[ljd]

While I enjoy these statistics just as much as the next guy, it's funny that they rarely talk about an obvious commonality that successful projects tend to have.

The easiest projects to fund are ones that have founders with experience building either a previous version or a functioning product close to the one they want to build, not just a partially working prototype. I would rather fund a project to get manufacturing cost down because everyone benefits from that. Funding to do R&D -- it's just a harder sell for me.

It helps immensely if the product is compelling or solves a problem but the founder(s)' ability to deliver is the main reason why I will invest in a kickstarter project.

If someone comes along and tells me they want to build X product or Y app but have never done such a thing before. The real question I have is, "How did you arrive at $500,000 being the perfect funding requirement?"

It doesn't even have to be a similar product they've built. If Elon Musk did a kickstarter and said he wanted to do deep sea drilling, I would think, "He has done big projects in industries that have entrenched players before."

[potatolicious]

Exactly my thoughts - I'm very willing to fund projects with leaders and teams that have a strong history of delivering. I threw in for Pebble because I knew the team had experience delivering product and working with design and manufacturing.

This is also why I'm entirely unwilling to fund the enormous number of gaming projects led by first-time game developers, full of wild-eyed wonder and promises of the sun and stars. I want to help great people do great things, not pay so a completely green newbie developer/designer/artist/whatever can cut their teeth flailing about.