Until Yesterday, Kickstarter Had No $1 Million Projects—Today, It Has 2
It's been a huge day for the crowdfunding platform, Kickstarter, which saw its two most-backed projects reach $1 million in pledges within four hours of each other yesterday.
The first project to reach the one-million-dollar threshhold was the Elevation Dock, an iPhone dock, which got its million from more than 9,000 backers. It hit the number at about 2pm West Coast time.
Meanwhile, a fascinating-looking game from Tim Schafer and 2 Player Productions called Double Fine Adventures was on a tear. It had raised its $400,000 goal in its first eight hours. The explosion of interest kept many at Kickstarter and 2 Player up all night watching the money pour in from fans. By 6pm yesterday, the Double Fine Adventure project had received $1 million in pledges from more than 25,000 people.
Both the million-dollar projects offer a version of the "pre-purchase." That is to say, you don't just get cool "rewards" like stickers when you back the project, you get the product itself.
It was all part of a red-letter day for Kickstarter. On Thursday, Kickstarter's members pledged $1,605,981, more than doubling the previous record of $736,730, which had been set ... on Wednesday.
The Kickstarter team was very happy and possibly collectively inebriated:
For me, the key context for Kickstarter's success is this: If Kickstarter merely funds things that would have gotten money in some other way, it's a cool thing. But, if Kickstarter funding allows the creation of fundamentally new and different kinds of stuff, then it is a creative engine of a much-higher caliber.