Eric Migicovsky designed the Pebble Smartwatch as a concept for a watch that could display messages from a smartphone, and was able to raise over $350,000 for this idea from angel investors as a small startup, which is a very impressive and rare feat. His company was unable to attract additional investors, however so he changed the name of his company and turned to crowdfunding for the product. Launching a Kickstarter campaign with a fundraising target of $100,000, Migicovsky met his goal within two hours of going live, and within less than a week, the project became the most funded project in the history of Kickstarter, closing with $10,266,844 from 68,928 people. That is the power of crowdfunding. He went back to crowdfunding in his second iteration of his smartwatch and once again smashed Kickstarter records, raising $20,338,986 from 78,471 backers. Having already grown to over $5.1 billion worldwide, crowdfunding is not a gimmick, as seen from this example, but instead is a legitimate form of alternate finance. Crowdfunding allowed Pebble to get the lift they needed to launch their smartwatch, and without it, I would not be wearing this smartwatch right now as I type this introduction. Truly, as a result of crowdfunding, many innovations are made possible by crowdfunding since they allow for small companies to fund innovation without relinquishing their precious equity (although some forms of crowdfunding do now allow for equity to be offered as a result of new legislation) in their company or taking on large loans with even larger interest rates. Crowdfunding revolves around this key concept: many people giving smaller amounts can have the same effect as few people giving large amounts.

Crowdfunding has always intrigued me in that it provides possibility for anyone to follow their dreams and produce their ideas, provided that the public appreciates their ingenuity. So, I decided that a Capstone Project centered around it might just be interesting enough to keep me from losing steam in my research halfway through the year. I am always looking through Kickstarter or Indiegogo for products that make me think, “wow, I didn’t think about that” or “cool, I didn’t know that I need this, but now I have to have it.” I also enjoy learning about new product concepts that have seen birth as a result of successful crowdfunding on YouTube or Netflix. What I know before research about crowdfunding, however, is fairly little. My knowledge of the process of launching a successful crowdfunding product only consists of observations. I have come to see what projects get funded and which ones don’t, and some of the elements that seem to guarantee a campaign’s success, but to quote businessman and inventor Richard Branson, “You don't learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.” I want to learn how to walk, and I am not afraid of falling over. This Capstone Project needs to show progression in knowledge gathered, so I plan on demonstrating this by launching my own product and crowdfunding campaign.

The Crowdfunding Bible (the book I read this summer) was a great starting point, but now as I approach my first move, I would like to outline a strategy. I want to determine concrete steps for designing and launching a product, so that I can take those steps, research them, and take a product through them as I go from move to move. Who knows, maybe some day you could be wearing a lightweight, custom printed, tyvek belt that I was able to successfully launch through crowdfunding.