POM Assignment on Mission Statement

Amartya Majumdar

KickStarter

Kickstarter Mission Statement: “To help bring

creative projects to life.”

KickStarter: a brief intro-

Kickstarter is an online crowd-funding platform, operating through the website
www.kickstarter.com.
Crowd-funding as a concept has been growing in popularity during the last
half-decade. It works as follows – a person has a great idea for a product, and
the necessary skills to bring it to fruition, but not the funding. Perhaps his idea
is too radical and innovative, making conservative sources of funds uneasy, or
perhaps it has a very niche audience, for which not many people are willing to
invest. This person can then make a pitch, on Kickstarter’s website, through a 3
minute video and business plans, to ask for funds from people around the
world who would like to see this product realised. The people of the web, if
they want, can then pledge money towards this product, and if the product
gets enough pledges as per its funding goal, the funds are transferred to the
creator.
Unlike the floating of a new company, Kickstarter backers receive no shares or
have any ownership of the company. They are entitled other benefits as
decided by the creator. Benefits almost always include a free unit of the
product. Benefits could also include customized, special editions of the product
or other freebies. Most of all, backers get to help bring to life a product that
they are interested in, that they might have not got otherwise.
Creativity and Success-
Just as the mission statement states, Kickstarter has been instrumental in
bringing to live some very creative projects
One of the best examples of a Kickstarter success story is the Pebble watch.
Pebble Technology Corporation, back in 2012 had a revolutionary idea – a
watch that has connect with a smart phone and extract and display
notifications. Essentially a smart watch – the very first smart watch.
The Pebble watch was in many ways an excellent product. It could handle push
notifications, track physical activity, and have an open source app-store. An
app-store which could also provide, for download, many different watch faces.
In addition, the watch itself had a battery life of just under a week, so that one
didn’t have to constantly charge the device. Couple that with the fact they
were planning to retail it for only USD 100, Pebble thought it had a winner. The
banks and venture capitalists on the other hand did not think so.
Pebble turned to Kickstarter in the May of 2014, asking the people of the world
of funds. The CEO Eric Migikovsky said that they would need funds to the tune
of USD 50,000 to start production and set that as the Kickstarter funding goal.
He hoped to get that amount in a months’ time.
In just under a week, Pebble Technology Corporation received more that USD
10 million in pledges. Today it is just on the heels of its 7th successful product
launch.
“To help bring creative projects to life.” indeed