Crowd Funding Platform, Kickstarter's Pledges Past US$100 Million
Crowd Funding Platform, Kickstarter's Pledges Past US$100 Million
Some of us may be familiar with LunaTik - a project that wanted to put an iPod Nano on your wrist. It was a good idea, but Scott Wilson -- founder and former Global Creative Director at Nike -- had trouble finding interest and funding, hence it ended up on Kickstarter. From there, people who loved the idea chipped in to fund the project.
Wilson's initial goal was to raise USS$15,000 but ended up with US$1 million. Such is the power of crowd-funding, and Kickstarter's popularity exploded. Everything from indie movies, to obscure projects in the fashion and in the arts industry can be found on Kickstarter.com. People who found their favorite projects, are called backers, and are able to pledge any desired amount.
According to a report by Mashable, Kickstarter has announced that backers (who fund at least one project) have reached the 1 million mark. Exciting stuff, especially when scaled according to the number of projects the backers are interested in, and how much they pledge per project. To date, Kickstarter has more than US$100 million in pledges, with many backers funding more than one project.
This kind of growth may not be tremendous compared to social media websites, but at least it proves a point. That no matter what business idea you have in mind, there will be someone else interested in it. Kickstarter gives budding entrepreneurs a very good chance of being published, noticed, or being funded. It may not materialise into anything but the exposure it gives entrepreneurs is priceless.
Not every entrepreneur here will be successful though, but there will definitely be some that make it big. For an example, one just has to look in LunaTik's direction. So if you have an awesome idea, but no one else around you is willing to listen, you can always put it on Kickstarter.