The numbers

The backstory

Palmer Luckey had been building virtual reality headsets since 2009. In 2011, at 18, he built the prototype that became the Rift in his parents’ garage in Long Beach, California. He shared his work on Meant to be Seen, an online forum for 3D and VR enthusiasts, and that’s where the idea grew.

The turning point was John Carmack, co-founder of id Software and the programmer behind Doom and Quake. Carmack borrowed one of Luckey’s prototypes and called it “by far the most immersive” headset he had used. At E3 in June 2012, id Software demoed games on the prototype and announced that Doom 3 BFG Edition would work with it.

Luckey dropped out of college and formed Oculus VR in June 2012. About two months later, the Kickstarter went live.

Before launch: credibility first

Oculus didn’t have a big email list. It had something more useful for this audience: endorsements from the people game developers respect most. The campaign page opened with quotes from:

• John Carmack of id Software, who called it possibly “the best VR demo” the world had seen;
• Gabe Newell, president of Valve, who encouraged people to back it;
• Michael Abrash of Valve;
• Cliff Bleszinski of Epic Games, which was integrating the Unreal Engine;
• David Helgason, CEO of Unity.

For a developer deciding whether to spend $300 on an unfinished headset, those names answered the biggest question: will anyone build for this? The engine makers were on board and a famous game was bundled in. That’s why a team of about ten people with no product could raise ten times its goal.

The campaign page: sell the kit, not the dream

The page was honest about what backers were buying. The headline reward was a developer kit, and the page said plainly that the consumer version was “still a ways down the road”. It promised a software development kit (SDK) so developers could integrate the Rift into their games, and it bundled a copy of Doom 3 BFG Edition so every kit came with something to play.

That honesty set expectations. Backers were developers and enthusiasts who wanted early hardware and knew what a prototype was. They got what they were promised.

The rewards: who paid what

These are the rewards on the Kickstarter Rewards tab and the number of backers for each.

One reward did almost all the work

The $300 developer kit had 5,640 backers on its own, and every reward that included a headset adds up to about 98% of the reward money, at listed prices. Posters and T-shirts gave fans a way to join, but the campaign was a hardware pre-order for developers.

The price was the real price

$300 got a kit, and after the campaign Oculus sold kits publicly for the same $300, at roughly four to five a minute on the first day. There was no inflated “retail price” to discount from. Developers paid what the kit cost.

Studio packs for teams

283 backers ordered between two and ten kits, from $575 to $3,000 for a studio pack. Game studios needed several headsets for a team, and those rewards let them buy in one go.

Reward totals are each tier’s price multiplied by its backer count. The Rewards tab counts 8,892 backers on these rewards; the rest of the 9,522 pledged without choosing one.

Step by step

What happened next

The Kickstarter turned Oculus from a garage project into a company investors took seriously. The DK1 shipped in March 2013. By February 2014 the kit had sold out, with components sourced for about 65,000 units. In June 2013 Spark Capital and Matrix Partners invested $16 million, then in December Andreessen Horowitz led a $75 million round. The team grew from about ten people at the end of the Kickstarter to about 100 when the Facebook deal closed.

When Facebook announced the deal in March 2014, many backers were angry. Some disliked Facebook; others felt Oculus had sold out before shipping a consumer product. Minecraft creator Markus Persson said he hadn’t backed the campaign to fund a Facebook acquisition. But backers had bought rewards, not shares. Kickstarter’s rules say creators can’t offer equity, and Oculus had only ever promised developer kits, which it delivered.

In January 2016 Oculus gave about 7,500 of its earliest backers, everyone who pledged $275 or more, a free consumer Rift. It shipped to the public in March 2016.

The money, in plain numbers

$2,437,429 is the headline, not what reached the creator’s bank account. Here is roughly what fees take, using Kickstarter’s 5% platform fee and today’s standard US payment-processing rate of 3% plus $0.20 per pledge (fees were different when this campaign ran, so treat this as a guide). You can run your own numbers in our Kickstarter fee calculator.

Out of the rest came thousands of developer kits, built by a team of about ten people. It’s a reminder that a campaign this size funds a first production run, not a company; that’s why Oculus raised $91 million from investors over the next year.

Why it worked

1. It sold to developers first

Developers understand prototypes, will pay for early access, and build the content that makes the consumer product worth buying. Aiming at them kept the promise small and the backers satisfied.

2. Credibility from the right names

Endorsements from Carmack, Valve, Epic and Unity were worth more to this audience than any ad. They answered the question developers cared about.

3. A real price for a real product

$300 for a kit, and the same $300 afterwards. Clear and fair.

4. Something to use on day one

Bundling Doom 3 BFG Edition meant every kit came with a game to play, not just an SDK.

What not to copy

• Leaving backers to find out about big company news from the press. A sale, an investment round or a change of direction lands better when your backers hear it from you first.
• Letting backers think they own part of the company. Spell out what a pledge buys.

How we’d run it today

Deep-tech and B2B products can still use this playbook: launch to the people who’ll build on it or resell it before you launch to everyone.

1. Pick the first customer deliberately. Developers, professionals, installers or early adopters who understand an early product. Make the campaign for them.
2. Collect three to five endorsements from names your audience trusts and put them in the first screen of the page and video.
3. Bundle something useful on day one, such as software, content or an accessory, so the reward isn’t just hardware waiting for an ecosystem.
4. Add team packs for companies that need several units.
5. Write what backers get, and what they don’t, in plain English, including “rewards, not shares”.
6. Plan how you’ll treat your first backers as the company grows. Oculus’s free consumer Rift for early backers is a good model.
7. Use the campaign as evidence for investors. Backer count, pledge size and who the backers are is the traction story for a funding round.

How it compares with other record campaigns

Totals at campaign close. Some campaign pages now show more, from pledges taken after the campaign ended.

More breakdowns in our campaign teardowns.

Frequently asked questions

How much did Oculus raise on Kickstarter?

$2,437,429 from 9,522 backers in 2012.

Did Oculus backers get anything from the Facebook sale?

No. Backers received rewards, not equity. In 2016 Oculus gave about 7,500 early backers a free consumer kit.

What was the Oculus Rift Kickstarter goal?

$250,000. It raised more than $670,000 in its first 24 hours and closed at $2,437,429.

Did Oculus Kickstarter backers get anything from the Facebook sale?

No share of the sale, because Kickstarter backers buy rewards, not equity. In January 2016 Oculus gave about 7,500 backers who pledged $275 or more a free consumer Rift.

What did Oculus Kickstarter backers get?

Backers who pledged $300 or more got the DK1 developer kit with a copy of Doom 3 BFG Edition. Lower tiers got a thank you, posters or T-shirts. The DK1 kits shipped in March 2013.

Who endorsed the Oculus Rift Kickstarter?

The page quoted John Carmack of id Software, Gabe Newell and Michael Abrash of Valve, Cliff Bleszinski of Epic Games and David Helgason of Unity. For game developers, those names answered the question of whether anyone would build for the Rift.

How much investment did Oculus raise after Kickstarter?

$16 million from Spark Capital and Matrix Partners in June 2013, then $75 million led by Andreessen Horowitz in December 2013. Facebook announced it was buying the company for about $2 billion in March 2014.

How long did the Oculus Kickstarter run?

30 days, from 1 August to 1 September 2012. It raised more than $670,000 in the first 24 hours and passed $1 million within three days.

Sources

• Fortune: Dear Kickstarters, stop complaining about the Oculus deal
• Wikipedia: Oculus Rift
• TechCrunch: A brief history of Oculus
• The campaign’s Kickstarter page and Rewards tab (11 November 2026)

The post Oculus Rift Kickstarter: $2.4M Campaign, $2B Sale appeared first on samitpatel.

The numbers

The backstory

Critical Role started as a home game. Matthew Mercer began running a Dungeons & Dragons campaign for a group of friends in 2012, and those friends happened to be professional voice actors. In 2015 they started streaming the game every week as a web series. By the time of the Kickstarter, the first campaign alone filled 373 hours of video on YouTube and had drawn about 29 million views, with new episodes going out live on Thursday nights.

The cast wanted to turn their first campaign, the adventures of a party called Vox Machina, into a cartoon. They pitched it to studios. Travis Willingham later described the response as “a very sobering and humbling thing”: studios liked the pitch, he said, but kept saying it was “just not right for us.” The industry didn’t believe there was a big enough audience for an adult animated fantasy series based on a web show.

So they went to that audience directly. The plan was modest: $750,000 for a single 22-minute special, animated by Titmouse, the studio behind several well-known adult animated shows, with the cast voicing their own characters.

Before launch: four years of weekly episodes

There was no conventional pre-launch campaign. There didn’t need to be. For four years Critical Role had shown up every week, for three or four hours at a time, in front of a community of fans who call themselves Critters. That’s the most valuable pre-launch asset there is: an audience that has spent hundreds of hours with you and trusts you to deliver.

Three things made that audience ready to pledge:

• It was used to supporting the show. Fans already bought Critical Role merchandise and subscribed on Twitch. Backing a Kickstarter was a small step from that.
• The ask was personal. This wasn’t a studio selling a product. It was the cast asking fans to help them make the thing they had pitched and been turned down for.
• The cast announced it themselves, on their own channels, to people who had heard them talk about the idea.

Launch day: a goal that was really a starting gun

The campaign went live on 4 March 2019. The $750,000 goal fell in about 40 minutes and $1 million came within the hour. By the end of the first full day the total was $4.3 million and every stretch goal the team had announced was gone. Four episodes were funded within 24 hours.

At that point the team had a problem most creators would envy: they’d run out of plan. Sam Riegel summed it up: the team had hoped for a pilot, but “fans had other plans for us.” The campaign turned into an episode count, and fans could watch the series grow as the total climbed: eight episodes by 18 March, a tenth episode at the $8.8 million stretch goal on 4 April, and a “secret” $10 million goal reached on 16 April.

A 45-day campaign is long, and most campaigns sag in the middle. This one didn’t, because every new stretch goal was a new episode. Backers weren’t just adding money. They were adding more of the show they wanted to watch.

The rewards: who paid what

The campaign used a single ladder of 14 rewards, each including everything below it. These are the backer counts from the Rewards tab.

The most popular reward was something to use at the table

37,555 backers, almost half of everyone who picked a reward, chose the $100 tier, whose headline item was a campaign-exclusive dice set. This is an audience that plays the game. A reward built for how fans actually spend their time beat every print, pin and poster.

Every step had one clear new thing

Each tier added one item with a one-line hook (“BEARS. WE HAVE THEM.”, “HOLDS A LOT OF STUFF.”). Backers didn’t have to compare bundles. They chose the item they wanted and got everything below it too.

Experiences at the top, not more stuff

The top rewards were things money can’t usually buy: a screening invite, a producer credit, a studio tour, lunch with the cast. They were strictly limited and, at listed prices, the 45 backers at $2,500 and above contributed about $375,000.

Reward totals are each tier’s price multiplied by its backer count. The Rewards tab counts 80,026 backers on these rewards; the rest of the 88,887 pledged without choosing one.

The 45 days, step by step

What happened next

The Kickstarter did what the pitch meetings couldn’t. In November 2019, seven months after the campaign closed, Amazon bought the streaming rights and commissioned 14 more episodes: two more for the first season and twelve for a second. Willingham said the campaign showed the cast “how much power our audience and our community has”, and that it made traditional media take notice.

The show premiered on Prime Video on 28 January 2022, and according to Parrot Analytics it was the most in-demand animated streaming show of that quarter. Every season since has scored 100% with critics on Rotten Tomatoes. Season four aired in June 2026, a fifth and final season is coming, and a second series, The Mighty Nein, launched in November 2025.

The rewards were the slow part. Backers had to wait for the series, and the show itself took almost three years to arrive. The campaign page has 63 updates, which kept backers informed through that long wait.

The money, in plain numbers

$11,385,449 is the headline, not what reached the creator’s bank account. Here is roughly what fees take, using Kickstarter’s 5% platform fee and today’s standard US payment-processing rate of 3% plus $0.20 per pledge (fees were different when this campaign ran, so treat this as a guide). You can run your own numbers in our Kickstarter fee calculator.

Out of the rest came ten episodes of professional animation, plus dice sets, plushies, bags, prints and their shipping. Physical rewards are expensive to make and post, which is why the money that funds the actual product is always smaller than the headline.

Why it worked

1. An audience that had spent hundreds of hours with the creators

Weekly live shows for four years built more trust than any ad campaign could. The Kickstarter simply gave that audience a way to act.

2. A story fans wanted to be part of

“Studios said no, so we’re asking you” turns a purchase into a cause. Backers weren’t pre-ordering a cartoon. They were proving the studios wrong.

3. Stretch goals that were the product

Each stretch goal added episodes, so the campaign’s progress was visible as more show. That kept the long middle of a 45-day campaign moving.

4. Rewards that matched the fans

Dice for players, plushies and pins for collectors, signed items and experiences for superfans. Each reward was easy to understand in one line.

What not to copy

• Running out of plan on day one. All the announced stretch goals went in the first 24 hours. Plan stretch goals well past your most optimistic target.
• Long waits without a timeline. If the product is years away, say so up front and give regular progress updates.
• Assuming the audience will appear. This worked because of four years of weekly episodes. Without that audience, the same page would have struggled to reach the goal.

How we’d run it today

You don’t need a hit web series to use this playbook. Any creator, brand or community with a loyal following can.

1. Use the campaign as proof for the next deal. If retailers, distributors or investors have said no, a campaign that shows real demand changes the conversation. Plan what you’ll do with the numbers before you launch.
2. Tell people why you’re asking. If there’s a real story behind the campaign (turned down, doing it independently, building it for the community), put it first.
3. Make stretch goals add more of the product, not just extras. More episodes, more colours, more levels, more features. Backers fund what they want more of.
4. Plan stretch goals to three times your best guess. Have a second set ready in case the first goes on day one.
5. Build the most popular tier around how fans use your product. Ask your community what they’d actually use, and make that the $100 reward.
6. Keep the top tiers for experiences, strictly limited, priced high and announced early.
7. Keep momentum in a long campaign with a reveal or milestone every week.

How it compares with other record campaigns

Totals at campaign close. Some campaign pages now show more, from pledges taken after the campaign ended.

More breakdowns in our campaign teardowns.

Frequently asked questions

How much did Critical Role raise on Kickstarter?

$11,385,449 from 88,887 backers in 2019 for The Legend of Vox Machina.

What was the original goal?

$750,000 for one 22-minute animated short.

How much did Critical Role ask for on Kickstarter?

$750,000 for one 22-minute animated special. The goal was reached in about 40 minutes and the campaign closed at $11,385,449.

Which Critical Role reward was most popular?

The $100 Guardian tier, with a campaign-exclusive dice set and leather dice bag, chosen by 37,555 backers.

Who animated The Legend of Vox Machina?

Titmouse, with the Critical Role cast voicing their own characters. The Kickstarter funded the first ten episodes, and Amazon commissioned 14 more in November 2019.

Sources

• Wikipedia: The Legend of Vox Machina
• Tubefilter: Critical Role’s record Kickstarter
• Popverse: Travis Willingham on the Vox Machina Kickstarter
• The campaign’s Kickstarter page and Rewards tab (11 November 2026)

The post Critical Role Kickstarter: How Vox Machina Raised $11.4M appeared first on samitpatel.

Last updated: November 2026.

The biggest campaigns of 2026

Amounts in US dollars as reported. Campaigns run in other currencies are listed separately below.

Big tech campaigns run in Hong Kong dollars

What’s working in 2026

• Printers keep breaking records. After Anker’s EufyMake E1 ($46.7M, 2025) and the Snapmaker U1 ($20.1M), 2026 added HeyGears G1X, Morpho, Sovol and LightMake. Buyers back machines that let them make and sell products.
• High prices, fewer backers. HeyGears raised $18.1M from about 4,000 backers, an average of roughly $4,400 each. Premium hardware is funded by a committed few.
• Tabletop is bigger than ever. Cyberpunk TCG and Neon Odyssey both set records, built on existing fan bases, like Frosthaven and Critical Role before them.

All-time records

See the full list and a teardown of each record campaign: most funded Kickstarter campaigns ever.

Sources

• ICv2: Cyberpunk TCG smashes tabletop Kickstarter record
• Tabletop Gaming: Neon Odyssey becomes the most funded TTRPG Kickstarter
• BackerRock: Q3 2026 top 10 Kickstarter technology projects (figures as of 20 October 2026)

Frequently asked questions

What is the biggest Kickstarter of 2026?

Cyberpunk TCG, with $26,934,598 from 47,636 backers, the most funded tabletop campaign ever and third on Kickstarter’s all-time list.

What is the biggest tech Kickstarter of 2026?

HeyGears G1X, a full-colour 3D and UV printer, raised $18,145,526 from 4,085 backers between July and September 2026.

The post Biggest Kickstarter Campaigns of 2026 (Updated Monthly) appeared first on samitpatel.

The numbers

The backstory

Sanderson is one of the best-selling fantasy authors alive. He has published more than 50 books since 2005, and his main series, The Stormlight Archive and Mistborn, are published by Tor. Before the pandemic he spent more than 100 days a year travelling for events. In 2020 that stopped, and he started writing a secret novel as a gift for his wife, Emily. Then he wrote another, and another. By 2022 he had four finished novels nobody knew about.

He already had his own company, Dragonsteel, and a track record on Kickstarter: in 2020 a leather-bound tenth-anniversary edition of The Way of Kings raised $6.7 million from nearly 30,000 backers. So he didn’t sell the four books to a publisher. He sold them directly to readers.

He gave two reasons. First, a Kickstarter is a pre-order: it tells you exactly how many copies to print. Second, his online shop could sell books already in stock, but it couldn’t run a year-long subscription without the set-up and tracking a campaign provides. In a later interview he was blunter: he has “huge problems with Amazon”, and for years he had tried to get publishers to offer editions at several price points, without success.

Before launch: there wasn’t one

Most record campaigns spend months building a pre-launch list. Sanderson’s launched on the same day it was announced, with a YouTube video on his own channel. The secret was the hook: four novels nobody had heard of, from an author whose fans read everything he writes.

This only worked because the pre-launch had been happening for 17 years. His readers already followed his YouTube channel and blog, and nearly 30,000 of them had backed one of his campaigns before. A surprise launch is a way to spend an audience, not to build one. For anyone without that audience, the lesson is to build the list first.

The campaign page

Titles kept secret, then revealed weekly

The page didn’t name the books. Readers who wanted to go in blind could; everyone else got a new video every week in March in which Sanderson revealed one title and read from the first chapters. That turned a 30-day campaign into four weekly events, each with a reason to come back, talk about it and share it.

Thank-you gifts instead of stretch goals

There were no stretch goals. Instead, the team announced four “thank you gifts” on weekly livestreams:

• dual-colour printing inside every premium hardcover;
• a bookmark in the first box, plus Dragonsteel covering customs and taxes for international backers;
• a digital art package for every backer;
• a Cosmere character pin set, one pin in each of the twelve boxes.

Stretch goals often add costs the creator hasn’t priced in. Gifts the team had already planned and costed gave backers the same weekly reveals without that risk.

Collectable, one-off editions

The premium hardcovers were described in detail: about 400 pages, a leather-look cover, colour illustrations, designed endpapers, a sticker and a bookmark with every shipment. The page also warned that the premium edition “might not be available again”. Collectors don’t wait when they’re told a run is limited.

The rewards: who paid what

These are the eight rewards on the campaign’s Rewards tab and the number of backers who chose each one. “Quarterly books” sent one book every three months in 2023. “A Year of Sanderson” added a themed swag box in each of the eight months without a book.

A cheap way in made the backer count huge

The $40 ebook tier brought in 44,430 backers. It’s a small amount each, but every backer adds to the total, the headline count and the momentum that brought in the next wave.

A subscription for superfans made the total huge

About one in five backers, 38,224 people, chose a “Year of Sanderson” tier at $360–$500. At listed prices those tiers add up to about $18.1 million, more than the other 146,065 backers combined. The best-selling single tier at that level was the most expensive one: 23,103 people paid $500 for everything.

Shipping paid up front

Shipping was charged per month, $10 domestic and $35 international, and paid at pledge time. With twelve shipments a year, that is a big part of the roughly $9 million pledged on top of the listed reward prices. Charging it up front meant the cost of a year of posting was covered before the first box went out.

Reward totals are each tier’s price multiplied by its backer count. The Rewards tab counts 184,289 backers across the eight tiers.

The 30 days, step by step

What happened next

Dragonsteel ran fulfilment itself, from a warehouse in American Fork, Utah. Sanderson said the company had to double its staff to do it. At one point the team was packing a single month’s box for more than 38,000 backers on its own assembly line, which matches the 38,224 “Year of Sanderson” backers. Delivery was slow and uneven for some backers, and the company has since moved into a warehouse with about ten times the space.

Two admissions are worth knowing. Sanderson said that, after the cost of fulfilment, the campaign didn’t earn him more than selling the books through a New York publisher would have. And he regretted that independent bookshops were left out. The campaign’s value was control and the direct relationship with readers, not a bigger margin.

The model has carried on: his Cosmere roleplaying game raised $15.15 million on Kickstarter in 2024.

The money, in plain numbers

$41.75 million is the headline, not what landed in Dragonsteel’s bank account. Here is roughly how the first deductions look, using Kickstarter’s 5% platform fee and its standard US payment-processing rate of 3% plus $0.20 per pledge (you can run your own numbers in our Kickstarter fee calculator):

Out of that came four premium hardcover print runs, ebook and audiobook production, eight months of swag boxes, a year of postage to about 70 countries and territories, and a warehouse team that doubled in size. That is why Sanderson said the campaign didn’t earn him more than a traditional deal would have. The average pledge was about $225, but a $500 backer receives twelve parcels, and every parcel costs money to make and send.

The lesson for any creator: price your rewards from the full cost of delivering them, including fees, packaging, postage and the people who pack them, not from the headline you hope to reach.

Why it worked

1. An audience built over years

The campaign didn’t create demand. It captured demand Sanderson had built over 17 years, through his books, his blog and his YouTube channel.

2. A test run first

The 2020 campaign raised $6.7 million. It gave the team proof that fans would pledge, and two years of experience in running and fulfilling a campaign before going far bigger.

3. A secret, revealed in instalments

“Secret novels” is a hook in itself, and revealing one title a week kept the story alive for the whole month instead of just launch day.

4. Tiers for every kind of fan

A $40 entry point for the curious and a $500 year-long subscription for superfans, with clear steps in between. Each type of fan could pledge exactly what they wanted.

What not to copy

• A surprise launch without an audience. With no list, a surprise is just a quiet launch.
• Doing a year of monthly fulfilment yourself unless you are ready to hire for it. Sanderson had to double his staff.
• Leaving your other sales channels out. If retailers sell your product, tell them your plans before you launch.

How we’d run it today

Few product creators have Sanderson’s readership, but his playbook works for anything with fans: board games, gear, collectables, consumer hardware. This is how we’d adapt it.

1. Turn your audience into a list you own. Social followers aren’t a launch list. Move them to email and a community months before launch.
2. Run a smaller campaign first. A limited edition or accessory campaign proves demand and trains your team, then the big launch builds on those backers.
3. Build a superfan tier. A bundle, collection or year-long subscription at three to ten times your entry price. In this campaign, one backer in five paid for more than half of the reward money.
4. Keep the entry tier cheap. A low-cost tier (a digital version, an accessory, an early-bird single unit) maximises backer count, and backer count drives the headlines.
5. Plan four weekly reveals. A new feature, bundle, colourway or gift each week gives you emails, updates and press angles for the whole campaign.
6. Use gifts instead of stretch goals when a stretch goal would add costs you haven’t priced in.
7. Charge shipping in the pledge and price it from real quotes, especially for international and multi-shipment rewards.
8. Decide fulfilment before launch. Use a fulfilment partner unless you already run a warehouse team, and say who is shipping on the page.

How it compares with other record campaigns

Totals at campaign close. Some campaign pages now show more, from pledges taken after the campaign ended.

More breakdowns in our campaign teardowns.

Frequently asked questions

How much did Brandon Sanderson raise on Kickstarter?

$41.7 million from 185,341 backers in 2022, the Kickstarter record until the EufyMake E1 in 2025.

What was the Brandon Sanderson Kickstarter for?

Four secret novels written during the pandemic, released through 2023, with optional monthly boxes of themed items.

What was the goal?

$1 million.

How much was Brandon Sanderson’s Kickstarter on day one?

More than $15 million on its first day, 1 March 2022.

What were the reward tiers?

Eight tiers from $40 (four ebooks) to $500 (all formats plus eight monthly swag boxes). The $160 premium hardcover tier had the most backers: 49,491.

Sources

• CNBC: Author’s record-breaking Kickstarter closes at $41.7 million
• Kickstarter: EufyMake breaks the all-time funding record
• SYFY: Brandon Sanderson crowdfunds $15 million in a day
• Publishers Lunch: Sanderson’s Kickstarter makes $15 million in one day
• Welcome to Brandon Sanderson’s fantasy empire
• The campaign’s Kickstarter page and Rewards tab (11 November 2026)

The post How Brandon Sanderson Raised $41.7M on Kickstarter: Campaign Teardown appeared first on samitpatel.

The numbers

The backstory

Eric Migicovsky had already made one smartwatch before Pebble. He developed the idea under the name Allerta, which sold a watch called inPulse that showed messages from BlackBerry phones. He took the business through Y Combinator, where, unusually, it was already making money, and raised $375,000 from angel investors including Tim Draper.

Then the money stopped. Venture capital firms weren’t interested. Hardware, he told the Los Angeles Times, is “much harder to raise money for.” So in April 2012 he put the next watch, Pebble, on Kickstarter with a $100,000 goal. Backers could get a watch for $115, with the first 200 at $99, against a planned retail price of $150.

The goal went in two hours. Within six days the campaign was the most funded Kickstarter ever, with $4.7 million and 30 days still to go. Pebble capped pre-orders on 10 May because it couldn’t make more, and the campaign closed on 18 May at $10,266,845 from 68,929 backers. Kickstarter had done what the investors wouldn’t: it proved demand and funded the first production run.

Between campaigns: building the base

The three years between campaigns are why the second one was so fast.

A painful first delivery, handled in public

The 2012 watches were promised for September 2012. Manufacturing problems pushed that back, and the first units only shipped on 23 January 2013, once production started with Foxlink at 15,000 watches a week. Backers waited four months longer than promised.

Retail and scale

Pebble then sold in shops. It had shipped 300,000 watches by December 2013 and 1 million by the end of 2014. Every one of those owners was a potential Pebble Time backer.

A developer community

Pebble’s software kit was free from the start, and by February 2014 its app store had more than 1,000 apps and watch faces. Developers had built things for Pebble, so they had a reason to want the next one to succeed, and they told their own followers about it.

By February 2015 Pebble didn’t need to find an audience. It had one: owners, developers and fans who had been waiting for a colour Pebble.

Launch day: designed for records

Pebble Time went live on 24 February 2015, and the announcement and the campaign happened together. The goal was set at $500,000, which the existing community could clear almost instantly, and it did in 17 minutes. $1 million came in 49 minutes. The previous fastest, Reaper Miniatures’ Bones, had taken 2 hours and 42 minutes, and the original Pebble had taken 27 hours.

Each of those numbers was a headline. “Fastest to $1 million” ran on launch day, “$10.3 million in 48 hours” two days later, and on 3 March, with 24 days left, “most funded Kickstarter ever” as it passed the Coolest Cooler at nearly $14 million. A low goal and a big, ready audience turned the first week into a series of announcements, and every announcement brought in people who had never owned a Pebble.

The rewards: who paid what

These are the rewards on the Kickstarter Rewards tab and the number of backers for each. Where Pebble ran the same reward twice, for example once for the US and once for international backers, the counts are combined.

The early bird was a real saving, and it ran out fast

The first 10,000 watches were $159, against a retail price of $199. The next 23,000 were $179. Visible limits gave early backers a reason to pledge in the first hours, which is exactly what fed the speed records.

A third of backers paid more for steel

26,040 backers chose Pebble Time Steel at $250, about 40% more than the plastic version. A premium option that most people don’t take still lifts the average pledge, and the average pledge on the page works out at $259.

Bundles for households and teams

More than 12,900 backers bought two or more watches, from a pair for $338 up to ten for $1,690. Multi-unit rewards are an easy way to sell to families, friends and offices.

A wholesale tier on Kickstarter

142 backers paid $5,000 for 30 watches, a distributor tier. At listed prices that’s $710,000 of trade orders taken through the campaign. Shops that wanted to stock Pebble Time could commit early, and Pebble got retail demand data before production.

Reward totals are each tier’s price multiplied by its backer count. The Rewards tab counts 77,436 backers across these rewards; the page total is 78,471.

The 31 days, step by step

What happened next

The record didn’t fix the business. In March 2016 Pebble laid off 40 of its 160 staff. That May it went back to Kickstarter for a third time, with the Pebble 2, Pebble Time 2 and a new device called Pebble Core, and raised about $12.8 million. Shipments slipped by roughly six months.

Pebble had reportedly turned down a $740 million offer from Citizen in 2015 and a $70 million offer from Intel in 2016. On 6 December 2016 it filed for insolvency and sold its software and intellectual property to Fitbit, reported in February 2017 at $23 million. The hardware and stock weren’t part of the deal, and the debts were reported to be larger than the price. The Pebble Time 2 and Core were cancelled, and those backers got refunds.

The community outlived the company. When Fitbit switched off Pebble’s servers in June 2018, owners set up Rebble to keep the app store and services running. In January 2025 Google open-sourced most of PebbleOS, and Migicovsky started again with a new company, Core Devices, which now sells the Pebble 2 Duo at $149 and the Pebble Time 2 at $225. Thirteen years after the first campaign, the fans are still buying.

The money, in plain numbers

$20,338,986 is the headline, not what reached the creator’s bank account. Here is roughly what fees take, using Kickstarter’s 5% platform fee and today’s standard US payment-processing rate of 3% plus $0.20 per pledge (fees were different when this campaign ran, so treat this as a guide). You can run your own numbers in our Kickstarter fee calculator.

Out of the rest came 95,906 watches: parts, assembly, packaging, certification and shipping to backers around the world. A record total and a healthy margin are not the same thing, which is exactly what Pebble found out over the next two years.

Why it worked

1. The second campaign started with a crowd

Pebble Time didn’t need a pre-launch list. A million owners, a developer community and three years of updates were the list. That’s why its first hour beat everything before it.

2. A goal set to be smashed

A $500,000 goal for a company that had already raised $10 million was never in doubt. It was set so that “funded in 17 minutes” would be the launch-day headline.

3. Records as marketing

“Fastest to $1 million”, “$10 million in 48 hours” and “most funded ever” each brought a new wave of press. Each milestone was a fresh story for journalists who had covered the launch.

4. Rewards built for every kind of buyer

Early birds for the fastest, Steel for people who wanted the better watch, bundles for households, and a wholesale tier for shops.

What not to copy

• Treating a record as a business plan. $20 million in pre-orders doesn’t pay for years of competing with Apple, Samsung and Fitbit.
• Going back to backers to fund the company. The third campaign raised $12.8 million while the business was struggling, and many of those backers ended up with refunds.
• Promising a delivery date before manufacturing is proven. The 2012 watches arrived four months late.

How we’d run it today

Most brands get only one first launch, but Pebble’s real lesson is about the second one. This is how we’d use it now.

1. Plan campaign two on the day campaign one ends. Keep backers on your email list, send real updates and give them a reason to stay: early access, a loyalty price, a vote on the next product.
2. Launch to your community first. Email your owners and backers an hour before the public launch so the first-hour numbers come from people who already trust you.
3. Set the goal for the headline. Pick a goal your list can clear in the first hour, then write the “funded in X minutes” announcement before you launch.
4. Prepare a press note for each milestone. Fastest to $1 million, most funded in your category, passing a famous campaign. Have them written and ready to send.
5. Offer a premium version. A better material or finish at 30–50% more lifts the average pledge even if only a third of backers take it.
6. Add a trade tier. If shops will stock your product, a distributor reward gives you wholesale orders and retail demand data before you manufacture.
7. Raise the money the business needs separately. Use the campaign to fund production, not to keep the company alive.

How it compares with other record campaigns

Totals at campaign close. Some campaign pages now show more, from pledges taken after the campaign ended.

More breakdowns in our campaign teardowns.

Frequently asked questions

How much did Pebble raise on Kickstarter?

About $43 million across three campaigns: $10.3M (2012), $20.3M (2015) and $12.8M (2016).

How fast did Pebble Time reach $1 million?

In 49 minutes, a Kickstarter record at the time.

What happened to Pebble?

Pebble filed for insolvency and sold its software and IP to Fitbit in December 2016.

How fast did Pebble Time reach $1 million?

In 49 minutes on 24 February 2015, the fastest of any Kickstarter project at the time. It reached its $500,000 goal in 17 minutes.

What did Pebble Time cost on Kickstarter?

$159 for the first 10,000 backers, then $179, against a $199 retail price. Pebble Time Steel was $250, against $299 retail.

Was Pebble the first smartwatch on Kickstarter?

No, but it was the first to become a mainstream hit. Its founder had already sold an earlier watch, inPulse, for BlackBerry phones, and the 2012 Pebble campaign became the most funded Kickstarter at the time, raising $10,266,845.

Sources

• Wikipedia: Pebble (watch)
• Engadget: Pebble’s colour watch is the fastest Kickstarter project to hit $1 million
• SiliconANGLE: Pebble Time raised more than $20M with 95,000+ watches pre-sold
• The campaign’s Kickstarter page and Rewards tab (11 November 2026)

The post Pebble Kickstarter Teardown: $43M Across Three Campaigns appeared first on samitpatel.

Anker is a multi-billion-dollar company. It did not need the money. So why launch a high-end printer on a crowdfunding site, and what did it get that a normal launch would not have given it?

The numbers first

An average pledge of about $2,600 is not impulse buying. These were people who had decided before the page went live.

Who is eufyMake?

eufyMake is Anker’s brand for makers. Its first product, sold as AnkerMake, was the M5 3D printer, which raised $8,879,417 on Kickstarter. Until 2023 the team kept working on that kind of printer: the standard type that builds objects from melted plastic.

At the end of 2023 it stopped. In an internal review the team put two new ideas to Anker’s leadership, who asked them to pick one and gave them three more months to prove it. They chose UV printing, because the user research behind it was strongest. Cheney Xie, who leads product and R&D at eufyMake, put the gap simply: a 3D printer makes the shape and a laser engraver cuts, but neither adds colour. A UV printer prints full colour, with raised texture, onto things people already own: wood, metal, leather, glass, phone cases, tumblers.

The problem was price. Industrial UV printers cost RMB 100,000–200,000, roughly $14,700–29,400, and are big industrial machines. eufyMake set out to make one for a tenth of that price that fits on a desk. In Xie’s words: “Industrial specialization is designed for large-scale business, but our users are long-tail creators.”

Getting there took close to 200 review meetings, three redesigns of the machine’s core layout, and its own printhead control board after a supplier quoted RMB 40,000 for a part with about RMB 400 of components in it. To test the 3D texture feature, Xie took samples to Dafen, China’s oil-painting village, and watched painters react to them.

Before launch: the demand was built first

The $1 million in the first minute was the result of three things eufyMake did in the weeks before launch.

A paid deposit, not just an email list

eufyMake unveiled the E1 on 15 April 2025, two weeks before the campaign, and took $50 refundable deposits on its own website. Backers who put down a deposit and then pledged on Kickstarter got $200 off the early-bird price or $400 off the standard price, plus their $50 back after shipping.

A deposit is a much stronger signal than an email sign-up. Someone who pays $50 two weeks early has already decided. It also told eufyMake how big launch day would be before it happened, and those deposit holders were the people waiting with the page open at launch.

Working makers, not tech reviewers

Anker’s earlier printer relied on mainstream tech influencers. For the E1, eufyMake targeted crafters and small businesses instead. The campaign page leads with YouTube makers who use tools to earn money: BitnerBuilt (who also interviewed Cheney Xie), Red Rocking Bird, Make or Break Shop, Sawdust and Splinters, SteveMakesEverything and Six Eight Woodworks.

The quotes on the page are about business, not specs. SteveMakesEverything says that when he showed printed samples to customers, “they were throwing orders at me”. For a buyer weighing a $2,000 machine, that line from a working maker is worth more than any spec sheet.

A clear price anchor

Every bundle came with two Kickstarter prices, a limited early-bird price and a higher “KS Special” price, and Creative Bloq reported an expected retail price of $2,499. Backers could see three prices and knew which one was the deal.

The rewards: how the pricing worked

These are the eight bundles on the campaign’s Rewards tab, with the number of backers who chose each one.

Four things stand out.

1. The most expensive bundle was the most popular

The early-bird Deluxe bundle, the priciest early-bird option at $2,552, was chosen by 7,970 backers: nearly half of everyone who picked a bundle. It came with the printer, both flatbeds, ink, the rotary attachment, the laminator and a full material kit, and the page told backers they were saving $1,202 (32%). When the biggest bundle carries the biggest saving, it becomes the obvious choice.

2. Nine in ten backers took an early-bird price

16,006 of the 17,492 bundle backers paid an early-bird price. The early-bird tiers had visible limits: 8,561 Deluxe bundles and 4,100 Rotary bundles. A “591 left” counter gives people a reason to pledge today rather than next week.

3. The friction was removed

Every bundle included free shipping to the US, Canada, the EU, the UK and Hong Kong, with customs fees and VAT covered, plus a one-year warranty. Hidden import costs put off international backers of expensive hardware. Covering them removed the last reason to wait.

4. Add-ons added $7.6 million

The bundles alone add up to about $39.1 million at their listed prices. The other $7.6 million was pledged on top: ink and cleaning kits, flexible white ink, hot-foil stamping, material kits, a large-format bundle and even a second printer at $30 off. Ink is the part that keeps selling after the campaign: a single 100 ml cartridge costs $42.99.

Bundle totals are each reward’s price multiplied by its backer count. The Rewards tab counts 17,492 bundle backers; the page total of 17,822 includes backers not counted against these eight rewards.

The 60 days, step by step

Along the way the campaign posted 27 updates and collected more than 16,000 comments. New accessories added mid-campaign gave backers a reason to come back and add to their pledge, and gave the press a new story to write.

1. Kickstarter was the launch, not the funding

For a big company, crowdfunding is a launch channel with three things a normal launch does not have: a built-in audience of early adopters, a hard deadline that creates urgency, and a public number that keeps going up. The rising total became the story, which brought more press, which brought more backers.

The lesson: pick a launch platform for its audience and its countdown, not just for the money.

2. It validated the product before the page went live

Anker’s team interviewed more than 50 makers, surveyed more than 2,000 people and invited nearly 100 key opinion consumers into a project group, even visiting their homes to watch them use prototypes. By launch day it knew who the buyer was: long-tail creators and small businesses that can earn back the cost by selling what they print.

The lesson: the most expensive products need the most proof before launch. Put your first users in a group, watch them use it and use their words on the page.

3. It sold the business case, not the machine

The marketing leaned on what the printer earns, such as “a dollar’s worth of ink on a custom metal sign”. For a small business owner, a printer that pays for itself is an investment, not a toy. That is how you get an average pledge of $2,600.

The lesson: if your buyer can make money with your product, show them the maths on the first screen.

4. The first minute was planned weeks earlier

$1 million in about a minute does not happen by luck. It happens when thousands of people are waiting with the page open at 10pm on launch day. That takes a pre-launch list, reminders, and a reason to back on day one rather than day ten.

The lesson: the launch is won before it starts. Build the waitlist, count it, and only set the date when the list is big enough to fund the goal in the first hours.

5. It learned from its own earlier crowdfunding

Anker’s first 3D printer also set a crowdfunding record, but mass production and delivery ran into problems. By late 2023 the team had decided to drop its standard 3D printers and focus on UV printing. Delivery of the E1 was nearly complete about a year after launch.

The lesson: a record campaign is only good if you can deliver it. Backers remember delivery longer than they remember launch day.

What happened after the campaign

During mass production the team found a fault: small tolerances in the mould for one ink tank meant a small chance of ink leaking, which only showed up after long use. Shipments were held. According to KrASIA, engineers slept in the factory for about a month, checked units one by one, and remade the mould and the affected parts. Before shipping restarted, they stress-tested 100 machines and printed several tonnes of ink.

The reward pages had promised July 2025. Overseas delivery was nearly complete by spring 2026. eufyMake also added a printhead protection plan, eufyMake Care, which sends a free replacement printhead if one fails within a year.

The campaign also created a category. KrASIA reports that xTool and Bambu Lab are now developing UV hardware. A record campaign tells competitors where the demand is, so the first-mover advantage lasts only as long as delivery and support stay good.

How we’d run this campaign today

Most brands don’t have Anker’s budget, but nearly everything that worked here scales down. If we were running a hardware launch like this now, this is the plan.

1. Take paid reservations, not just emails. A small refundable deposit ($1–$50, depending on price) on your own site shows who is really buying. Set the Kickstarter goal at what those reservations will fund in the first hour.
2. Seed 10–20 working creators eight weeks out. Choose people whose audience buys tools to make money, not general tech reviewers. Embargo their videos to launch morning and put their best lines on the page.
3. Design the top bundle first. Decide what you want most people to buy, give it the biggest saving, and price the smaller bundles so the big one looks like the obvious choice.
4. Cap early birds with real numbers. Visible limits (“591 left”) turn interest into a pledge today.
5. Remove the hidden costs. If you can, include shipping and import taxes in the price for your main countries. International backers of expensive products drop out over surprise fees.
6. Save news for the middle of the campaign. Add an accessory or a new bundle in weeks two to six. It gives you something to announce, a reason to email backers, and a lift in pledges during the slow middle.
7. Treat consumables as the business. Price add-ons such as refills, materials and spares so backers stock up during the campaign, then carry on selling after it.
8. Don’t promise a delivery month until a pilot batch has been stress-tested. eufyMake’s ink leak only appeared after long use. A few hundred machines running for weeks before you set the date is cheaper than a year of apology updates.

What to copy at £5K, £50K and £500K

Questions founders ask

Is Kickstarter still worth it for small brands?
Yes, if you build the audience first. Kickstarter rewards campaigns that arrive with their own crowd.

How big should the waitlist be?
Big enough to hit your goal in the first day or two. Work it out from your price and how many people on the list usually back.

Does a high price hurt on Kickstarter?
Not when the buyer can see the return. The E1’s average pledge was about $2,600.

What did the eufyMake E1 cost on Kickstarter?
Early-bird bundles started at $1,699 for the basic bundle and went up to $2,552 for the Deluxe bundle. Standard Kickstarter prices were $200 higher.

Which eufyMake E1 bundle was most popular?
The early-bird Deluxe bundle at $2,552, chosen by 7,970 backers, nearly half of all bundle backers.

What not to copy

• Launching on a big number you cannot deliver.
• Setting a launch date before the waitlist is ready.
• Selling specs when the buyer cares about what the product earns them.

Kickstarter is a launch channel. Use it like one.

AnkerMake M5: Anker’s first record

Anker’s first 3D printer, the AnkerMake M5, raised $8,879,417 in 2022 and was the most funded 3D printer on Kickstarter until the Snapmaker U1 in 2025.

How it compares with other record campaigns

Totals at campaign close. Some campaign pages now show more, from pledges taken after the campaign ended.

More breakdowns in our campaign teardowns.

Sources: Kickstarter, EufyMake’s printer sets a new crowdfunding record; KrASIA, Inside Anker’s push to turn UV printing into a consumer product; TechRadar, Anker’s 3D printer becomes the most popular Kickstarter ever ; KrASIA, Inside Anker’s push to turn UV printing into a consumer product ; eufyMake launch press release, 29 April 2025 ; All3DP, EufyMake’s record-breaking campaign ends this weekend ; Creative Bloq, This UV printer just broke a Kickstarter world record ; the campaign’s Kickstarter Rewards tab (11 November 2026). The average pledge and bundle totals are calculated from the campaign’s own figures.

The post How Anker Raised $46.7M on Kickstarter (and Didn’t Need the Money) appeared first on samitpatel.

The list

Ranked by amount raised in a single campaign; linked names have a full teardown. Cyberpunk TCG (April 2026) is the third most funded Kickstarter ever and the biggest tabletop campaign. Other large campaigns exist beyond this list. Outside Kickstarter, Star Citizen has raised over $1 billion through its own site, and Pebble raised about $43M across three campaigns.

What the biggest campaigns have in common

1. An audience before launch. Sanderson, Critical Role and Frosthaven arrived with fans; Anker and Peak Design with past customers. Most creators build theirs with a pre-launch email list.
2. A low goal, funded fast. Exploding Kittens asked for $10,000 and hit it in eight minutes; Kingdom Death asked for $100,000 and hit $1M in 19 minutes.
3. A reason to back on day one: early-bird pricing, exclusives or limited tiers.
4. Milestones as press. “Fastest to $1M” and “most funded ever” headlines brought new backers mid-campaign.
5. Delivery decides the reputation. Coolest Cooler and Ouya raised millions and still failed afterwards.

Indiegogo’s biggest

Flow Hive raised more than $12 million on Indiegogo in 2015 against an A$70,000 goal. For how Indiegogo works now, see our Indiegogo agency page.

Plan your own campaign

Work out what Kickstarter will take with our Kickstarter fee calculator, and get our free Kickstarter launch checklist.

Frequently asked questions

What is the most funded Kickstarter ever?

Anker’s EufyMake E1 UV printer, which raised $46,762,258 from 17,822 backers in 2025.

What was the previous Kickstarter record?

Brandon Sanderson’s four secret novels, $41.7 million in 2022. Before that, Pebble Time held it with $20.3 million in 2015.

What is the most backed Kickstarter?

Of the campaigns here, Exploding Kittens had the most backers: 219,382 in 2015.

What is the most funded Indiegogo campaign?

Flow Hive, with more than $12 million in 2015, is one of the biggest on Indiegogo.

The post Most Funded Kickstarter Campaigns Ever: The Records and How They Did It appeared first on samitpatel.

After deciding to launch your campaign, the first thing you need to do is build a Kickstarter marketing strategy. 

In this quick guide, I’ll be walking you through some of the basic steps you need to take to build your Kickstarter marketing strategy so your campaign can succeed. 

What is the Fundamental Goal of a Kickstarter Marketing Strategy? 

The power of Kickstarter and crowdfunding lies in the community – not the money. 

Many entrepreneurs make the mistake of assuming that crowdfunding is all about raising money, but essentially it’s about building a strong community of supporters to back your project. 

The fundamental goal of any Kickstarter marketing strategy, therefore, is to ensure that you’re getting a barrage of backers who are willing to support you despite not ever knowing you or using your product. 

What is the Biggest Challenge of a Kickstarter Marketing Strategy? 

Imagine being asked to invest or pay money for a product you’ve never seen or used before – not online nor in physical stores. 

There are no reviews, no user recommendations, no social proof. 

Would you easily spend your money? 

Probably not. 

This makes it significantly challenging to market Kickstarter projects. 

You’re asking people to pre-order a product they’ve never used before. The only thing they have to trust you with is a video of your product, the copy of your sales page, and the promise that you’ll deliver in due time. 

See how this isn’t like any other marketing strategy? 

This is why you need a very strategic approach with your sales copy, emails, ads, and how you want the public to perceive you. 

Marketing is the only way for your campaign to succeed so without a kickass marketing strategy, you may not be successful with your Kickstarter campaign. 

How to Create an Effective Kickstarter Marketing Strategy? 

Now that you know the main goal and challenge of a Kickstarter strategy, here are some things you can do to meet the goal and address the challenge. 

1. Run a Deep Competitor Analysis on Amazon & Kickstarter 

Competitor research is the starting point of your Kickstarter marketing strategy. 

And when I say competitor research, I don’t mean a bunch of Google results. 

Here’s what my team and I do for our clients with competitor/market research. 

Search Kickstarter for Similar Projects 

People often miss this part when they are doing market research. It’s important that you go through Kickstarter to identify similar projects. 

Make a list of the top ten competitors on Kickstarter who are in your industry or have similar products. 

In a sheet, note down: 

• Their funding goal and the total amount raised 
• Their pricing model and how that is justified 
• Their product positioning and messaging 
• What people are saying about them 

You can also use a tool like Kicktraq to get in-depth analytics on top-performing campaigns. 

Here’s how a report of iiRcade, one of our top-performing campaigns looks like: 

Search Amazon and Online Stores for Insights 

The ultimate goal of most product crowdfunding campaigns is e-commerce. 

So if you want to eventually want to move into an e-commerce model after a Kickstarter campaign, it’s good to do your research from now. 

Amazon is a treasure trove of insights. From customer reviews and queries to detailed product descriptions, to price points and discount ideas, you can get most of the information you need to position your product. 

Search Facebook Groups and Instagram Accounts 

Search for Facebook groups relevant to your niche product. For example, if you’re making a kids’ smartwatch, search for groups that the smartwatch brands have created. 

You can also search for relevant groups like teenage gadget groups etc to find out what people want in a smartwatch. 

Next, you can list the top ten Instagram accounts relevant to smartwatches for product photography inspiration. 

2. Creating an Irresistible Offer 

Here’s where crowdfunding for products gets interesting. 

You want to build a community that will become buyers. 

In order to get people to join your community, they need to have an incentive. 

And that incentive is an irresistible Early Bird or exclusive offer. 

So essentially, the people who are signing up to your community are people who will “back” your project by pre-ordering your product at a discounted price. 

An early bird offer or discount is usually 30 – 40% off your retail price. 

The offer will become the pledge amount on the campaign page as shown here.

3. Build a Community on Facebook 

The most important part of a crowdfunding campaign is in the community. 

Facebook provides this perfect opportunity to build a community around your product. 

You can grow the community with interesting content, help like-minded people connect and network. 

Facebook communities are central to crowdfunding success. 

So do make a content strategy plan just for your Facebook community. 

The strategy can include: 

a). Video content specifically product demos and tutorials. 

b). Competitions and quizzes to ignite interest and engagement. 

c). Informative news, guides, and insights relevant to the industry. 

d). Satisfied customer testimonials (when the product is delivered). 

The community will remain active even after you’re done with the campaign and as your supporters grow so will the community. 

When you launch on Amazon or have your own online store, this community will be your strongest asset. 

4. Use Paid Ads to Drive Traffic to Your Landing Page & Facebook Group 

As a rule of thumb, keep at least $5,000 handy just for ads. 

Without paid ads, you cannot drive traffic to your landing page or Kickstarter page. 

The funnel is simple: 

• Drive traffic to the landing page via ads 
• Convert traffic into leads via sign up forms 
• Convert leads into prospects via FB group 
• Convert prospects into customers at the time of launch. 

5. Develop FOMO-Based Email Drips 

Email marketing for crowdfunding is based on FOMO (Fear of missing out) techniques. 

You will need to send emails that drive people to your product page to sign up. 

Emails like limited time offers, exclusive early bird offers, buy before the campaign ends offers, etc are all examples of FOMO tactics that are used to drive urgency. 

At the time of launch, it is only your emails that can drive conversion (boosted by retargeting ads). 

So your emails have to be on-point with the kind of messaging that will drive people to back the project. 

Marketing for a Kickstarter campaign isn’t easy especially if you’re not well-versed in digital marketing. 

But because it’s so niche, not any marketing agency can help you out. 

6. Influencer Marketing for Kickstarter Campaigns

While influencer marketing works great for established brands and businesses (they got the money!), for crowdfunding campaigns, it may be a significant challenge if you’re short on a budget.

Ideally, you want to attract influencers with your product. For instance, one of our clients iiRcade had a product so good, they were endorsed by gaming and tech celebs which led to 7-figure funding in less than a week.

That said, sometimes, you just have to do it the old-fashioned way; that is, make a list of influencers in your industry, reach out to them with a clear goal, and negotiate a deal.

There are three types of influencers – the macro gods (100K followers and above), the semi-gods ( 10,000-100,000), and the newbies (less than 10K). The rule of thumb is to start with the newbies as they will have a bigger and more direct impact on their circle. These influencers are regular folks who have a close-knit community and directly influence with their endorsements. They are the best people you can reach out to for endorsements within a reasonable budget.

Here’s how you can get started:

1. Use a tool like SparkToro or BuzzSumo to find influencers in your niche
2. Make a list of influencers relevant to your niche
3. Set the goal for influencer marketing (signups, backers, awareness)
4. Set a goal of the number of influencers you want to have on board (2, 5, or just 1)
5. Set a budget for each influencer and what you expect from them within that budget
6. Write an influencer pitch that should include expectations
7. Make sure you have a great story to share (personalized stories rank better in convincing influencers to work with you)
8. Communication with the influencers must be organic, authentic and value-driven
9. Establish a one-on-one relationship with these influencers. You might be needing them post-campaign too
10. Reach out to influencers on the medium/channel that your audience are most likely to be found. For instance, if you’re making a video game, your influencer is on Twitter and not on Instagram.

Identifying influencers is not a simple matter of getting a list off of Google. You need to really dig deeper into the type of influencers you want to work with, whether their values align with yours and whether their audience has the purchasing power you need.

Quick Recap

1. Your marketing goal for Kickstarter must tap into the power of the community.
2. You need a strategic approach with your sales copy, emails, ads, and how you want the public to perceive you because you’re asking people to back a project that is not yet in the market.
3. Always conduct an in-depth competitor research on Kickstarter, Indiegogo and Amazon to identify price & product positioning.
4. Create an irresistible offer to promote your product
5. Build a community on Facebook
6. Make sure you have a funnel that turns traffic into backers
7. Double down on your email marketing funnel
8. Reach out to influencers and establish a one-on-one relationship with them
9. Prepare well in advance of your launch date (we recommend 3 to 6 months prior)
10. Work with crowdfunding marketing experts who can help you with strategic marketing

Remember, your Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign can only succeed if you have a strong marketing + promotional plan set in place. Without marketing and promotion, you might fail to meet your goals and make no money at all (Especially if you’re using Kickstarter which operates on an All or Nothing model).

Want to talk to an expert to help you make sense of all this? Reach out to us for a free consultation call!

You May Also Like to Read:

How to Start and Launch a Kickstarter Campaign?

There are specific crowdfunding marketing agencies that are recognized by Indiegogo and Kickstarter to be your marketing partners. 

Check out the videos below for more.

The post How to Create a Kickstarter Marketing Strategy – A Quick Guide for Beginners. appeared first on samitpatel.

If you set a goal too high, you won’t get enough backers resulting in a failed campaign. 

If you set a goal too low, you won’t be able to raise the amount you need to bring your project to life. 

So how do you set a Kickstarter funding goal that is achievable & effective?

Here’s a step-by-step Kickstarter funding guide that will help you decide on what you need to take into consideration when setting the final goal.

Let’s dig in.

Understanding How Kickstarter Funding Works 

Kickstarter uses an All or Nothing funding model – which simply means you either meet your funding goals and get the money or you don’t and get nothing in return.

For example, if your funding goal is $10,000, you will need to meet that goal within 30 days of launch to receive the cash. If you make $8K instead of $10K, you have failed to meet your goal and therefore you will not be receiving any money.

Kickstarter’s funding model is less flexible than Indiegogo’s where even if you fail to meet your goal, you will receive the money you’ve raised already.

Hence, it’s important to set a realistic goal on Kickstarter that can be achieved.

For instance, if you’re a project creator selling wallets, asking for $100K may be impossible to achieve. On the contrary, an amount like $20K for a small product like a wallet is far more believable and achievable.

What to Consider When Setting Goal Amount

A common mistake project creators make is setting a funding goal randomly – without taking into consideration taxes, platform fees & other logistic costs. The result? The amount raised fails to cover project costs, which leads to delayed dealines and poor production outcomes. This is one reason why so many projects on Kickstarter fail even though they had potential. 

When you’re setting the goal amount, make sure you have a strategy in place and take care of basic costs like:

• The cost of production
• Kickstarter’s 5% fee
• Transaction fees of up to 3%
• Marketing fees for writers, photographers, video editors
• Shipment fees

Generally, the rule of thumb is to pledge 5 to 10X times the production amount to cover for unexpected costs like marketing or shipment.

Here’s how you can calculate your costs:

Define your pricing for a crowdfunding audience

Your pricing strategy must resonate with the needs of your crowdfunding audience.

Remember, your crowdfunding audience are not buyers. They won’t go to a website and buy a product. They will be ‘backing’ a project and take on the risk of pre-booking your product, so if the pricing is out of their range & is not justified, they simply won’t back you.

For example, if you’re launching a $30 eco-friendly toothbrush that needs to be renewed every month, while there are other cheaper alternatives in the market, you’ll fail to drive the audience into action.

It’s rare for any project to be original or unique. There are always other variations of the product available in the market, which is why the pricing must be defined by product features.

Again, the instance of the toothbrush, the $30 can be justified if the product is proven to be better than other alternatives in terms of recyclable or sustainability features.

Make sure the following factors are considered when setting the price for your crowdfunding audience.

• How are you different from other competitors in the market?
• How is your price point justified compared to them (this will also be your USP).
• What are the shipping costs of your product?
• What are the manufacturing costs of your product?
• How much of a discount can you really offer and if you do, how does that affect your overall pricing strategy.
  
  

So before setting your crowdfunding goal, you need to have a very strong pricing strategy. Remember when you’re open to the public, you’ll have to defend your price point and justify why your product costs this much if there are already other products of a similar nature available in the market.

CALCULATING MARKETING + PROMOTION COSTS

Your crowdfunding campaign cannot succeed without marketing and promotion.

Marketing and promotion costs that you should keep in mind are:

• Cost of creating a landing page:$27/month
• Cost of FB ads: $5000 – $7,000
• Cost of email marketing: $500
• Cost of retargeting/remarketing ads: $5000
• Cost of hiring an agency: $5,000

So, a total of around: $20,000 if you want to go big.  

If you’re short on budget, then you could spend time prepping at least 6 months in advance before starting the campaign. Build relationships, build your email lists and keep at least $7,000 for paid marketing.

SHIPPING COSTS

Kickstarter funding goals usually include shipping costs.

Before setting your goal, factor in the shipping costs as well so you don’t have to deal with any bad surprises later.

If the shipping costs is too high, you can limit your reach to select countries instead of worldwide.

Lastly, consider logistic costs as well. If it’s a product that requires parts, then it must be added to your overall cost.

CROWDFUNDING PLATFORM FEES

Both Indiegogo and Kickstarter change a 5% service fee from the total funding amount.

That is if you make $50,000 in crowdfunding goals, then Kickstarter and Indiegogo will charge $2,500 as a service fee.

So when you’re setting up crowdfunding goals, make sure you’re also calculating the crowdfunding platform fee cost.

Additionally, Stripe, the payment processing partner will also be charging a transaction fee of between 3 – 5% per transaction.

Keep in all these factors when you’re creating your crowdfunding campaign goal.

CROWDFUNDING TAXES

There’s always a lot of speculation about this but crowdfunding earning is tax-deductible.

The money you earn from crowdfunding is considered as income, so you’ll have to pay taxes as per your country’s rules and regulations.

Again, do consider this when setting your goal.

You want to have enough leftover with all the deductions, taxes, fees, and costs to be able to create or manufacture your product.

How Does Kickstarter Make Money?

Kickstarter makes money by charging 5% of your total funding goal.

So for instance, if your funding goal is 100K, you’ll be charged $5,000 on completion of the goal.

You will not be charged any money if you don’t complete your funding goal.

What can you do to increase chances of goal fulfillment

Kickstarter has a success ratio of 39%. Of 543,344 projects, 212,467 projects were fully funded (as of July 2021). Your chances of failing at a Kickstarter campaign is higher, but, if you focus on three essential aspects of a crowdfunding project, you can increase your chances of goal fulfillment. Most projects fail because creators do not take the time to validate their product, build an audience, and decide on the funding goal that they need to succeed. 

You May Also Like to Read:

What is The Most Funded Kickstarter Project? You’ve Probably Heard of this One!

• Product validation: Will your product succeed on Kickstarter? Are you creating something exciting that people are willing to back? Product validation can be ascertained through surveys, speaking to your target audience, and running facebook ads to test validity & acceptance. You have to be 100% sure your product has a market and that market is present on Kickstarter. 

• Advanced planning: Most project creators hurry through a crowdfunding campaign and fail to plan ahead of time. You must plan at least 3 months and at most 6 months in advance of launch. During these months you will be putting maximum effort in building email lists, inviting people to your private community, generate interest in the product, and create launch momentum. 

• Full funnel marketing: Without aggressive marketing and promotion, there is very limited chances of success. The more people are in your list, the higher your chances of meeting your Kickstarter funding goal. For this, you’ll need to develop full-funnel marketing plans, spend on paid social media marketing, email marketing and PR campaigns to drive audience to backing the project on the launch day. 

Your Kickstarter funding goal can make or break your campaign. It’s the most important component of a Kickstarter campaign, yet, the most underestimated. It’s important then to determine your funding goal and ensure it covers the cost of building, shipping, & promoting your product. 

To know more about how Kickstarter funding works, check out this video!

The post How Does Kickstarter Funding Works? A Quick Guide. appeared first on samitpatel.

One does not just simply launch a crowdfunding campaign.

One has to research, perform competitive analysis, assess the success ratio of similar campaigns and then decide to take the plunge.

Here’s how we carry out product research for crowdfunding campaigns for our clients.

1. Kickstarting with a Research Sheet

Your research sheet is the foundation of everything.

The first step in your research for a crowdfunding campaign is to know how your product stands against other similar campaigns.

Your product may not necessarily be the world’s first – and if you want to make that claim, then you need to make sure there are no other products on Kickstarter offering the same.

For example, in this project, there are dozens of arcade game projects, but none of them holds 200+ licensed, retro games for home use.

This research sheet that consists of other similar campaigns on Kickstarter or Indiegogo helps give you insights into how a similar product fared, what strategy and processes were effective, and what funding realistic funding goals can you set.

It gives you the direction you need to plan your campaign.

What each tab means:

Raised: This is the amount that other competitors in your niche raised. This will help you set a benchmark for the backers and funding goal to expect.

Average Price: This tab is critical. It will help you determine your pricing & reward strategy. You’ll have to make a very strong justification of why people should back your project for that price vs others.

Social Media: These are great for ad or content inspiration that you’d need later to work on your page or group.

Check out this strategic post on how to create a Facebook group for your crowdfunding campaign.

Headlines: Your project headline is the most important magnet to get people’s attention. Check other projects to get inspiration for the headline of your campaign page and landing page.

You can also check Amazon to see how some products transitioned from crowdfunding to eCommerce.

2. Getting Your Audience Research Right

Unlike e-commerce where you’re targeting audiences willing to become buyers, in crowdfunding, you’re targeting audiences willing to become backers – that too on crowdfunding.

So one of the biggest challenges with crowdfunding is getting interested audiences to back a project which is why most crowdfund marketers target tech enthusiasts instead of regular folks.

We do it differently though.

We target audiences who have an interest in the product. If there’s a new baby feed product, we target moms. If there’s a new eco-friendly toothbrush, we target parents.

Most of our backers are people who back for the first time who love a product so much, they are ready to pre-book it.

And all of this is possible because we carefully create our audience persona and then perform various tests to measure their response.

Over the years, we’ve perfected this and know exactly what kind of content the audience responds to. Some key questions we ask include:

You can add as many questions to this list as needed to niche down on your audience research.

3. The Holy Grail of Research for Crowdfunding Campaign is the Product Identity Sheet  

Ahh. The product sheet.

It’s a 30-page long document that we send out to clients to fill up.

It has everything you’d need to design a campaign:

• Value proposition
• Features of the product
• What makes it unique
• Top competitors
• Top dream audience
• Pricing justification

…and a whole lot more.

Some key questions that the worksheet should answer:

Identity: Who Are You?

• How do you stand out? Describe yourself in 1-2 sentences.
• How do you use the product? (How does it work – step by step)
• What industry are you in?

Performance: What Value Does Your Product Provide?

• What are your product’s key features?
• What value does your product provide?
• What problem do you solve and how do you solve this problem?
• How is your product solving the problem better than the competition?
• Who are your competitors & what are their price points?
• How affordable is it compared to your competitors?

Imagery: What Imagery is Associated with Your Product?

• What are examples of visuals that could be used for creative inspiration (photos, videos, etc.)?

Judgements: What judgements may people have?

• What positive judgments will people have about your product?
• What negative judgements may people have about your product?
• What concerns, fears, or uncertainties may people have about you, the product, and/or the brand?
• Why should people trust you?

Feelings – What Feelings Do You Want to Convey?

• How do you want people to feel when experiencing your product?
• How do you not want people to feel when experiencing your product?
• What is the voice of your message? (As a friend, a teacher, a doctor, a professional, an expert — what type of language will we be using?)
• What is the tone of your message? (Funny, somber, optimistic, epic, intense, friendly, etc.)

Now whether it’s your staff, your contractors or even your agency managing your campaign, they’ll simply refer to this product sheet to stay grounded.

Remember, the more in-depth you can go with your research, the better you can target the right people to back your project.

The post Three Important Research Documents to Prepare Before Starting Your Campaign Strategy appeared first on samitpatel.