Has Kickstarter Peaked? 156
Nerval's Lobster writes "Kickstarter has taken off in the past year, raising big money for a wide variety of projects. Look at some of their stats: in June 2012, only seven projects raised more than a million dollars apiece; in the past nine months, another 16 projects have passed that threshold. Since the site began operations in 2009, several of the 38,000 funded projects have broken out as superstars, including the Pebble Watch and a new gaming console. With all this competition, has crowdfunding gotten, well, too crowded? Is Kickstarter peaking? As the dollar amounts have grown, so has the potential for abuse. Hidden amidst all these success stories and multi-million dollar payouts are some sadder tales. The majority of the nearly 50,000 unfunded Kickstarter projects received less than 20 precent of their funding goals, with 11 percent never even getting a single pledge."
Interest (Score:2, Interesting)
Not everybody is interested in everything and I am sure there are many projects that didn't get their funding due to not being known well enough with its targetted audience.
Its not because you start a project that people should like it and fund it. Sometimes a project simply isn't good enough.
Ad (Score:5, Interesting)
This blog reads like a huge ad for the dozen various companies that have popped up to try to leech off would-be Kickstarter project starters. Some people are obviously taking the lesson about selling mining equipment to gold diggers to heart.
Kickstarter has peakerd for me. (Score:4, Interesting)
I mainly pick up games on kickstarter...and initially games were pretty cheap about $5, the companies got seed money during development, and maybe I get a game...all of a sudden those games have shot up in price to $20, its gone from funding development to payment upfront...I haven't funded a game in a while.
Re:Lack of Publicity (Score:3, Interesting)
Definitely this.
We have a kickstarter campaign going right now, and we've posted some of our behind-the-scenes stats: http://portablescores.com/behind-the-scenes-of-a-kickstarter-project/ [portablescores.com]
Our video has less than 2000 views; of course we're failing. We've done everything we can to get publicity, but we're doing something wrong, or we're just not lucky. Kickstarter failures are more a testament to one's ability to tell a story and get publicity, not necessarily to the product.
Slightly shamed plug (I would be remiss if I didn't post): http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bobbaddeley/digitally-connected-portable-scoreboard [kickstarter.com]