[bryanlarsen]

A pledge to buy something can be converted into money. In traditional industries it's quite common to get bank loans against accounts receivable and/or outstanding purchase orders.

Without a history of delivering product, a bank won't give you a loan against pledges (aka PO's), but there certainly should be lots of people who would give you a loan or buy equity.

If you can say to a VC "I've got a million dollars worth of orders, I need $500K to build them", you've got a much stronger story when talking to VC's than most do.

[dinkumthinkum]

You really think a bank would give loans against Kickstarter agreements to purchase something?

[dopamean]

I think that's his point. A bank wouldn't do that if you did not have a history of delivering.