Kickstarter is a crowdfunding platform. The idea behind crowdfunding is to raise money for a project, cause, or business from the public (i.e., the crowd) rather than through other means. Perry Chen, Charles Adler, and Yancy Strickler launched Kickstarter in April 2009. As of May 4, 2023, the firm’s results included the raising of \($7.29\) billion in pledges from 22 million donors to fund 238,665 projects. Kickstarter is open to projects based in 25 countries, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Australia. Backers can come from anywhere in the world. While most people think of Kickstarter as a website, it launched a mobile app in February 2013.....

Discussion Questions:

1.Kickstarter is not the first crowdfunding site, yet it is the most successful. Develop a list of five reasons you believe account for Kickstarter’s success.
2.Is Kickstarter a viable alternative to raising equity funding or debt financing? If so, under what circumstances?
3.Indiegogo is a crowdfunding campaign that is like Kickstarter. Spend some time studying Indiegogo (www.indiegogo.com) and list three ways in which it is like Kickstarter and three ways in which it is different.
If you were the founder of a company and were looking to launch a crowdfunding campaign, would you choose Kickstarter or Indiegogo? Explain your answer.
4.Travel Tripod’s Kickstarter campaign raised \($12.1\) million from 27,168 backers (to see the campaign, go to www.kickstarter.com and type Peak Design into the search bar. Peak Design is the maker of the Travel Tripod). What benefits, other than raising money, did Travel Tripod glean from the campaign?
If one of the people that initiated the campaign told you, “I’m very satisfied with the money we raised via the Kickstarter campaign, but raising money was not the primary reason we did it,” what do you think the primary reason was or the primary reasons were?