You're owed an update

So here one is

An Overdue Update

First off, we’ve been frankly shocked — shocked! — at the generosity of the people who have pledged. The people who care about this stuff care a lot. If you’re one of those people, please accept this gif.

With your help, the Kickstarter is, as of today, 20% funded.

Pretty good!

But also, we’re more than halfway to the deadline, so...

Not good enough!

Look, the reality is that we had no idea going in whether it would be possible for our little team to reach a funding goal of $20,000. We knew it was ambitious, but we also knew that it was the minimum amount we would need to launch the version of this show that we pitched in the Kickstarter:

• Deep research

• Lots of writing

• Lots of editing

• Frequent guests

• An AI correspondent

• Lots of music and mixing

Can we get the other 80% of the funding in the next (looks at watch) twelve days?

Maybe!

If so, it will be because of YOU.

We’ve been bugging our friends and family, banging on their digital doors for two weeks. And we’ll keep on doing that! But if this project is going to hit that very ambitious goal, we’ll need your help.

That means make a pledge if you haven’t yet (and if you can afford to), but it also means share this project around!

Tell YOUR friends.

If everyone who has already made a pledge got just four of their friends to also pledge, we’d hit the goal with no problem.

And if you have any ideas about how to get the word out, anything you think we might not have thought of yet, you’re probably right, so please let us know! We need your cleverness even more than we need your money (okay fine we need both).

ALL. THAT. SAID.

We’re going to move forward regardless of whether we hit our funding goal.

Here’s how.

First off, we’re launching a bunch of socials, because one of our supporters also happens to be a social media marketing magician, and told us all the secrets. So you can expect to see Gods, Ghosts & UFOs on YouTube Shorts, TikTok, Instagram, and everywhere else our magician instructs us to go.

But even more importantly, we’re going to do a “soft launch” of the podcast itself.

That means a version that costs a lot less: Outlined conversations, 30 minutes or less, very little editing, some opening and closing music, etc. Don’t worry, we’ll still do our best to cut the boring bits and not waste your time.

Here are the reasons we’re doing this.

1. We really want to. We love learning about this stuff and talking about it, and we really don’t want to wait to get started on the parts we can do for little or no money.

2. We have some relationships with other really great podcasts who are eager to promote our show once it actually exists. This is a strong incentive to start cooking something tasty, even if it can’t be the full banquet from the start.

3. This will help us build a lot of momentum regardless of whether our Kickstarter meets the funding goal.

   1. If it does get funded (by some miracle (aka your help)), then we’ll be able to do the full, dazzling version of the show much earlier.

   2. If it doesn’t get funded, we’ll build that version over time, and Gods, Ghosts & UFOs will grow with its audience.

Which, frankly, might be less stressful for us. But hey, we’ll be happy either way.

The point is, we don’t know what’s going to happen (does anyone ever, really?), and that’s OK! What we do know is that we want this show to exist. The version we hope we can make, with frequent guests and AI correspondents and deep research and writing, etc, that version might be further down the road, but we’ll get there.

In the meantime, we’re gonna keep talking about all the things they said weren’t real.

What now?

If you’re not subscribed to the Substack yet, do that.

This is where you’ll get to see everything first, join the conversation as it’s happening, and meet other people who are as wide-eyed about this stuff as you. Plus, in the very near future, there will be perks like bonus content, virtual hangouts, etc.

Alright, that’s enough for one post. Go tell your friends!