Kickstarter isn't just for small projects, as we saw when Double Fine Adventures broke the platform's record with its $3.3 million in funding. But a new project is about to surpass that whopping dollar amount -- Pebble smartwatch, which launched on Kickstarter last week, has already raised more than $3.2 million. And it still has 32 days to go.
Pebble founder and lead designer Eric Migicovsky talked with Wired about how the financial windfall affects production plans, what makes Pebble so special, and how the Pebble team plans on celebrating once it breaks the Kickstarter record -- which will likely happen tonight or tomorrow at the rate they're going.
Wired: Pebble has broken the $3 million mark. How many smartwatch orders does that make in total?
Migicovsky: The backers total around 22,500 right now, but some backers have bought the distributor pack or the mega distributor pack, which puts us at about 26,000 or 27,000 watches.
Wired: Has the influx of funding affected your production plans? Are you changing your strategy at all?
Migicovsky: We’re basically leveling up. We had a variety of paths we could have followed. We were originally aiming for $100,000, so we had a production path that we could have followed to meet that $100,000. Now we're following a path that is several levels higher than that.
Right now, we don’t have any specifics for where the product is being made. There are various levels of contract manufacturers, and we’re going to use a contract manufacturer. We’re moving to a one-stop shop, so we come with X amount of orders.
On the one hand, six months is not very long to bring a product to market. But we have this huge backer community that will help us get there. They are providing the funding that's helping us make quality decisions, like spending money now on making a more aesthetically pleasing product. We're making those decisions now.
We had a design plan with several different levels. It’s not like we are drastically altering the design. We just had "gotta haves," like 7-day battery life, and then the "nice to haves" like more water-resistance, which are the features we’re moving into now.
Wired: Do you think the Pebble is the smartwatch to beat -- like how Apple released the iPod and dominated the MP3 player market?
Migicovsky: The community has the biggest effect on our product. With a product market like ours, we’re focusing on building an SDK that will wow developers, and that will let them develop the coolest apps ever for the launch. Having an SDK pack and a hacker special is important to us.
We will be able to make a healthy case to developers on why they should develop on our platform. We’re also far ahead of the competition in terms of iPhone compatibility. Nobody wants to buy a new phone and have to switch their watch -- that’s kind of stupid. There are a lot of things we’ve learned from putting a previous watch, the inPulse, out that we aren’t going to do again. We’re also creating a much smaller watch than others out there.
Wired: Are you surprised by the reception to Pebble? What were you hoping for when you launched on Kickstarter?
Migicovsky: We were expecting $100,000 over a month, so when it came in two hours, it was a surprise. On Thursday, we were earning $80,000 an hour. By Sunday morning, we passed the Wasteland 2, which was the second most popular Kickstarter after Double Fine Adventures.
Wired: What do you think it is about the Pebble that is gaining so much traction?
Migicovsky: I think it’s because we’ve been doing this a while and had some success in the past. We basically iterated very quickly on our past products. The iPhone is huge and being able to support something that big is great. And being able to support any Android phone is big.
People want to use products that they can see themselves wearing in everyday life. Using Kickstarter and its video platform, we were able to give examples of how people would use Pebble.
Wired: How do you anticipate the next 30 or so days will go?
"The benefit of doing a pitch on Kickstarter is that it’s to consumers, not to venture capitalists. Just appeal to what people want." -- Eric Migicovsky__Migicovsky:__ We want to get the word out. We think there are a lot of people that are open to a product like this, and we want them to know it exists. I’m not that good at predicting things in terms of popularity, though.
The one thing that’s pumping me up is thinking about the cool apps that people are going to make for Pebble. When we launch the SDK in August, everyone will know how many people will have the Pebble on day one, and that will help. We set up a forum so people can exchange ideas. From there, we’re going to launch a watch app store, free watch faces and apps, and paid watch faces and apps.
Wired: What do you think it takes to have a successful Kickstarter campaign? Any tips for people wanting to fund their projects through the site?
Migicovsky: We paid a ton of attention to other projects. I’ve backed several Kickstarter projects; recently I backed the Galileo. I think you have to appeal to the community. Kickstarter is not just a store, people need to see that your product exists and it's well thought out.
It’s definitely marketing -- you have to pitch the project, and it’s a pitch just like any other one. The benefit of doing a pitch on Kickstarter is that it’s to consumers, not to venture capitalists. Just appeal to what people want. If you’ve tested your product on your friend, and it seems to be doing well, then it’ll probably do well on Kickstarter.
Hardware in particular is good for Kickstarter. A lot of the times when a new hardware company comes online, they have to guess how many products they are going to sell. For us, we know exactly how many we’re going to sell. We can make enough [Pebbles] and spend more money on the product to make it more awesome.
Wired: Do you think you’ll face any challenges in the coming months?
Migicovsky: Yeah, definitely. We had a hiring blitz this weekend where we hired a bunch of engineers to help us. There’s going to a lot of work. We're putting the SDK together, the app store together, the software together and more. I think we’re putting the right team together to do it and do it in six months.
Wired: Any celebratory plans if you break the Kickstarter funding record?
Migicovsky: No. We had a bit of champagne when we hit $200,000. It’s Monday, and we’ve got a lot of work to do. One thing we were thinking of doing was calling Tim Schafer [of Double Fine] and having him pass the baton to us.
