As of this writing the biggest fundraise ever on Kickstarter was for Pebble Time – a waterproof smartwatch that has 7 days of battery life. This crowdfunding campaign raised $20 million and only had a goal of $500 thousand.
Currently there are 33,527 comments from backers and some are still posting almost daily. A few of the most recent include:
- “Now I think no one can deny Pebble Technology is A LIAR. No Chinese language support until now. Promised in 2015 campaign.”
- “Hi My Pebble Time Steel is not vibrating anymore, it just stopped vibrating all together for notifications, hourly vibrating does anyone else have this problem?”
- “After months of happily using pebble time, today i decided to take it for a swim at a beach. It is dead in less than five minutes.”
Pebble Time offered 10 to 12 different reward levels. The least expensive reward level was $159 for a Pebble Time smartwatch and you could choose between 3 different colors. This was a $40 discount off the regular retail price of $199. This reward level sold out as 10,000 backers took advantage of the offer. The most expensive reward level was $5,000 for the Distributor Tier. Backers that signed up for this reward level received ten of each different color Pebble Time smartwatches, or 30 watches in all. This reward level did not sell out, but 142 backers took advantage of it.
One of the key learnings from the Pebble Time crowdfunding campaign can be seen clearly in the comments above. Even if you run a super successful crowdfunding campaign, your work only begins with the delivery of the product promised. Once you have shipped your initial inventory to eager backers, you will face a series of life cycle management issues. You will need to care for broken products. You will need to provide customer support, sometimes at a higher level than you planned. You may need to offer refunds to unsatisfied backers. So as you plan your crowdfunding campaign, make sure you have a good plan to support your product once it has launched.
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