Kickstarter’s stats crossed an impressive milestone yesterday: 100,000 projects launched on the platform since it went live in April of 2009.
It’s official! Over 100K projects have launched on Kickstarter. Can’t wait to see what comes next! kickstarter.com/help/stats
— Kickstarter (@kickstarter) May 28, 2013
About 42,000 of those projects have been successful, funneling $535 million to project creators in that time. About half of all launched projects land in the music and film spaces.
Kickstarter’s success has been incredible. Credit the creators of the site – Perry Chen, Yancey Stickler and Charles Adler – with creating a great brand and executing the plan perfectly. Also credit Lance Ivy, who has been the lead developer since the site launched and who has kept the site running and free of major downtime despite the viral nature of the projects themselves. Couple that with fantastic UI and arguably the best brand name in the business and it’s easy to see why Kickstarter is #1 right now.
Crowdfunding as a means of raising capital is increasingly becoming part of the global vocabulary. It becomes more mainstream with every TV appearance, news blurb and successful project. Kickstarter and the other rewards-based sites showed the world that the Internet could disrupt artistic projects and consumer presales for the better.
Perhaps the most amazing thing about Kickstarter in particular is the fervor with which the media (mainstream and otherwise) covers the platform and the projects on it. It’s clear that the narrative here is one that resonates with readers. Some feel the need to debate the legitimacy of Zach Braff’s place in the space or a host of other concerns, but in the end they’re largely irrelevant. Anyone can crowdfund and crowdfunding is for everyone.
Kickstarter seems poised to continue its domination of the rewards-based space. Soon a more high-stakes form of crowdfunding will be made legal and the narrative will again shift, but for many aspiring artists, designers, filmmakers and musicians, Kickstarter is now and will always be the king.