[jkestner]

Kickstarter works like this too. If you know anything about fixed manufacturing costs, when you see hardware projects with a 4-digit goal, you cringe. Some have other sources of funding, but the reason you set an artificially low goal is that it 1) gets people more excited when they see the % of goal go to 800% or 3000%, and 2) people are more inclined to back a project that's already hit its goal, regardless of how crowdfunding works.