In my opinion, Kickstarter is one of the most important tech startups of the last few years for democratising the process of project funding so significantly. It's started to change the way people do business and create things in such a fundamental way.
One of my favourite examples to give is the way in which games can now be funded. The truth of the matter is that games can cost a lot more than they used to, but for the last 15 years Publishers have had such a strong influence over which games do or do not make it to market and they know that a mass market game is going to be less risky than something like Double Fine's Broken Age. So they probably won't fund it, and I can kind of see why.
Now thanks to Kickstarter et al., a developer just has to be able to say to potential fans, "is this a game you want?!" and if they say yes, they essentially pay in advance for their game. It's so direct, it's so wonderful.
Yes, there's still an element of having to sell the idea, but at least the idea is being sold to a bunch of regular folks, who have a little bit of money as opposed to somebody in charge of a large business. The decisions are much easier to make, and the risk is much lower for the investors.
I hope crowdfunding in this way isn't just a flash in the pan. I hope we continue to see projects funded in this way for a long, long time to come. Here's to another billion, Kickstarter!
As a backer and project creator who's running a Kickstarter funded startup, I couldn't agree more.
I love your example but I want to point out that the same obstacle you mention with games is applicable to most of the other industries that are funded on Kickstarter. The root problem in all cases lay in a startup's:
1) need for an audience
2) need for capital
What kickstarter has successfully done is build a loyal audience that's massive in size. I came to really appreciate this after seeing more than 80% of my funding come from people visiting kickstarter.com who didn't know about my project beforehand. This was huge. And not only does it give you the visibility and the capital required to execute, it validates your idea to a large extent.
Good luck with your campaign! If you don't mind I have a few questions if you happen to know the answers:
1. Did those 80% of people see it through a "featured campaigns" thing or was it totally organic?
2. How did the remaining 20% find your campaign?
3. Can we see the campaign page? :)
Thanks. The campaign ended a while ago but here are the answers:
1. We weren't featured by KS but it was on the "popular projects" page throughout the life of the campaign. It initially got there by a combination of backers finding it through "Recently launched projects" + backers who signed up on our website to be notified of the launch (the former being the majority). By the end of Day 1, it was #1 in its category and stayed there for a while. Here is a link that shows the trend of the project funding if you're interested: http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/yathletics/silverair-odorle...
2. Remaining 20% found it through our own marketing efforts + other websites/blogs writing about the project
In my opinion, Kickstarter is one of the most important tech startups of the last few years for democratising the process of project funding so significantly. It's started to change the way people do business and create things in such a fundamental way.
One of my favourite examples to give is the way in which games can now be funded. The truth of the matter is that games can cost a lot more than they used to, but for the last 15 years Publishers have had such a strong influence over which games do or do not make it to market and they know that a mass market game is going to be less risky than something like Double Fine's Broken Age. So they probably won't fund it, and I can kind of see why.
Now thanks to Kickstarter et al., a developer just has to be able to say to potential fans, "is this a game you want?!" and if they say yes, they essentially pay in advance for their game. It's so direct, it's so wonderful.
Yes, there's still an element of having to sell the idea, but at least the idea is being sold to a bunch of regular folks, who have a little bit of money as opposed to somebody in charge of a large business. The decisions are much easier to make, and the risk is much lower for the investors.
I hope crowdfunding in this way isn't just a flash in the pan. I hope we continue to see projects funded in this way for a long, long time to come. Here's to another billion, Kickstarter!