Why Entrepreneurs Might Think About Getting a Tattoo

livemint.com:

Showing some ink can help you raise more cash online. According to a new study, entrepreneurs running crowdfunding campaigns do better if they show people with tattoos in their online pitch materials. And showing tattoos is especially helpful if the campaign is for a product that is not particularly artistic.

For instance, a nonartistic product like new night-vision binoculars would get more of a boost from showing people with tattoos than something artistic like a coffee-table book. That is likely because potential backers may interpret tattoos in a nonartistic campaign as a signal that the person running the campaign is creative—and the perception of creativity makes people more likely to contribute, research shows. For an artistic campaign, though, people likely already think the project is creative, so the tattoos don’t help as much.

So, even if they’re pitching a seemingly prosaic product, entrepreneurs shouldn’t hesitate to show people who are inked up—including themselves. “Roll up your sleeves and show off your ukulele tattoo," says Jeremy Short, a professor of entrepreneurship at the G. Brint Ryan College of Business at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas, and a researcher on the study.

“That could lead others to see you as creative even before you begin your pitch." Jazzing it up Short and his co-authors—Marcus Wolfe, an associate professor at the University of North Texas, along with lead researcher and Ph.D. candidate Paula Kincaid—wanted to look into one particular question about crowdfunding pitches and tattoos. Would the display of tattoos help crowdfunding campaigns raise more money? The team began by downloading a random sample of 1,500 campaigns posted to the Kickstarter crowdfunding site.