Why Kickstarter Works

I am a big fan of fast growing crowd funding platform Kickstarter, arguably one of the most disruptive and innovative platforms to emerge for the creative community.

Less a technology site, more a socio-cultural movement, Kickstarter is changing how we make things, how we turn dreams into reality and make ideas come to life. While a lot of people focus on Union Square Ventures Fred Wilsons big name portfolio of Twitter, Zynga and Foursquare, I would argue, Kickstarter is the one that transforms the very idea of commerce.

On his blog, Author/publisher Craig Mod tells the story of how folks pledged $24,000 for Art Space Tokyo, a book he co-wrote with Ashley Rawlings, on Kickstarter. I think this quote sums up everything that is awesome about Kickstarter and why it works.

With Kickstarter, people are preordering your idea. Sure, theyre buying something tangible a CD, a movie, a book, etc but more than that, theyre pledging money because they believe in you, the creator. If you take the time to extrapolate beyond the obvious low-hanging goals, you can use this money to push the idea the project somewhere farther reaching than initially envisaged. And all without giving up any ownership of the idea. This micro-seed capital without relinquishment of ownership is where the latent potential of Kickstarter funding lies.