How does a Kickstarter work?

 I'm sure you've seen Kickstarter projects all over the internet, whether it be because of a rush of people claiming it to be the next big thing or seeing other people pushing their project. However, what is Kickstarter? How does a Kickstarter work? What are these campaigns that have been popping up everywhere? Well firstly let's start off with what Kickstarter is, what it does, and how it came to be.

Kickstarter was created in 2009 by Yancey Strickler, Perry Chen and Charles Adler to "help bring creative projects to life". The idea being if you have an idea for a project but don't have the funding required to do so you can use Kickstarter as a way to find the people that would want that project. The best part however about Kickstarter is it's an "all or nothing" kind of platform, meaning if you don't meet your set goal by the set deadline then none of the money goes anywhere and all pledges are canceled.

The basis of this comes from Perry Chen who originally came up with the idea of being a way for people to fund projects from his band wanting to release an album. The band wanted $10,000 to put together the album but didn't have the funds so they went on Kickstarter and were able to meet their goal by selling various amounts of "perks" in return for people's contributions going towards funding the band.

What about these "perks" you speak of? Well, that's the basis of what is known as a "reward-based system" in which people pledge money and in return (depending on the amount of money given) they will receive a reward. These rewards can range from receiving some kind of physical object, getting an inside look at a project before others, a "Thank you" credit on the Kickstarter page. However, rewards can also be something as simple as helping fund a project they really believe in and feel has some kind of value to it. These are all different ways of saying that backers not only get an opportunity to help fund a project but they get something out of it as well.

Kickstarter also offers something else in their guidelines for they don't allow the funding of anything illegal, pornographic, or hate-based. This means if someone has a project that they feel needs to be funded and wants to contribute towards it without actually getting the money they can still do so by lending support in the way of time or things like having a link to the project. Once again though this is not something that Kickstarter will support so businesses looking to promote through this platform are out of luck.

So now that you know what Kickstarter is, how it works, and the basics of how it started you may be wondering why there are so many campaigns popping up everywhere. Well, that's because Kickstarter is becoming more and more popular as a way for projects to gain funding through the support of others.

However, this brings us back to our first question "How does a Kickstarter project work?". Well, first you have to have a project to want to fund. This could be anything from being unable to afford the cost of making something or just not having enough money in general. You then find out how much that specific project costs, set your deadline for when you'll need the funds by, and create a description as well as any photos or videos needed explaining your campaign. After that, you set your goal for how much you want to make by a certain date and then wait for people to fund it.

That's it, hopefully, you meet your goal and get all the funds needed to make whatever you planned on making with Kickstarter.

If the project doesn't meet its goal by the deadline then you don't get any of the funds at all. Not everyone uses this part of how a Kickstarter works in their favor though, some people just create a campaign for fun or to see if anyone will actually take them up on the offer. Kickstarter does allow users to set flexible goals in order to give themselves some leeway in case they don't reach their full goal but it is not encouraged.

So now that you know how a Kickstarter campaign works hopefully you also understand just how important it is to adhere to the guidelines they set forth in order to avoid getting your account and project taken down.

Location: United Kingdom

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