KickStarter Success: Fire the video crew because demand is EVERYTHING

"How to make a successful crowdfunding campaign" articles usually include these elements:

• Make a good product
• Take amazing pictures
• Make a phenomenal video
• Get blogs to write about your project

It's good advice, but it's wrong. Here's my evidence:

The Flip n'Grip

It's not over yet, but they're not going to make it.

The Flip n'Grip Wallet did everything right: 

• Their product is extremely well-thought-out and made of very high quality materials (the ol' "aircraft-grade aluminum" spiel)
• Their pictures are phenomenal
• Their video is one of the best on KickStarter
• They were featured on big time blogs (Core77, CoolMaterial, GearHungry, The Awesomer, etc.)

But while they did raise a good amount of money, it's nothing compared to similar products (the HuMn Wallet made $295,402), and, 57 hours from now, it will fail.

Contrast that with this project:

Precision Machined Dice

The project just got started, so it's still in progress, but KickTraq has it trending toward $134,663 - almost triple (that's 3x! #investorlaunguagenobodyunderstands) what the Flip n'Grip will end with.

Yet this dice project did almost everything wrong:

• The product can't even be used on wood or cloth tables because the edges are sharp
• There is only one picture on the entire page
• The video is terrible compared to others on KickStarter
• From the little research I did, this project was only featured on a couple mediocre blogs

So what's the deal? Why is the first going to fail and the second going to raise 4,000% more that it's goal? The only reasonable conclusion I can come up with is: demand. People just didn't want the wallet that badly, but for whatever reason seem to absolutely need these unusable metal dice!

And thus we see, demand drives everything. You can do the campaigning all right, but if there's no demand for your product, it won't do well. You can also do the campaigning entirely wrong, and if there is demand, you'll blow the rest of us away with head-scratching results.

Conclusion: in this age of information where we expect to know everything about everything before we take any risks, demand returns us to the reality of faith: sometimes you simply must step into the darkness.