Without Kickstarter, the world may never have been introduced to ingenious ideas like Oculus Rift, Coolest Cooler, and especially Exploding Kittens (what??). Although about 9 percent of Kickstarter campaigns fail, a whopping 91 percent of projects are successful. With such a high success rate and vast popularity, you have to wonder how these numbers translate in terms of economic impact.
Lucky for you, Ethan Mollick, assistant professor of management at the Wharton School of Business, took on the task and conducted a study called Containing Multitudes: The Many Impacts of Kickstarter Funding, published July 11, 2016. In his research, Mollick discovered just how much Kickstarter has impacted the economy. His findings are pretty incredible.
Personal Impact
The beauty of Kickstarter is that virtually anyone can start a campaign, and, despite what many may think, you definitely don’t have to be financially set to get started. In fact, Mollick found that creators earned a mean salary of $48,297 before Kickstarter and 39 percent were employed full-time. You don’t need to have a million-dollar idea or be the next Mark Zuckerberg, either — although, it probably wouldn’t hurt you if you did or were.
But, money isn’t the only reason to participate. Sixty-seven percent of creators said they felt that they were creating something important, while 53 percent felt that they were producing something that would help a community.
One thing’s for sure, Kickstarter proved to be beneficial to the creators’ careers and earnings. In fact, a third of creators said that their Kickstarter projects helped them advance in their careers. What’s more, 60.1 percent of the “successful” Kickstarter creators expressed that their projects “helped fulfill a dream” — and isn’t that what it’s all about?
Economic Impact
Kickstarter isn’t just good for personal and professional growth, it’s also great for the economy. Since its inception in 2009 on through May of 2015, Kickstarter has formed roughly “4,994 new formal organizations (companies or partnerships)” and generated “non-crowdfunding revenues of about $3.4B.” This translates to an average of $2.46 of revenue for each dollar pledged towards campaigns.
As for jobs, the study found that Kickstarter created an estimated 5,135 new, ongoing jobs (not including creators) and 160,425 temporary jobs from 2009 to May of 2015.
Kickstarter’s economic impact is sure to continue to rise now that it has partnered with Amazon “to bring 300 projects to the retailer’s crowd-funding portal, Launchpad,” reports Mashable. If you’ve ever had a wild and crazy dream that you know will make a difference in the world, then now’s the time to go big or go home. Ready, set, LAUNCH!
Tell Us What You Think
Have you or anyone you know had a Kickstarter success story? If so, we’d love to hear about it. Join the conversation happening on Twitter, or leave your comment below.
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