How To Raise $3 Million On Kickstarter, In 3 Days. Guaranteed.

In sociology, there is a phenomenon called the Matthew Effect.

It’s the idea of “accumulated advantage.” The idea that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. 

It’s basically says that if you are the top dog, you will stay the top dog, because you are the top dog. 

As an example, if Sarah gets her book on the New York Times best sellers list, Sarah may likely stay on the New York Times best sellers list, because being on the New York Times best sellers list helps her sell more books! 

At Funded Today we help our clients’ projects raise $100,000 to $1,000,000+. While those figures are decent, we are always looking for ways to get better results. We are always analyzing data, trends, and patterns. 

And guess what! We have found a specific Matthew Effect, which if you can unleash, you will raise an extra $3 million+ on your Kickstarter project. 

Take a look at the Coolest Cooler graph below. This project raised $3 million in the last 3 days on Kickstarter. Most people think they raised this much in the last 3 days simply “because”.

On August 27, which was the 3rd to last day of the campaign, Coolest Cooler raised $626,062. This didn’t “just happen” by chance. (It also didn’t happen because of the 48 hour reminder email.)

Pledges shot up on August 27 because Coolest Cooler became the most funded campaign ever on that day. It beat out the previous “most funded” Kickstarter up to that time, Pebble Watch.

What happens when you become the most funded project of all time on Kickstarter? Blogs and websites write about you, if you know how to do PR outreach well.

In other words, because you are the top dog, you become the top dog even more.

Less than a year later, Pebble Time surpassed Coolest Cooler as the most funded campaign of all time.

Click on the graph below, and please tell me: On what day did Pebble Time become the most funded campaign ever?

If you guessed March 3, you are correct.

On March 3 Pebble Time beat out Coolest Cooler as the most funded project. Thousands of blogs and websites wrote about the newest, most funded project of all time, Pebble Time.

Because Pebble Time raised $13.2 million, and became the most funded Kickstarter project, simply having that status raised another $3 million (really $4.5 million if you look at the 3 day residual effect of the press).

Pebble Time became even more of a top dog because they were the top dog.

It’s the Matthew Effect.

Here’s another interesting question and fact.

Q: Which campaign has raised the most money in a single day (as of June 12, 2015)?

A: Look at the graph above. It was Pebble Time on their first day. Pebble Time raised $7.4 million. Thousands of journalists wrote about Pebble’s second Kickstarter because of Pebble’s success and popularity on their first Kickstarter. It’s the Matthew Effect again!

Now, I should have said at the beginning, that to raise this guaranteed $3 million, you first will need to raise $20.3 million to beat out Pebble Time.

Obviously, that isn’t too practical.

So let’s make it practical. Here are a few ways you may be able to apply the Matthew Effect to your Kickstarter or Indiegogo project to raise you more money:

• If your project becomes the most funded project in a given category, e.g. Games, Technology, Apps, etc. use that angle to get press.
• If your project becomes the most funded project in a given locality, e.g. country, state, city, etc. use that angle to get press in that specific locality.
• If your project becomes the most funded X, e.g. Luggage, Wallet, Watch, etc. use that angle to get press.

Here are two quick examples of how this more practical approach has been used:

1. With our client Trunkster, we got press by taking the angle: “the first Kickstarter project in 2015 to surpass $1 million raised.”
2. With the Kickstarter Bloodstained, once Bloodstained became the most funded “video game,” they got press for exactly that, the most funded “video game” ever. That press raised them an estimated $250,000 extra in pledges.

Best of luck applying the Matthew Effect to your crowdfunding campaign, and really to everything else you do!

If you unleash the Matthew Effect, you will get results.