sharing, you have been pledging and I thank you so much for that.

Are we going to make it?

We have 4 days left to go in this campaign and we will make it so long as we can come together, get involved and take the lead on creating a better LiveCode.

If everyone who wants HTML5 web delivery get’s involved, picks their reward and makes their pledge then in 4 days time we can stand up and say, we are building a better LiveCode, we are doing it now, and it’s because of our community it’s happening.

I would like to take this opportunity to say how excited I am to be on this journey, I see real success in the future of our platform. We are one powerful crowd! Let’s make it happen.

There are no rules to say I can’t get involved, I just pledged for a better LiveCode (check the backers list, I’m there), who’s with me?