#proofispossible

Husband and wife team Grace and Corbett Lunsford are constructing a tiny house on wheels called the Tiny Lab, to take on tour across America. 

Their goal? To showcase “measured home performance” through workshops and open house tours. Additionally, they'll be launching a new TV show called Home Diagnosis - where the couple will test a home to discover the source of the problems, provide a prescription to solve them, and work with local companies to help homeowners achieve a better life in their most sacred space. 

We caught up with this creative couple to talk about their current crowdfunding project on RocketHub, (launched through our partnership with Fractured Atlas) as well as the catalyst for this dynamic idea. 

What was the inspiration behind your “Tiny House Tour” project - and how did it come about?

Corbett and I are self-employed, so we often work long irregular hours and like to treat ourselves on the weekend to a big breakfast, vegging out on the couch and watching one or two documentaries.  We're from Chicago, so it's also the perfect thing to do on cold winter weekends.

So there we are watching Ken Burns' documentary "The National Parks" and we thought, "Wow, we should do that!  Why wait until retirement?  We have unusual work situations, we could save up and go on a long 6 week sabbatical."  

So we began looking up the cost of RVs to rent, because we'd have to take our fur babies (two cats) with us, and all in, to go the way we wanted to travel, we were looking at a $10,000- $20,000 "rental" trip, so we dropped the idea and searched for the next documentary to watch.

"Tiny: A Story About Living Small" by Christopher Smith and Merete Mueller was up next, and by the end of watching that film the idea began to take root.  

Corbett is a Building Scientist, like a doctor for houses.  He trains and advises people on high performance construction and prescribes solutions for their mysterious house problems.  We immediately thought that building a high performance Tiny House on Wheels would be a really cool way to showcase home performance, a concept not really known in the general public.  If a homeowner could understand the principles within our four walls, then they could take that knowledge and go look at their own homes in a new light.

Grace is an actress and filmmaker and was just finishing up a year a touring film festivals with her feature "The Other One."  She was penning a distribution deal with Indican Pictures and  since theatrical runs are barely cost effective, she was already thinking of retaining theatrical rights for the movie.  If we were going to build a Tiny House on Wheels and take it around the country, then we could adopt the same route for a theatrical release.  

The Forgiveness Tour is a concept Grace had been working on to carry the short prequel to "The Other One" called "Eclipse" to schools, focusing on pre-emptive measures to help end the school violence that seems to grow steadily each year.

Also, as we traveled around the film festival circuit, Grace often spoke on or helped lead panels about female filmmaking, and was astonished to learn the frustrating statistics around not only female filmmakers, but female characters in storylines.  "Ms. Tiny Detective" came about from this frustrating new awareness (the storyline pitch is best told by Grace in the RocketHub video.)

But if we were really going to do this, we needed to try the lifestyle out, so in March of 2015 we flew to Portland and stayed for two nights in two separate lodgings at The Tiny House Hotel.  You can see which ones we stayed at on our YouTube channel (http://youtube.com/c/HomePerformance).  They were surprisingly comfortable, and really made us realize that YES, we could do this.

We came back and started planning, reaching out to contractors, suppliers, fans, and general supporters of both of our careers.  We originally thought we'd try for 20 cities in 2016, but then a Tiny Human also started to take root in Grace's womb, so we dropped the number to 16 and kept thinking of how we could assemble an army of supporters to get this done.

If we were going on the road we also thought let's bring Mysteriam into this!  That's the name of our band and after 13 years together and 7 albums we could sing for days if you let us, so hopefully some of those concerts will get supported too!

What has your experience been launching an "experiential arts venture” through crowdfunding?

Grace had launched crowdfunds in the past on Indiegogo for her films, and Fractured Atlas had fiscally sponsored her films.  We reached out to see if this enormous endeavor with a Tiny House could be a fit for fiscal sponsorship, and luckily it fell perfectly into the multidisciplinary platform.  This time around we researched and learned more about RocketHub, and ultimately felt the RocketHub community and ethos were a better fit for us.  

We're unconventional, not afraid to push boundaries, and RocketHub's past and present partnerships with A&E and Ovation was inspiring for us to see artists be more fully supported by major players. Plus, how often can you set up a phone call with the CEO when you have questions about their platform?  RocketHub became the easy decision in the end.

That said, launching an "experimental arts venture" has been interesting right out of the gate.  We have four major areas and the real through line is US.  Not Tiny Houses, not the TV show, movies, or music, this is culmination of our work, passions, and how we feel both can go out an make the world a better place.  

The first week we've had a lot of support come together, but we've also had a few people reply with exclamations of not fully understanding what we're trying to do.

This is why we chose a longer crowd funding period.  We want to take the time and answer questions from supporters like "I like the Proof is Possible Tour but what about the Forgiveness Tour, are you Anti-Gun?"  The answer to that, btw, is we are anti-school-violence.  Grace grew up in Alabama and completely respects constructive practices with gun ownership.  

School violence is happening and not going away whether it's guns, knives, or bombs.  The Forgiveness Tour seeks to create a positive dialogue about ending the violence through pre-emptive measures like forgiveness, awareness, and recognition of signals.  Sure, gun laws deserve close attention, but there are many other people, much more well-versed in that topic than we are.   It's a complex issue, no doubt about it.

We are happy to have the conversations, and not a single one has ended negatively.  Pitch videos and descriptions can only say so much, so it's been great to have people openly reach out to us to get their questions answered.

Any advice for others looking to crowdfund a similar project?

Don't overthink during the first week.  Even if you've been priming the pump and telling all your friends about it for weeks, when it your campaign goes live, that's just the beginning of the work.  Make yourself available.  Answer people's questions, create exciting new content to keep the message going, and gather those partners who said they support you and remind them, NOW is the time.  It might take them more than a week to even open your email, so don't pull your hair out.

Every project is different, so every crowd fund will be different.  Also, if you're a creator, artist or entrepreneur, more than likely you're more sensitive than most.  Try not to take it personally when your family member won't even chip in $5 or that someone who said they'd support you now says they still have your back but will donate to the next one, not this one.  

You never know if your family member is dealing with some major debt, or other problem inhibiting their support.  Let it go and keep sharing your project with others.  You need the whole village- more than just one or two supporters, anyway.  Take the trials with a grain of salt and keep pushing forward.  It's what everyone has to do whether you're a crowdfunder or venture capitalist.

Is your project meant to succeed?  At the end of the day only you can answer that.  Now is not the time to falter, and if your fund fails to reach the goals you set, that doesn't necessarily mean it was meant to fail.  Make the most of it anyway you can.