It's hard to imagine a world without Kickstarter these days, as without it how else would people get funding for their absolutely zany and off-the-wall ideas? Whether you want money for atheist shoes, a porn-based card game or something more realistic, Kickstarter is the place where you can get random strangers to fork over their hard-earned cash so you can get your idea off the ground. While this crowdfunding originator has had its share of scorn and ridicule over the years, its impact on our collective entrepreneurial spirit cannot be overstated.
The most recent evidence regarding the appeal of Kickstarter comes from the Coolest Cooler, which has now become the most well-funded campaign on the site. If you're interested in becoming an investor, its creators describe the Coolest Cooler as "a portable party disguised as a cooler, bringing blended drinks, music and fun to any outdoor occasion."
So, in honor of this new milestone, we thought it would be the perfect time to highlight what we think are the five most memorable Kickstarter campaigns to precede the Coolest Cooler:
1) Pebble
First on the list is the Pebble smartwatch, which was formerly the most popular Kickstarter campaign before recently being ousted. A computer for your wrist, Pebble shows off the possibilities from the burgeoning field of wearables. Sure, it hasn't caught on en masse just yet, but we bet in the long run it'll be more popular than Google Glass at least.
2) The Veronica Mars Movie
The cult TV show only lasted three seasons before being axed, but its spirit lived on in its die-hard fans. That level of dedication was on display in this Kickstarter campaign from last year, as the show's creators were able to get enough money from people online to get a movie made. This may have been one of the most influential and most-hyped Kickstarter campaigns in history thus far, and show that major motion pictures could be crowdsourced nowadays.
3) Cards Against Humanity
If you've never played this game before, then you are missing out on a whole lot of fun. Basically, you can think of it as "Apples to Apples" but a whole lot raunchier. And that may be an understatement too. We'd love to print out what some of these cards say to give you an idea, but they're NSFW in every sense of the phrase. But, for those among us with a darker and dirtier sense of humor, we praise the stars that such a game was able to come about in 2011 thanks to Kickstarter.
4) Reading Rainbow
Since the 1980s, there has been one man who has taken it upon himself to ensure that every child in America loves reading as much as he does: LeVar Burton. Hopefully by now the Reading Rainbow theme song is stuck in your head and you're ready to pounce on the nearest novel. While the show was very successful during its television reign, it needed a little bit of help to expand online. Cue this Kickstarter campaign from just this past July, and over $5 million later Reading Rainbow is back and better than ever.
5) Oculus Rift
Before Oculus Rift was getting billions of dollars from Facebook, the makers of these virtual reality goggles (that's really the only way to describe the Oculus Rift) turned to Kickstarter for funding. The headset, originally designed to provide gamers with an immersive virtual reality, raised more than $2.4 million on Kickstarter in 2012, making it one of the most successful and talked-about campaigns on the site that year.
Of course, as we noted in the title here, these are just some of the many glorious Kickstarter campaigns that have come about over the last few years. And, who knows what the future may hold? Here's to many more years of campy and intriguing Kickstarter campaigns!
