What is a Kickstarter?

To understand what kickstarter is you need to know what crowd funding is.

Crowdfuning is generally defined as “the practice of funding a project or venture by raising many small amounts of money from a large number of people, typically via the Internet.”

Kickstarter is a funding platform for creative projects. Everything from films, games, and music to art, design, and technology. Kickstarteris full of ambitious, innovative, and imaginative projects that are brought to life through the direct support of people like you!

But why use Kickstarter to fund my own ideas?

Well simply put, most of us don’t have enough time for work that puts food on the table and pursue an idea that requires full time dedication. The only options available at this point are to either forget about it or to obtain funding for your idea/project.

Historically speaking the main way to do this has been to go to an investor and convince them that your idea is better than the competition and that they should invest in you to help make your idea a reality so that you may both profit from it.

Easier Said, Than Done.Every investment has a chance

to fail meaning no matter what the idea or project, there is always risk associated, and with all the competition around the odds of your particular project receiving funding is low.

That’s where kickstarter comes in, instead of getting all the money from a single investor it lets the public vote with their money and essentially allows the supporters to take very little risk by donating a small sum of money to aid in the financial aspect of a project and with so many people on the web and anyone being able to donate it allows for limitless funding.

Although the concept of crowd funding has been around for a long time with the signing of the JOBS act it has only recently been recognized as a new industry.

However, this is generally uncharted territory in regards to law. There have two been legal disputes involving kickstarter.

Amazing ideas have come to realization because of kickstarter and this is just the beginning as crowd funding gains more popularity the chance for larger scale projects will grow.

References

http://www.forbes.com/sites/tanyaprive/2012/11/27/what-is-crowdfunding-and-how-does-it-benefit-the-economy/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kickstarter

https://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq/kickstarter%20basics