KickstarterForum.org

TAKennelly · by **TAKennelly** » Tue Sep 09, 2014 7:24 pm

I realize I JUST got done writing about how the use of statistics isn't a be-all end-all decision maker as to outcome, but I'm curious if there is anywhere to get some information on the demographics of each popular crow funding site? For instance, presumably, KickStarter is best known for creative projects, but we have also seen very popular business ideas and products for sale through the site. Why? What made the Coolest so effective on KickStarter that may have been less effective on, say Crowdfunder.com? Was it the creative aspect of the project? Would LinkedIn have been as popular on here?

My assumption is that these questions all relate to the types of people that visit the various crowd funding sites. Would love to know your thoughts!

sbriggman · by **sbriggman** » Thu Sep 11, 2014 2:17 am

Good question. Well, I think the motivations for backing on Crowdfunder would be much different than on Kickstarter for one, because they would be seeking a financial return rather than to own the product.

If you're referring to the demographic of creators, Kickstarter's stats (https://www.kickstarter.com/help/stats) and blog are good resources. The demographics of backers is a little bit more tricky. I also put together a list of some research studies on crowdfunding which explore the demographics of creators (at the end of the article): http://www.crowdcrux.com/crowdfunding-r ... per-study/

One paper: Gender Dynamics in Crowdfunding: Evidence on Entrepreneurs, Investors, Deals and Taste Based Discrimination

“In this paper we investigate whether a new form of venture financing – crowdfunding – reduces the barriers of female entrepreneurs to raise capital. Specifically, we investigate gender dynamics and biases in the process of raising funding to new projects via the leading crowdfunding platform – Kickstarter.

We find women made up about 35% of the project leaders and 44% of the investors on the platform. On average, men seek significantly higher levels of capital than women for their projects, and also raise more funds than women. However, women enjoy higher rates of success in funding their projects, even after controlling for category and goal amount. Only about 23% of projects that men invested in had female project leads. Conversely, more than 40% of projects that women invested in had female project leads."

Indiegogo is notoriously skimpy with the stats they release, so it's harder to pin down data for their platform. Wish someone would do a study on them.

TAKennelly · by **TAKennelly** » Fri Sep 12, 2014 7:16 pm

Very informative, thank you! You said something that is, to me, very pointed in there - Kickstarter's people often want to own the product. It strikes me, then, that the benefit may be less for someone looking to start a website - there are incentives that can be added that are applicable, but they aren't as tangible. What are your thoughts on that?

sbriggman · by **sbriggman** » Mon Sep 15, 2014 12:31 am

Yea, it's harder to crowdfund software or a web service/website in my experience. Coming up with rewards is much tougher. I explored whether or not software campaigns do well on Kickstarter in this article.

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