Analysis of 170,000 Kickstarter Campaigns Reveals 3 Fundamentals of a Crowdfunding Success

Analysis of 170,000 Kickstarter Campaigns Reveals 3 Fundamentals of a crowdfunding Success
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Catherine Clifford
March 21, 2016
There’s no magical “open sesame” key that will guarantee a crowdfunding campaign reaches its goal. But that doesn’t mean that success is a game of chance, either.
Researchers at University of Buffalo School of Management found that successful crowdfunding campaigns share fundamental similarities after they analyzed more than 170,000 Kickstarter campaigns that ran between the 2009 launch of the Brooklyn-based platform and the end of 2015. Only U.S.-based campaigns with a goal of more than $1,000 were included in the study. The research is currently under review for inclusion in an academic journal, but it hasn’t yet been officially published.
Below are the three leading indicators of successful donation-based crowdfunding campaigns, according to the research, which was a collaboration between Yong Li, an associate professor of strategy and entrepreneurship; Supradeep Dutta, assistant professor of operations management and strategy; and Christopher Courtney, a doctoral student.

1. Good photos and video
Unlike more traditional investment situations, a potential backer of a crowdfunding campaign is making a decision without any in-person, face-to-face time with an entrepreneur. The crowdfunding page has to do all the selling.
“Private equity investors follow a stringent due diligence process to assess the quality of a startup, while crowdfunding backers rely more on the information on the campaign’s webpage,” says Li in a statement announcing the results of the research.;