Kickstarter, the crowd-sourcing fundraising website, had a project smash all its records this month. The Pebble Phone watch, a watch designed to interact with your phone, achieved its stated goal of $100,000 in under two hours of being posted on the site, and currently sits at just under $6.5 million with 23 days still to go.
When you see the concept for the watch, you can understand why it has achieved success. A sleek design combines style with technology to produce a device that has the ability to adapt to your needs. Want to track your run? Change your music? See who’s calling without reaching into your pocket? Ignoring that unwanted call has never been easier. The ability to customise the experience makes each watch unique, and if it fulfils all it has promised, it may just re-energise the wristwatch market from bling back to information.
But it’s the way with which the funding has taken off which is the real story around this device. Kickstarter is increasingly becoming a place for young inventors looking for financial backing, not just art students. The technology and gaming sections are heavily outweighing the traditional crowd-sourced projects and pioneering a way of thinking that allows innovations to be retained by their creators. Instead of having to sell equity in the idea, they can carry out their vision without the hassle of outside investors expecting large returns on investments.
