It’s a fact that it’s never been easier to start a business. But that means we will have numerous failed attempts on the market. Success depends on many different factors, including knowledge, expertise, timing, and luck.
One of the biggest obstacles entrepreneurs faced in the past was funding. They had many problems obtaining capital for their business ideas. Luckily, a Kickstarter appeared, and helped thousands of companies to bring their ideas to life.
Today we will show you some of the best Kickstarter projects in the last decade. From their examples, you will see what you need to possess to successfully establish your startup.Â
These best Kickstarter projects will show you the reasons why their project was a success, along with a key lesson you can use to develop your campaign.
Pebble
Pebble startup is all about smartwatches and their true potential. Pebble produced smart watches that were among the first in the market to use electronic paper displays, which made them easy to read and provided long battery life.
The project was developed by the Pebble Technology Corporation, with the company creating three watches: Pebble, Pebble Time, and Pebble Time Steel.
Those smartwatches offered their users a variety of features, such as:
- Internet connectivity
- Access to email
- LCD memory
- Step tracking
- Thousands of apps
- Android and iOS compatibility
- Water resistance
- Seven-day battery life
Being launched in January 2013, Pebble was one of the first companies to release a smartwatch. By being on the market for more than 2 years before Apple Watch, Pebble gained a pioneering advantage.
Pebble Time was released in May 2015, with Pebble Time Steel following in August of the same year. Those two Kickstarter campaigns both raised several millions of dollars, which makes Pebble the most backed-up company in the history of this crowdfunding platform.
How much did it make?
The three Pebble watches received a combined over $20 million from 78,471 backers from all over the world. This gave the startup a significant amount of capital to invest in development and production.
Why is it one of the best Kickstarter projects?
The Pebble smartwatch was designed to be stylish, customizable, and easily connected to smartphones, which was a revolutionary idea at the time. By being one of the first companies that released a smartwatch, Pebble was able to forge a new market.
The key lesson entrepreneurs can take from Pebble
Besides being one of the first companies in a given niche, Pebble also did a great job with advertising and strategic partnership. Pebble created a strong community of tech enthusiasts through social media and events that helped them build the brand. Also, they partnered with major retailers like Best Buy and Amazon, which helped increase the visibility and accessibility of the product.
Fidget Cube: A Vinyl Desk Toy
Fidget Cube is a desk toy with an unusual design that is highly addictive. You can use it anywhere, at work, on public transport, at home, in lectures, in nature, etc.
The toy may look like a dated bank safe, but its six slides are designed to occupy people and relieve them from stress and anxiety.
Those six slides are:
- Click: satisfies the urge to click your pen
- Flip: lets you fidget in silence
- Breathe: rubbing reduces anxiety
- Spin: occupies fidgeters seeking circular movements
- Glide: replicates the feel of using a joystick
- Roll: rolling movements for active fidgeting
The creators of Fidget Cube, brothers Matthew and Mark McLachlan, came up with the idea when they noticed that people often fidget with objects like pens, paper clips, or their fingers to get rid of stress. They wanted to create a product that could provide similar relief, but in several ways.
How much did it make?
The Kickstarter campaign for Fidget Cube was a huge success, raising over $6 million in funding from over 150,000 backers. Since then, the product has become popular in treating people with anxiety, ADHD, or similar conditions.
Why is it one of the best Kickstarter projects?
Fidget cube focused on one of the biggest problems of the modern world – stress. But this toy offered several ways for people to deal with it. You got different stress-relief techniques in just one gadget. The Fidget cube is small, mobile, and affordable.
The key lesson entrepreneurs can take from Fidget Cube
Be helpful. Create a product that resolves problems and that makes life much easier for people. You don’t need to build something complex it only needs to be functional and easy to use.
Bring Reading Rainbow Back
Bring Reading Rainbow Back is a campaign for creating a library of interactive books for children’s education.
Reading Rainbow was a show that ran from 1983 to 2009 on PBS Kids, the largest provider of educational television in the USA. The show was hosted by actor LeVar Burton (known for his role as lieutenant Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: The Next Generation) who encouraged kids to read by exploring different books.
Burton understood the value of this show, especially because he knew how many kids learned to read through it. That is why he started a Kickstarter campaign in 2014 to bring back the old series. He aimed to make a web-based program that would be integrated into classrooms across the US, with schools, teachers, and students having free access to its resources.
How much did it make?
Bring Reading Rainbow Back campaign reached over 105 thousand people and raised around $5.5 million. In addition to that sum, famous actor Seth MacFarlane (the author of Family Guy) also donated $1 million.
Why is it one of the best Kickstarter projects?
We don’t need to explain much about this campaign, it is the noblest cause on our list. By offering a service that promotes social benefits, this project got support from many people.
The key lesson entrepreneurs can take from Bring Reading Rainbow Back
Do something good. Implement a social cause into your business and make it appealing to different groups of people. Build a value that isn’t just for profit but something you will leave to the community.
The Veronica Mars Movie Project
The Veronica Mars Movie Project was a Kickstarter campaign launched in March 2013 by series creator Rob Thomas and actress Kristen Bell who played the lead role, to raise funds for a movie sequel.
Veronica Mars was a teen noir mystery drama that aired for three seasons between 2004 and 2007, with a total of 64 episodes. But the success of the Kickstarter campaign allowed the crew to shoot one more season in 2019.
The series and movie are concentrated on Veronica Mars, whose best friend is murdered, and her father was replaced from the place of county Sheriff, so she started investigating mysteries in her hometown, Neptune.
The campaign was launched after years of fans asking for a sequel of the show, which had been canceled in 2007 after three seasons, without proper disclosure.
How much did it make?
The campaign was a huge success, surpassing its funding goal in less than 12 hours and eventually raising over $5.7 million from more than 91,000 backers, making it the biggest film project on the platform at the time.
Why is it one of the best Kickstarter projects?
The success of this campaign can be explained by the disappointment of the fanbase because of the way how abruptly the show ended. The audience did everything in their power to bring back the original cast and regain something they’d lost.
The key lesson entrepreneurs can take from The Veronica Mars Movie Project
Always look to connect with your audience. They will value and cherish that and will be your devoted followers in tough times. If you can keep up with audience expectations, they will always be with your business.
Frosthaven
Frosthaven is finally here! And it was worth waiting for.
For those who don’t know, Frosthaven is a cooperative dungeon crawl board game, a standalone sequel to the award-winning Gloomhaven. It promises to offer a new and exciting adventure for players to explore.
The main features of this game are:
- It’s for one to four players (the community says that three is the best)
- Ages 14 and up
- 30-120 playing time per session
- A 10-scenario campaign
- There are over 25 puzzle scenarios
- Six starting character minis
- 30+ ability cards
- 12+ custom attack modifier cards
- There are two seasons — summer and winter
The Kickstarter campaign was launched by the game’s creators, Isaac Childres and Cephalofair Games, who later published the game.
How much did it make?
At the end of the campaign, Frosthaven raised nearly $13 million from over 83 thousand backers. That made it the most successful Kickstarter campaign for a game until Kingdom Death: Monster surpassed it.
Why is it one of the best Kickstarter projects?
Frosthaven is the sequel to the highly acclaimed game Gloomhaven, and they just upgraded the existing popular world, by adding an engaging storyline, cooperative gameplay, and high-quality components. They already got a brand, so just needed to add freshness to the whole concept.
The key lesson entrepreneurs can take from Frosthaven
Build a community before you take your product/service to the market. Frosthaven also included backers of the campaign by giving them a variety of rewards, including early access to the game, exclusive game components, and the opportunity to have their name included in the game’s credits.
Exploding Kittens
If you haven’t already guessed, Exploding Kittens is a strategic card game for people who love cats and explosions (not necessarily in that order).
The game is a strategic, cat-powered version of Russian roulette and has quickly become a popular party game. The premise is simple: you draw cards until one of the players draws an exploding kitten and loses the game. Just like in Russian roulette, the tension rises with each passing turn because you have fewer and fewer cards to draw.
The game is meant to be played by two, three, or four people, and the main set of rules includes:
- Ability to peek at cards before you select them
- Forcing your opponents to draw out multiple cards
- Making your opposing players shuffle the deck
Exploding Kittens is founded in 2015 by Elan Lee (Xbox game designer), Matthew Inman (creator of The Oatmeal – a webcomic and humor website), and Shane Small (creative director from Netflix, Hulu & Facebook). As you can see, the founders of Exploding Kittens were already well-known in the entertainment industry, with a large following on social media that hugely helped in the Kickstarter campaign.
How much did it raise?
Exploding Kittens was the most successful Kickstarter project at the time, raising over $8.7 million from around 220 thousand people. This campaign is still among the 10 most successful on Kickstarter. The campaign was well-designed and included creative rewards, such as custom artwork and signed copies of the game.
Why is it one of the best Kickstarter projects?
Many people believe that Exploding Kittens exploited the hype caused by another successful Kickstarter campaign with a similar concept called Cards Against Humanity. CAH changed the expectation about card games and offered innovation to the market.
Authors of Exploding Kittens accepted their business model, and after the success of the initial game, the team continued to release new versions and expansions. That helped grow their business, kept people’s interests, and increased revenue.
The key lesson entrepreneurs can take from Exploding Kittens
The most important advice you can take from Exploding Kittens is to read the market and find areas on the rise. You need to catch them as they’re hot and get the most from them by offering creative and unique concepts. The success of the startup can be attributed to a combination of a unique idea, an effective crowdfunding campaign, and strong marketing.
Coolest Cooler
A disclaimer – this product found the place on our list of best Kickstarter projects because of its idea and to show you what a good premise looks like. The Coolest Cooler eventually closed because of poor management. Although they raised a notable amount of money, over 20 thousand of their backers never received the marketed product.
The Coolest Cooler was a portable, all-in-one party system that included various features such as:
- Blender
- USB charger
- LED light
- Gear tie down
- Storage
- Bottle opener
- Cooling
The Coolest Cooler was designed not to only cool the drinks, but to give you a full party experience.
How much did it make?
The Kickstarter campaign raised over $13 million in funding and was backed by over 60 thousand people.
Why is it one of the best Kickstarter projects?
The secret behind the success of this campaign is that prototype of Coolest Cooler was designed in the way to solve several problems at once.
While this is an exceptional tactic (that is why we used this example, to be successful, you need to deliver on what you’ve promised. Coolest Cooler’s inability to do so is why its initial success turned into catastrophic failure.
The key lesson entrepreneurs can take from Coolest Cooler
Your customers count on you, so you need to deliver what you promised. If you advertise certain features of your product and service, you need to make sure you comply with them.
Best Kickstarter projects: conclusion
These six examples of successful Kickstarter campaigns (and one that gets significantly funded, but failed in the end) show how you can raise funds for your startups. You now have platforms like Kickstarter, where people will back up if you have an original idea or you offer multipurpose products to market.
So, take the lessons from these best Kickstarter projects (even Coolest Cooler, whose ability to solve multiple pain points is an example to learn from) and use them to inform your campaign, one that can bring your business to life.