Funding Your Flash of Cash with a Kickstarter Crowdfunding Campaign
Once you’ve had a flash of cash and decided to act on it by starting a new business, then you will need to come up with some funding to bring it to life. If you don’t have enough money in your bank account, or enough credit left on your credit cards, then one of the things you should consider is crowdfunding using Kickstarter.
Before you decide to launch a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign for your flash of cash, you should recognize that most of the funds you raise on these platforms will come from your friends and family – especially to meet your initial funding goal. Also it’s important that you study some of the existing campaigns to understand what other entrepreneurs have raised money for, how much they raised and the content they created to raise the funds.
In the following table you will see a breakdown of the top Kickstarter crowdfunding campaigns to date. Take note of the different crowdfunding categories available on Kickstarter and decide which one your flash of cash falls into. Once you’ve figured that out, then you need to review the entire category and look for campaigns that would be most similar to yours and try to determine key aspects that made them either successful or unsuccessful.
| Crowdfunding Project Name | Category | Description | Funding Amount Raised | Number of Bakers | Amount per Backer | Date
Funded |
| Mini Museum | Art | A collection of rare specimens, like a T-Rex tooth, from Hans Fex that is contained in a pocket sized book. | $1,226,811 | 5,030 | $244 | 3/20/14 |
| The Order of the Stick | Comics | Book compilation of older out of print comics by Rich Burlew. | $1,254,120 | 14,952 | $84 | 2/21/12 |
| This is Fine Plush Dog | Crafts | From KC Green comes a plush toy boy dog based on This is Fine webcomic strip. | $454,717 | 12,705 | $36 | 9/2/16 |
| Where the Heck is Matt? | Dance | Matt Harding dances around the world and puts the videos on YouTube. | $146,075 | 4,133 | $35 | 12/17/15 |
| Pebble Time Smartwatch | Design | Variety of smart watches that come in different colors and offer a variety of time functions. | $20,338,986 | 78,471 | $259 | 3/27/15 |
| 8-in-1 Evolution Bra | Fashion | Bra developed by Knix Wear that can be worn in 8 different ways. | $1,105,177 | 13,642 | $81 | 10/24/15 |
| Mystery Science Theater 3000 | Film & Video | Joel Hodgson is bringing back this classic TV series about B movies. | $5,764,229 | 48,270 | $119 | 12/12/15 |
| Anova Precision Cooker | Food | Sous vide cooking circulator tool to make sure food is cooked to precise temperature like in high end restaurants. | $1,811,321 | 10,508 | $172 | 6/17/14 |
| Exploding Kittens | Games | Card game by Elan Lee that is suitable for people of all ages. | $8,782,571 | 219,382 | $40 | 2/19/15 |
| Newsbud | Journalism | Online news outlet create by Sibel Edmonds that is funded by people instead of a large corporation. | $171,755 | 1,330 | $129 | 6/22/16 |
| Theatre Is Evil | Music | Studio album by Amanda Palmer with The Grand Theft Orchestra. | $1,192,793 | 24,883 | $48 | 5/31/12 |
| Wonder Bokeh Lens | Photography | Recreation of Primoplan 58 f1.9 camera lens by Meyer Optik USA for landscape and portraits. | $691,163+ | 895+ | $772 | 10/12/16 |
| Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls | Publishing | Children’s book with stories of famous women from Serena Williams to Queen Elizabeth | $675,614 | 13,454 | $50 | 5/26/16 |
| Pono Music Player | Technology | Neil Young’s Ponomusic player allows the listener to hear music with higher resolution than has been traditionally available. | $6,225,354 | 18,220 | $342 | 4/15/14 |
| Opera for Everybody | Theater | Opera di Firenze will offer live streaming performances of the Operas that they produce. | $361,930 | 426 | $850 | 7/15/16 |
+ Campaign still running. Expect these amounts to increase further.
As you review the table of projects above, there are a few key takeaways you should understand. Firstly, to date, these are the most funded crowdfunding projects on Kickstarter in their respective categories. That means that if you go explore other projects in the category, you will find many that raised significantly less money and others failing to meet their funding goal. If you need to raise a modest amount of money for your flash of cash, think thousands and not millions, then a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign may be suitable for your initial funding needs
Also you should examine how many backers each of the projects received. To raise a lot of money to fund your flash of cash on Kickstarter, you will need a lot of backers. That means that you will need to have a lot of friends and followers on social media networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. You will need to tap into these networks to get the word out about your flash of cash, and encourage them to contribute to your crowdfunding campaign. If your friends and followers like your flash of cash, they will spread the word to their friends and followers also on the social networks. This will improve your chances of meeting or exceeding the funding goal for your flash of cash.
One other item you should look for is the average amount contributed per backer. If you offer a lot of reward levels that are not directly related to the project you are trying to fund, like t-shirts and coffee cups, then you will need to find even more backers for your flash of cash. This will likely lower the average amount you raise from each backer, and increase your fulfillment expense for your flash of cash.
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