The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 66 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Chen: Pure shareholder profit maximization is unfit for humans
“If underneath the mandate is, at the end of the day, make the most money for shareholders, it's a really, it's not really a good fit for humans, and I don't think it's, It portends very well for society if this is what we accept as the only way to do it.”
Lee: Kickstarter's real purpose is community building, not fundraising
“Go to Kickstarter to build a community. It's not there to raise funds. It has the side effect of raising funds, but you're really raising a community, and that's the place to do it.”
Rubin: Kickstarter did not scale as rapidly as it could have
“Kickstarter comes out, they have a good design experience, they have a curated product, so it's easier to just have upfront positive stories, but they definitely don't scale as rapidly as they could either.”
Chen: Early-stage founders must be deluded and ignore the odds
“I think it's just that you do have to be deluded when you're in those stages. You have to not think about the odds. You know, you have to have just incredible belief that it is worth it.”
Kickstarter's founders told early investors they would never sell or IPO
“Going into it, we knew that we weren't building this to sell this, and we weren't trying to create a public company. And when we went out for investment, this was, you know, one of the first things we discussed with people.”
Perry Chen: Future common sense might have stopped me founding Kickstarter
“The delusion that I had, and I think the delusion that we all have as entrepreneurs, if I cut through that delusion with some common sense from the future, to be honest, who knows if I would have gone through with it.”
Pre-sales validate demand better than surveys because customers vote with dollars
“And that's, what's just so awesome about presale in general and Kickstarter is that you're truly, you're not serving, you're getting like money votes. And when people vote with their dollars, it's a big, it's very different than when they're voting with like a…”
Haydon Avoided Family Kickstarter Funding to Ensure Validation Came From Strangers
“I didn't want family and friends because I didn't want the polite donations. I wanted like stranger people to tell me whether or not this was something that would resonate with them.”
Lewis: Kickstarter excels at generating press and concept validation over capital
“Yeah, in hindsight, Kickstarter probably wasn't the easiest way to raise money, but it was an amazing way to get attention and get press and prove the concept.”
80% of first Kickstarter water pumps died within 30 days
“Our first pump was overheating in the unit because of the design constraints, and, you know, almost was like, 80% of the pumps, Alex, died within the first 30 days of the units going out on Kickstarter, and it was it literally put us out of business almost.”
Siminoff: Kickstarter kicked hardware creators off its platform in 2012
“Kickstarter kicked off all the hardware people at this point, so this is 2012.”
Copycats patrol Kickstarter to clone viral products using provided campaign specs
“There's companies out there that are patrolling Kickstarter and looking to see when people throw a successful campaign. And as soon as they see that overnight success, Then they jump on it, and they use the measurements that are provided on the Kickstarter to …”
Foley: Half of Peloton's 200 Kickstarter buyers were existing investors
“And 200 people I guess we raised 300,200 people bought, and a hundred of them were investors.”
Kickstarter explicitly told early investors it would not IPO or sell
“I think going into it, we knew that we weren't building this to sell this, and we weren't trying to create a public company. And when we went out for investment, this was, you know, one of the first things we discussed with people.”
Kickstarter rejects special promotional deals for big companies
“If you want, like, some special stuff from us or whatever, I mean, that's just not what we do. It's a relatively open door, but you're not any better than some young creator who's working on their first idea.”
Cohen: Copycats use Kickstarter measurements to instantly manufacture exact replicas
“There's companies out there that are patrolling Kickstarter and looking to see when people throw a successful campaign. And as soon as they see that overnight success, Then they jump on it, and they use the measurements that are provided on the Kickstarter to …”
Crowdfunding removes the social friction of directly asking friends for money
“There was this social friction before that existed, and the model has been able to eliminate that, or even put it in a way that's socially positive.”
Kickstarter refuses to offer special promotional partnerships or perks to large companies
“I think a lot of times big companies, they want to do a partnership, they want to sign a contract. That's, you know, we're like, listen, if you want to go do it, go log on the site. But if you want, like, some special stuff from us or whatever, I mean, that's …”
Kickstarter reincorporated as a Public Benefit Corporation in 2015 to protect stakeholders
“And then two years ago, we became a public benefit corporation, which is still a for-profit company, but it means that the obligations of the board and the executives and the company is to balance the shareholder interest with greater stakeholders, including t…”
Lee: Exploding Kittens raised over $1M in first 24 hours
“Within the first 24 hours, we passed the one million mark.”
Lee expected $10,000 on Kickstarter while his co-founder predicted $5 million
“And I said, 10,000 dollars. That seems about right. That's how much we'll earn off of it. And Matt immediately said, five million dollars.”
Lee: Bears vs. Babies raised roughly $5 million on Kickstarter
“And we raised like five million dollars on Kickstarter for that campaign.”
Exploding Kittens still holds the Kickstarter record for the most backers
“We're 10 years later, and it is still, holds the record for the most number of backers of any campaign in history.”
Exploding Kittens produced 700,000 decks for initial Kickstarter run
“So 219,000 backers made means that because most people wanted more than one deck we had to produce 700,000 decks of cards for our very first print run.”
Exploding Kittens set its $10,000 Kickstarter goal based on minimum print costs
“If I contact a local card manufacturer, I was like, what's the minimum order? And he said you have to produce a thousand decks of cards. Like, that's the minimum here. I was like, cool, ok, fine. And I was like, well, how much does that cost? And he said, oh, …”
Priority Bicycles Raised $550,000 During Its Kickstarter Campaign
“Five 50, so half a million dollars.”
Priority Sold Over $200,000 in Bikes on Kickstarter Day One
“And I think in the first day in Kickstarter, we sold over 200,000 dollars in bikes.”
Sean Sherman: The Sioux Chef had Kickstarter's most supported restaurant campaign
“At the time we were, out of all the restaurants on Kickstarter, I think we were the third most successful at that 150,000 dollar mark. But we also had the most supporters just because we had it, we did it very organically, and like our average was less than 60…”
Tapaninaho: Ooni experienced zero product returns from its initial Kickstarter batch
“I mean, we never had a return.”
ButcherBox converted about 60% of its initial Kickstarter backers into recurring subscribers
“I believe we sent about 1100 boxes to different customers, and we got like 60% of them to sign up. So right away we had 607 hundred subscribers.”
ButcherBox raised $210,000 on Kickstarter against a $25,000 initial target
“And so we did a 30 day campaign. We went out to raise 25,000 dollars, and we ended up raising 210,000 dollars.”
Rae raised $60,000 on Kickstarter for 'Awkward Black Girl' in 30 days
“And we asked for 30,000 dollars, and then over 30 days, you know, people almost helped us to raise almost 60.”
Arora: Back to the Roots generated $500k in aquaponics pre-orders
“We put a 100,000 dollar goal up for 30 days, and we ended up hitting 250,000 dollars of pre-orders on Kickstarter. And another two 50 can our website in the following 30 days after close. We had almost half a million dollars of pre-orders off of like a three m…”
Natalie Dawn Raised $104,000 on Kickstarter for Solo Album
“And that, she ended up raising a 104,000 dollars.”
Brooklinen's revenue jumped from $2 million in 2015 to $20 million
“Yeah, in terms of the growth so we did, including the Kickstarter in 2014, we did about four or 500,002 1015 was two million for the year, and then for the year of 2016 it jumped to about twenty million or so.”
Final Straw raised $1.89M selling collapsible straws on Kickstarter in one month
“And the big goal was 5000 straws, which would have been about 70,000 dollars. But we sold about 60,000 straws and closed a month later with 1.89 million dollars in the bank.”
Factory erroneously produced early Kickstarter shoes in identical men's and women's sizes
“The factory's made the men's and women's shoes exactly the same size.”
Brown: Allbirds precursor Kickstarter raised $120,000 in four days before being halted
“Ah, and then it went on the Kickstarter's homepage, and on their mailing list, where they send out sort of interesting projects, and, ah, it went to a hundred and, you know, 20,000 dollars in four days, and I had to stop it.”
Kickstarter reached profitability within 18 months of launch
“I think, you know, the first six months, not at all, no revenue. I think within a year after that, so probably within the first 18 months, we got in the black.”
Kickstarter founders wrote a 100-page spec before writing any code
“I think at the end we produced a document over a hundred pages about how the site would function, with zero code written, mind you.”
Comedian David Cross was Kickstarter's first angel investor
“I had a friend of mine, and her cousin is David Cross, the comedian from Arrested Development, and many other, Mr. Show, and great stuff. And so she connected us, and we went and had a drink at a bar, and I talked to him about the idea, and, ah, a few months l…”
Andy Baio screened early Kickstarter developers because founders couldn't review code
“One of the people we met was Andy Baio, who really helped us kind of figure out what kind of technology we should be using, and helped us interview the developers that we Would hire, and he eventually became our first CTO. That was tremendously helpful because…”
Kickstarter originated as an all-or-nothing funding model for concerts
“I thought, what if the people that, Would want to come to the show could have a say in that, and if enough people could do that before a certain point, then the show could happen, and if not, then it doesn't.”
Kickstarter has surpassed $3 billion in total project pledges
“Recently, we passed the three billion dollar pledge mark.”
Cohen: FinalStraw sold 60,000 units on Kickstarter, raising $1.89 million
“And the big goal was 5000 straws, which would have been about 70,000 dollars. But we sold about 60,000 straws and closed a month later with 1.89 million dollars in the bank.”
Kickstarter added 'not a store' warnings and prototype rules to manage risk
“So we said, hey, you need to show where your prototype is at. You need to add the risks and challenges of this project as you see them. In the checkout process, we had Kickstarter is not a store, and we linked to some of our policies to let people know what di…”