Kickstarter, crowdfunding for people who make stuff.

May 1, 2009 3:33 PM

Kickstarter, crowdfunding for people who make stuff.
Kickstarter lets creative people -- journalists, artists, musicians, game developers, entrepreneurs, bloggers -- raise money for their projects by connecting directly with their fans, who receive exclusive access and rewards in exchange for their patronage. Set a fundraising goal, deadline, and a set of rewards for backers. If the goal's reached by the deadline, then everyone's charged and backers get their goodies. If not, nobody's charged. Make stuff, without the upfront risk!

I advised this startup and sit on the board, and am very proud of the work the team's done. I'd love to know what you guys think.

Note: Anyone can sign up and back projects, but creating your own project is currently invite-only and restricted to the United States. Let me know if you want an invite!

posted by waxpancake (13 comments total)

This project was posted to MetaFilter by filthy light thief on May 20, 2009: Give a little, get a little

This is a fantastic idea; I love the run around the collective-action problem. Good eye.
posted by grobstein at 5:36 PM on May 1, 2009

I just saw this site because a friend's blog pointed to this cookbook project. And I already loved the idea of the site. Great to see there's a MeFi connection!
posted by veggieboy at 6:00 PM on May 1, 2009

A friend of mine just raised money for a photography trip to Iceland on kickstarter, by promising prints to her funders. So yay kickstarter!
posted by moonmilk at 9:11 PM on May 1, 2009

Oh why just the US? I'd love to incorporate this for a project I'm doing!! (I'm in Australia)
posted by divabat at 6:52 PM on May 2, 2009

divabat: The payments are handled through Amazon's Flexible Payment Service, which was the only cost-effective way to hold onto payment information for pledges and bill at a later date. Hopefully, they'll be adding support for international sellers soon.
posted by waxpancake at 12:24 PM on May 3, 2009

Nice, I get to fund Eric Berlin's next set of awesome crosswords!
posted by jessamyn at 3:21 PM on May 3, 2009

For reference, fundable.com is available anywhere but takes 10%. Same concept.
posted by sixswitch at 2:15 PM on May 4, 2009 [1 favorite]

sixswitch: apparently Fundable has had problems with them not paying up the money to the fundee afterwards?
posted by divabat at 8:04 PM on May 5, 2009

Hm, hadn't seen that but a quick trawl turns up a few complaints. Never used it myself. Caveat fundraiser I guess...
posted by sixswitch at 9:19 AM on May 6, 2009

Neat! Can I get an invite?
posted by signalnine at 7:22 PM on May 7, 2009

Nice!
We're working on something similar at http://ministryoftheimpossible.org.
posted by bukharin at 2:29 PM on May 15, 2009

Great idea.
posted by darth_tedious at 12:09 AM on July 9, 2009

I've been searching around the net for one of those invites. I've got a project, may I have an invite?
posted by zincotroid at 2:43 PM on November 20, 2009