Kickstarter

Zach Parr: the Kickstarter whisperer who built Cubcoats

Zach Parr was a hired-gun who ran other people's Kickstarters to multi-million-dollar results, then launched his own: Jacket Pets (now Cubcoats), a stuffed animal that unzips into a kid's jacket. He crushed Kickstarter, then layered on licensing deals with sports leagues and Disney/Marvel plus retail and online.

“And so Jacket Pets was, uh, take a stuffed animal, kids don't want to leave it behind, and so like, let's put a zipper in the back, and then when you unzip the stuffed animal, you can like turn it inside out, like press it inside out, and it'll turn into a kid's jacket.”

Peak Design: $32M raised, #2 on Kickstarter ever

Peter Dering says Peak Design is the second-highest-earning company in Kickstarter history, having raised a little north of $30 million (roughly $32M) across multiple campaigns.

“We are at present, I think, the company that's earned the second most on Kickstarter in our collective history, somewhere a little north of $30 million on Kickstarter, maybe, maybe $32 or so.”

Crowdfunding is pre-selling, not donations or equity

Peter reframes Kickstarter as a pre-sale: you give up a little margin in exchange for cash up front, customers get the product cheaper and become evangelists with a personal connection to it.

“It's actually a perfect exchange, right? You're giving away a little bit of margin for up front, and they're getting the product for cheaper, and they get to be the evangelists and have a closer personal connection to it.”

Steal thisTreat crowdfunding as pre-selling inventory: trade a slice of margin for upfront cash and turn early buyers into evangelists.

Total marketing was a friends-and-family email — sold to a stranger in 90 seconds

Peter pressed go on his Kickstarter from borrowed desk space at a 6-person company that later became Juul; within ~90 seconds a stranger in England backed it, and his entire marketing was emailing friends and family.

“And I think it took like 90 seconds before some dude dude— he couldn't have even watched the whole video— but some dude in England, just a random person, backed the project. I was like, holy shit, that's incredible! I just sold a thing that I haven't even made yet to a guy in England that I've never met, right? This is magic. God, the internet is cool, you know?”

First Kickstarter did $364k — #2 of all time at the time

Peter corrects the host: the first Capture clip Kickstarter raised $364,000, good for second-most-funded project ever at the time, with later campaigns doing $215k, ~$816k, and $868k.

“The first Kickstarter did $364,000, which was good for second place of all time. And then the next Kickstarter we did, it was $215,000, but it was like a 20-day campaign.”

Kickstarter rejected Webflow after a $15K video, so they shipped a Hacker News demo

Webflow recorded a full Kickstarter video begging for support, then learned Kickstarter doesn't allow SaaS — killing the plan and their expected income. Out of money and ready to quit, with a daughter's surgery deductible draining them, they posted a bare demo (playground.webflow.com) to Hacker News, which exploded and got them a 25,000-person waitlist.

“Uh, and that's when we put together like this— it wasn't even an app, it was sort of like a demo. Uh, and you can still see it on playground.webflow.com. And we put it up on Hacker News and that just exploded, which is like really, really surprising because here are all these developers and what we're presenting is a way to— you don't need to be a developer.”

Zach Park: Kickstarter hustler who replied to a cold email in minutes

Cubcoats co-founder Zach Park raised millions across Kickstarter campaigns and built an online presence as a self-evident hustler. Simpson cold-emailed him offering a value trade; he replied within minutes because, unlike the hundreds of cold emails he got, hers offered something back.

“And he wrote back within a few minutes and was like, I get hundreds of cold emails. Like, nobody ever offers anything back. Right. And that was why he reached out. And so we ended up meeting and became very good friends. Now I'm an investor in the company.”

Steal thisIn a cold email, lead with what you can give, not what you want; it's why you'll get a reply.

Two Kickstarters raised $6.1M combined for Gravity and MoonPod

John Fiorentino's Gravity Blanket Kickstarter raised $4.7M and his MoonPod beanbag Kickstarter raised $1.4M, both before manufacturing at scale.

“Gravity was $4.7 million and then MoonPod was like $1.4 million.”

Chris Sacca: 'I've never felt richer than when I had $0 net worth'

Shaan recounts how Chris Sacca levered his way up to a paper $12 million, swung down to negative $4 million in a week, and clawed back — saying he never felt richer than when he climbed out of debt back to zero. He's now a billionaire with Uber, Instagram, and Kickstarter in his portfolio.

“And he has this great line, which you remind me of, which was, I've never felt richer than when I had $0 of net worth. Like when he got out of the debt and got back to zero, he's like, I've never felt richer.”