Fund Your Project Or Invention With KickStarter.com

I recently received this in the mail.

Looks boring enough, but it’s actually an amazing little iPhone 4 stand and tripod mount from www.theglif.com

Pardon the french on the pic

Here’s another pic:

Is this a useful and cool product? Yes and yes.

But that’s not the point of this post. The real story here is how this product came about.

A few months ago two guys came with a prototype of the Glif, but they needed funding to mass produce it. Enter Kickstarter.com. Kickstarter is a site where anyone could broadcast their dream, how much they need, and if people believe in it enough, provide a vehicle whereby to receive funding.

So Dan Provost and Tom Gerhardt made a profile, put up their video requesting $10,000….and people started to give.

As you can see from the pic, they needed at least $10,000, and received a total of $137,417. Not too shabby. And if someone pledged at least $20, they would essentially be pre-ordering one. I believed in their project, and I jumped in. That was a few months ago. In the meantime they would send video updates so you can track their progress.

Another project from Kickstarter is breaking records for attracting the most buy-in in the history of Kickstarter.

So what’s the lesson here?

I think this is a powerful lesson in presenting a clear vision, and providing a simple way for people to contribute to the vision. It’s a democratic process where anyone with a good idea can step forward, cut out any middle men, and see their project through to fruition. I just think there’s something really liberating and powerful about the whole process.

So what do you think? Have you heard of Kickstarter? Anything stand out to you?

Related posts:

1. When the Big Project Fails