Nederland startup Solar Greens nears launch of My Terrace Farmer compact greenhouses | Boulderopolis

February 26, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

NEDERLAND — Startup Solar Greens Co. in Nederland is working on fulfilling the first 16 orders of its balcony-size greenhouses, with plans for an official launch in the fall once pre-production and external field-testing are complete.

The hope is that the My Terrace Farmer greenhouses will appeal to a variety of gardeners and would-be gardeners who might have limited outdoor space or live in a harsh climate with a short growing season like the mountains.

The company wrapped up a Kickstarter.com crowdfunding campaign earlier this month, raising nearly $21,000. Since then, another $6,000 in orders has come in. Solar Greens owner Greg Ching said he’s hoping to have the Kickstarter and other pre-orders filled by April.

This Card Game Just Raised More Money Than Veronica Mars | WIRED

February 20, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Two weeks ago, Elan Lee got a call that made him feel like he was living in the movie Jaws. It was about two weeks into the highly successful Kickstarter campaign for his new card game Exploding Kittens, and one of his potential suppliers called “to see if you were still interested in that order for 500 decks of cards.” By that point he already knew he was going to need about 500 thousand.

“I had flashes,” Lee says, “to that scene where Roy Scheider (Brody) sees the immense great white for the first time and says in a stupor “you’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

When Exploding Kittens—a tabletop card game that’s essentially Russian Roulette with cats—ended its Kickstarter run tonight, it had raised more than $8.7 million. (They’d initially asked for $10,000.) For context, that’s about $3 million more than Rob Thomas scared up to make a friggin’ Veronica Mars movie. It got more than 200,000 backers—more than any other Kickstarter project, by a longshot—and is the most funded game in the site’s history. “Until Exploding Kittens came along, we hadn’t seen the Internet at large descend on a project and embrace it at this crazy scale,” says Luke Crane, Kickstarter’s lead for games projects.

8 Ways to Make Your Crowdfunding Campaign Pop | Entrepreneur.com

June 2, 2014 ~ lmehit ~ Leave a comment

For Joanna Griffiths, launching a crowdfunding campaign was about more than raising capital for her startup. Griffiths turned to Indiegogo in 2013 to test the market for Knix Wear, a line of women’s underwear made from moisture-wicking, odor-absorbent fabrics. “It was the last test in a series of tests I conducted before launching the business,” explains the Toronto-based entrepreneur.

Even though Knix Wear garnered support from 518 backers who pledged more than $50,000 for the 2013 campaign–on a goal of less than $40,000–crowdfunding was a challenge. “I thought if I had a great idea and a strong platform, I would sell thousands of units,” Griffiths recalls. “But getting every single new backer was a struggle.”

As crowdfunding gains popularity as a financing model–Kickstarter, for example, has seen more than $1 billion pledged since its 2009 launch, and more than 19,000 successful campaigns last year alone–a growing number of startups are clamoring for support from backers, making it that much harder for ‘treps to stand out.

Before you sign on with one of the 200-plus U.S. crowdfunding platforms, master these tricks for launching a successful campaign.

LeVar Burton Raised $1,000,000 in One Day To Revive Reading Rainbow| trendhunters.com

May 29, 2014 ~ lmehit ~ Leave a comment

Kickstarter projects and similar sites are amazing because they allow entrepreneurs, or enterprising helmsmen, to fund ventures with small amounts of money from a large number of people via the internet.

LeVar Burton recently took to Kickstarter, a crowdfunding website, to raise funds to revive a popular children’s television program he used to host called Reading Rainbow. The educational PBS series ran from 1983 until 2006 and Burton is looking to bring it back.

The former Star Trek actor is not the only one to benefit from this online fundraising platform. Kickstarter projects can relate to any kind of product or service, including clothing, inventions, apps and art. Whether you are interested in financing tech-integrated desks or affordable belonging tracking devices, there is no shortage of innovative ideas on the site

100 Kickstarter Projects – LeVar Burton Raised $1,000,000 in One Day To Revive Reading Rainbow TOPLIST.

22 Crowdfunding Sites (and How To Choose Yours!) | Inc.com

November 14, 2013 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Crowdfunding used to be pretty simple. Artists, inventors, and filmmakers posted their ideas, and funders chipped in a few bucks to make something happen. Kickstarter, the site that triggered the crowdfunding movement, was the cornerstone. In three years, the site has helped launch more than 95,000 projects.

Today, there are scores of crowdfunding sites. Indiegogo, Bolstr, Fundable–the list goes on. With the SEC poised to allow projects to offer equity, crowdfunding has the potential to revolutionize how entrepreneurs raise money. (For now, you have to offer some kind of reward in exchange for donations.)

But all sites are not created equal. Some specialize in nonprofits, or in certain types of products; others offer consulting services in addition to sourcing funding. In an increasingly crowded and complicated marketplace, where should you turn to fund your endeavor? Follow our map.

Life After Kickstarter | Ypulse

August 21, 2013 ~ lmehit ~ Leave a comment

Kickstarter has become an entrepreneurial epicenter, helping innovators earn the money to make their dreams become reality. But what happens after the kick start winds down? The crowdfunding industry raised $2.7 billion in 2011 and is expected to have doubled by the end of this year. For the new products and brands that raise funds on the platforms, expectations are sky high for delivering on crowdfunding promises and raising the bar for innovation with each new project. What is life like for the little brands suddenly launched into the world with the funds they asked for, and an audience of expectant consumers?

First Major Kickstarter Game Runs Out Of Money | Forbes

July 7, 2013 ~ lmehit ~ Leave a comment

Once upon a time, there was a website designed to crowdfund small, creative projects—a garage band’s new self-recorded album; a short film; a dance video. That website was called Kickstarter.

Then, along came Tim Schafer and Double Fine Adventure, the video game now known as Broken Age, which transformed the site into an indie video game crowdfunding platform overnight. Kickstarter termed it the “Blockbuster Effect.”

Well, not just a video game funding platform, but these days many of the biggest projects—from the Ouya to Star Citizen to Torment: Tides of Numenera—are video games or video game accessories. And these projects all have, at least in part, Schafer and his game to thank. Broken Age was the catalyst, the trailblazer, the portent of things to come.

And now, despite the $3.3 million the game raised on Kickstarter (and the additional $1.2 million Double Fine raised for its second Kickstarter game, Massive Chalice) Broken Age is out of money.