Even though 2014 is over and we are nearing the end of 2015 reflecting on the past can better prepare you for the future. If you are thinking of starting a Kickstarter project to boost exposure for your brand and gain some funds to grow your business or have heard about Kickstarter projects and are interested in learning some facts about those projects this story is for you! I am starting a three part series on Kickstarter projects. The first one is about the overall successes and failures of projects by categories created by Kickstarter. I will drill down to look at jewelry projects of 2014 that were from the USA.
Some background information, Kickstarter started in 2009 and has helped raise over $1.9 billion for over 91,000 projects worldwide. There are 15 categories ranging from technology to fashion. Within those categories are sub categories to filter for a more specific project. I have taken data from the Kickstarter site to display the numbers in a context that will focus on jewelry projects in the United States. The Fashion category holds the sub category of jewelry. There are risks and rewards for every venture. Let’s look at success and failure rates for Kickstarter as a whole. Note: Data from Kickstarter was pulled in late August. The Link to look and find more information : Kickstarter Stats 2014
Successfully Funded Projects on Kickstarter
The median amount for successful funding falls into the $1,000 – $9,999 range.
Unsuccessfully Funded Projects on Kickstarter
In trying to gain Kickstarter funds it is all or nothing. Below is a table showing the percent of unsuccessfully funded projects and how close or far in many cases they came to being fully funded. A little over a fifth of the projects on Kickstarter never get a single donation. The over half (62.2%) of the unsuccessful projects only get 1-20% fund Combining the two percentages shows that almost 84% never reach being over 20% funded. The takeaway is that in the time frame you launch which is usually having a deadline of one month to earn your goal amount, if you aren’t seeing results within a week or so your campaign needs to step up the marketing or accept missing your goals. You rarely start strong and come up short as we see at the last range on the right less than 1% reach 81-99% and do not get funded.
Successfully Funded Fashion Projects on Kickstarter
So the next thought is how does jewelry hold up to this? The numbers for jewelry were a bit small to be used against the whole of Kickstarter so I will look at the larger category that holds jewelry which is Fashion.
Starting with the chart of successfully funded projects above and adding in the fashion numbers, you get the chart below. To the left are the actual number of projects and to the right I made those numbers into a percentage. Of the over 91,000 successfully funded projects only 3,060 of them were related to fashion. That is just 3.4% of the total. The projects then behave similar to the trend of the majority of funds falling into the $1,000-$9,999 range. Fashion does a little better than the average on projects earning $10,000-$99,999. That is the good news, now we’ll look at how the unsuccessful projects fared against Kickstarter as a whole.
Unsuccessfully Funded Fashion Projects on Kickstarter
Below are the numbers and percentages of the unsuccessful projects. As we saw at the beginning about one fifth of the unsuccessfully funded projects never get one donation. For the fashion category that number jumps to over a fourth (26.4%). Then the numbers behave similar to the average. Also looking at both the numbers for the successful and unsuccessful projects you can see that there are more failures than successes the percentage of successfully funded projects out of total projects sponsored is a 37% success rate. Taking out the fashion category that number jumps up to 38%. For the Fashion Category, Kickstarter project success rate is far worse, only 25% of launched Fashion projects ever reach their goals to be funded.
2014 Kickstarter Successfully Funded Projects: By Category
So these numbers take into account all projects since Kickstarter started, has 2014 seen any improvement? Below is the amount earned in total by the different main categories in Kickstarter, represented by a line (and labeled in millions). The bars show the amount of projects successfully funded. Technology, Design, and Games take in the most funds. Even though Music, Film and Publishing have the most number of successfully funded projects for 2014.
2014 Kickstarter Unsuccessfully Funded Projects: By Category
By category which were the most unsuccessfully funded projects in 2014? Below a bar graph with the most unsuccessful category on the left, which was Film&Video, being 20% of the most failed projects out of the group. From the success chart above we saw this as having a large amount of successfully funded projects but having a lower total earning than other categories. This area has a low barrier to entry a camera and an idea can get you started, so the competition is much hard and the audience much more fragmented than with other categories. It’s no surprise to see Music and Publish being in the top for failures with the reasons already listed above. Fashion (which includes jewelry) is near the end at 6%. So how did the Jewelry stack up against fashion as a whole?
2014 Kickstarter Projects: Jewelry Projects in the USA
I looked at jewelry projects started in 2014 that were from the USA. The numbers got smaller but sample is a good start to seeing the trend with Kickstarter Projects. Below are the 2014 Jewelry projects that were started in 2014 and ended in 2014. These projects were also not canceled or deleted. Below the table shows only 27% of the 159 total jewelry projects were successfully funded.
2014 Kickstarter Successfully Funded Projects: Jewelry Projects in the USA
Looking at the 43 successfully funded projects 81% earned less than $10,000 in 2014. No jewelry project reached the 1 million range.
2014 Kickstarter Unsuccessfully Funded Projects: Jewelry Projects in the USA
Now to the unfunded jewelry projects of 2014, this was 73% of successfully launched projects that did not meet or exceed the goals set to be funded. Almost one-fifth never received any funds and 63.8% only reached a fifth of their goal. Very similar to the overall numbers seen at the beginning of the article.
Conclusion
So for those thinking of launching a Kickstarter campaign these are numbers you need to consider before going into a time consuming venture. You need to have a solid strategy before putting your brand out to the public. Failure should not stop you from trying. Those that are successful gain a new client base, tell their story to a different audience and gain funds to help move their vision forward. Next article I will look at some more Kickstarter data to help improve on best practices for a successful campaign. Follow me on Facebook for more updates. Look for the second post in the coming week!