The Best of Kickstarter 2012

2012: The Stats

  Total pledged
  $319,786,629
  +221% from 2011
  
  Total collected
  $274,391,721
  +238% from 2011
  
  Total backers
  2,241,475
  +134% from 2011
  
  Pageviews
  709 million
  +279% from 2011
  
  Unique visitors
  86 million
  +252% from 2011

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  Category      Launched        Successful      Pledged         Pledges
  Art           3,783           1,837           $10,477,939     155,782
  Comics        1,170           542             $9,242,233      177,070
  Dance         512             381             $1,773,304      23,807
  Design        1,882           759             $50,124,041     536,469
  Fashion       1,659           434             $6,317,799      83,067
  Film & Video  9,600           3,891           $57,951,876     647,361
  Food          1,828           688             $11,117,486     138,204
  Games         2,796           911             $83,144,565     1,378,143
  Music         9,086           5,067           $34,953,600     522,441
  Photography   1,197           427             $3,283,635      46,550
  Publishing    5,634           1,666           $15,311,251     262,738
  Technology    831             312             $29,003,932     270,912
  Theater       1,787           1,194           $7,084,968      95,225

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Thank you!

Thanks to everyone for making 2012 an unforgettable year. Here's to an amazing 2013!

Love, Team Kickstarter Perry, Yancey, Charles, Lance, Cassie, Fred, Andrew, Brett, Cindy, Daniella, Cedric, Samuel, Kendel, Mike, Justin, Meaghan, Tieg, Elisabeth, Jed, Jared, Cooper, Nicole, Aaron, Zack, Stephanie, Aurora, Callan, Jessica, Alex, Chris, Andrew, Dan, Brandon, Tomasz, Katherine, Bridget, Erik, Emily, Shannon, Niina, Bethany, Ian, Luke, Michal, Aaron, Eli, Chris, Leland, Michael, Ellen, Shayne & Jake (http://www.kickstarter.com/team?ref=yir2012)

P.S.: We're hiring! (http://www.kickstarter.com/jobs?ref=yir2012)

To be honest, same here.

My beef with it was that it was too long and got boring. I quit reading after twenty or so slides.

I liked it, but I agree, not being to back into the hacker news comments in one click is frustrating.

This allows you to share a link to a specific slide. It's a compromise.

It would be even more digestible if I didn't know it existed.

Shrink your browser window.

> It would be much more digestible as a single page of data that didn't screw up your back button.

In other words, no design? How engaging.

It's like a more customiseable version of impress.js

>about all the bad rap they got for the worthless ideas that were presented.

This is the kicker, if you'll excuse my pun. No longer are the angel/vc/suit-and-tie people the judge and jury of good ideas. I'm absolutely astounded at some of the projects that got funded on KS. Primarily because I think they're the dumbest projects ever. But its great to be wrong.

I honestly think that Kickstarter and crowd funding will be one of the most significant developments of the 21st century. It empowers individuals and strengthens the bond between artists/fans or makers/consumers in a quite dramatic way, and I think we've only seen the tip of the iceberg in terms of its potential and its disruptive and transformative impact on the economy, society, and culture.

Thank you for pointing out the numbers. I guess I should clarify: I wonder if the spike in the volume of Kickstarter projects has any impact on the percentage of successfully completed projects. My prediction would be that the percentage of finished projects declines a bit in 2013. Again, I hope I'm wrong.

Same data, but sorted and formatted.

  Dance         74%
  Theater       67%
  Music         56%
  Art           49%
  Comics        46%
  Film & Video  41%
  Design        40%
  Food          38%
  Technology    38%
  Photography   36%
  Games         33%
  Publishing    30%
  Fashion       26%

I assumed that in this context 'successful' just meant 'met their funding targets', as opposed to 'successfully delivered the promised product/service in a timely manner'.

Your website Outgrow.me is a very good idea.

Bravo! I wish you a lot of success and certainly redirect my friends to it.

I always thought a real shop was the missing link at KS. I understand KS concern to stop their "service" at the funding level, but from a user point of view, it’s a bit short. And from a creator point of view, KS fees of 5%+taxes+etc. might be a bit steep. One example is once the project has been funded, KS could at the very least display the link of the website creator without "nofollow".

To me it looks like KS is missing tools to help creators to really understand how they can manage their backers and their fulfilment after the funding. It would give KS so much data in this critical phase.

But it looks like KS is already working addressing this issue. In 2012 they’ve implemented the deadlines for creators and made clearer the refund for failed rewards.

On any case there is an opportunity here for third party services to KS projects that have been funded (and maybe failed as well).

I'm not rich, but I'm old enough not to have to worry about $25 here and there. For this project, I did give $250, which was the amount needed to get it across the line on the last day. Most projects are only $10-$50. Here's my list:

http://www.kickstarter.com/profile/982897515

Personally, I find it very satisfying to give to a worthwhile project. I live near NYC where it costs $30-$40 for two people to go to a movie with refreshments. In many ways, Kickstarter is money better spent.

>Who cares if they deliver or not //

The investors?

Backer rewards are (if they meet their funding goal) "You will get ___". If I don't receive it, then they should refund me. I'm not throwing money away for the sheer whim of "backing" people who won't give me my reward - I expect the reward.

I care if they deliver or not! I paid money! If they don't deliver, then they stole from me.

I certainly understand the point of "crowd funding".

> If you expect projects to be on time you couldn’t have picked a worse thing than Kickstarter... Take the Double Fine Adventure: It will completely overshoot the estimated delivery date by a long, long time

This is a problem with estimation. It's way worse to overshoot a delivery time than deliver before it. This is poor project planning. If I would have known this, I perhaps would not have backed Double Fine Adventures.

> At Kickstarter you give money to something that might or might not work out in the end, but that will most definitely overshoot its estimated delivery date

I disagree fundamentally. If a project is funded, then it is funded. The backer rewards aren't qualified with "if we're successful". They're "you will get ___".

> if it doesn’t it’s a fluke.

If I didn't get my backer reward, then they stole from me. If I do, and I get it late, then they poorly managed their delivery date.

If people are not held accountable to deliver at all, which is what it sounds like you're proposing, then Kickstarter is not awesome but the biggest scam in history.

> At Kickstarter you give money to something that might or might not work out in the end, but that will most definitely overshoot its estimated delivery date – if it doesn’t it’s a fluke. That’s how you have to see it.

No, you don't.

Obviously there needs to be leeway given to projects that expand their scope after overshooting their funding, but shitty planning is shitty planning, no matter how you look at it. What possible positive effect is there in tolerating it? If anything it increases the likelihood of complete failure by removing sanity checks.

Right clicking on the back button will also perform this function.

I have spent a decade or more building up a reputation. Part of that is a good thing. Part of that, I am still trying to live down.

If "make a cool thing" were easy, I wouldn't need to ask. I have done some very cool things. I don't know how to turn that into some kind of "product" (for lack of a better word, because it galls me to use that one since it was a favorite of someone incredibly disrespectful who liked spitting in my face about how my work is "worthless" and "not monetizable", though they found it personally life changing).

I am still trying to wrap my brain around a few things and I am very clear that there are logistical challenges inherent in some of my goals. In other words, some of this is not me, it is the nature of the beast of what I wish to do. I sometimes wish to god I could stop being me and just become some money grubbing type, and to hell with my personal values, etc. But after 47 years of being me, it seems I am very unlikely to stop being me. Besides, it seems sort of boring to take that approach. I think it would be fun to pull off my goals. :-)

But thank you for replying.

Thanks; even some of us on full computers don't like to have to disable flashblock and noscript just to view what is essentially a list.

I can't tell whether you missed my point or are making a nitpicking remark about how I chose to express it. Of course, it's the same cause either way.

Not all ventures necessarily produce tangible products for everyone who might be interested in financing them. For example, I am not a coffee drinker but there was a very interesting kickstarter for an espresso maker (zpm espresso) that I made note of. The people behind it seemed to know what they were about and seemed to have an interesting and novel idea with a lot of potential. For me it would have been a good investment potential, but that wasn't an option. Similarly, someone might come up with a great new idea on how to manufacture carbon composites or build satellites and want crowd funding to help get it off the ground, but they will have more trouble using kickstarter and such-like because they can't deliver the fruits of their project to their supporters the way other projects could.

In some ways this is fine, and I think that kickstarter is and should be as much about helping to bring something to fruition as it is about buying things that don't exist yet. However, it is limiting, and it would be very beneficial to many projects if they could provide equity in a venture in exchange for funding.

Congress has passed a law which should enable just that, in a limited way, and time will tell how successful such things become.

From your statement it doesn't seem as though you understand the law or the original poster's intent. There's nothing about subsidization here, only allowing people to use their own money how they wish.

Currently investment is heavily regulated. If you want to own part of a business then there are a huge list of conditions which must be satisfied by you or by the business or both. Publicly traded companies, for example, are extensively regulated by the securities and exchange commission. Smaller, private companies however cannot seek investment from just anyone. In order to be an "angel investor", for example, you need to prove that you have maintained an annual income of over $200k for at least 2 years. Only within the last year has congress changed these laws, and those changes have yet to go into effect in practice. And even then the new changes limit the percentage of one's annual income anyone can invest in a "crowdfunded" company.

By making laws against it.

Anyone can buy as many shares of a publicly traded company as they want, but investment in privately held companies is severely regulated and generally limited to only the very rich (in the top 3% of income earners). Even after the JOBS act goes into effect people making less than $40k/yr would only be able to invest 2% of their annual income ($800/yr) in such companies legally.

I think they are right, that is where all information based media needs to head. It is a bygone concept to keep charging per unit for something infinite and have it funded by people trying to make money off the sales. Makes much more sense for people to put money into what they want and directly fund it.

If Kickstarter wouldn't support micro-investment then someone else would, and if they also supported the Kickstarter model, I see no reason why Kickstarter would prevail in the long term.

I've read that Valve Software would like to fund games on this model but as of now they can't legally do it.