Investing and Global Finance News

Kickstarter Helps Fund Ideas in an Untraditional Way

Eric Migicovsky, an engineer, had a great idea. He wanted to create watches that could show information from an iPhone such as caller ID and text messages. But when he went after backers the traditional way, he came up against a brick wall.

Luckily Migicovsky could turn to Kickstarter. This innovative web site gives ordinary people a chance to back an idea they love, for as little as $99, and as a bonus Migicovsky sent each investor a Pebble watch to say thank-you.

Within two hours of the project going up on the site he had raised his goal of $100,000.

“By that night, we were at $600, 000,” said Mr. Migicovsky, who is 25 and a recent engineering graduate of the University of Waterloo. “We went out for a beer to celebrate, went home and slept, and when we woke up, we were at a million dollars.”

As of last Friday Migicovsky had 50,000 backers who had pledged $7 million, with another two weeks to go before the fund-raising window closes.

“This year marks the year that we’ve seen Kickstarter enter the real world in a number of ways,” said Perry Chen, one of its founders. “At Tribeca Film Fest, there are a dozen different Kickstarter-backed films, there’s an installation at the Whitney Biennial that was a Kickstarter project and we just had our birthday party at a Kickstarter-funded restaurant.”

Sorry, comments are closed for this post.