Episode 33: Getting Money for Awesome Icons with Dave Gandy

Sponsored By:
Panelists Justin Dorfman | Eric Berry | Richard Littauer
Guest Dave Gandy Font Awesome Founder | CEO Fonticons, Inc. Show
Notes If you’ve never heard of Font Awesome, or even if you have,
this episode is worth taking a listen to. Our special guest today
is Dave Gandy, who is one of the main people behind Font Awesome.
He has some super inspiring advice that we all could use right now
with everything going on in the world. On a funny note, which way
is the best way to hang toilet paper? There is a fascinating
conversation on TP that you don’t want to miss. 02:33 Dave talks
about what Font Awesome released to help out with COVID-19
awareness and they are ALL Open Sourced. 04:55 It’s been eight
years since Font Awesome has been around, and Dave talks about the
story behind it and how it gets money for icons. 08:31 Dave
explains the process and the response from transitioning to being
free to now asking for money. It all came down to what kind of
company they wanted to build. 11:30 Richard wonders how Dave
pitches all his ideas to investors and he has some great stories to
tell. 016:38 Justin wonders how Font Awesome pays their Angel
Investors back and is there an exit they are looking for or has he
already paid them back? 21:17 Dave talks about how Kickstarter
raised 1.076 million dollars which is still a record of most raised
and backed by a software Kickstarter. The guys were all backers to
it. 24:53 Expectations for the Kickstarter for Font Awesome is
discussed and Dave goes into how the video is made. 33:41 Is Font
Awesome one of those Cinderella stories or one of those unicorn
projects that are likely to be reproduced? Can somebody else be the
next Font Awesome? Dave has some great advice and so much
inspiration to share that we could all use. Spotlight 37:04
Richard’s spotlight is a book called, “War of Art,” by Steven
Pressfield. 37:25 Eric’s spotlight is a project website called,
helpwithcovid.com. 38:18 Justin’s spotlight is to Google, “Font
Awesome 5 Kickstarter Video.” 39:34 Dave’s spotlight is a book
series, “Mistborn Trilogy,” by Brandon Sanderson. Quotes 22:39 “It
turns out all of that failure was actually not failure, because all
of those things we had done leading up to it, ended up being
tremendous assets when it came time for Kickstarter.” 23:36 “No
matter how good your intuition is on the first version of a
product, the only way to get better is to talk to customers.” 34:02
“Everything is impossible until it’s done and then it was always
inevitable.” 34:13 “When you believe before you start something
that you can’t do it, you will always be right. No matter what,
you’ll always be right!” 34:35 “If we don’t have faith in something
that doesn’t exist, it can’t come into existence, until you believe
that something could become real that doesn’t exist yet, it can’t.”
Links Dave Gandy Twitter (https://twitter.com/davegandy?lang=en)
“The War of Art”
(https://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Through-Creative-Battles/dp/1936891026/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1586549943&sr=8-1)
Helpwithcovid.com (https://helpwithcovid.com/) Font Awesome 5
Kickstart (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNoH3J7iSrA) “Mistborn
Trilogy”
(https://www.amazon.com/Mistborn-Trilogy-Boxed-Hero-Ascension/dp/076536543X/ref=sr_1_12?crid=19Y8A52WQY8GZ&dchild=1&keywords=brandon+sanderson&qid=1586550475&sprefix=brandon+%2Caps%2C157&sr=8-12)
Credits Produced by Justin Dorfman at CodeFund Edited by Paul M.
Bahr at Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/) Show
notes by DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound
(https://www.peachtreesound.com/) Ad Sales by Eric Berry at
CodeFund Special Guest: Dave Gandy.