Update: As of 9.47 P.M. SGT, August 2, 2014, The Potato Salad Kickstarter Project has ended with a total of USD$55,490 and 6910 backers.
With less than a day to go before the ‘Potato Salad’ Kickstarter campaign ends, it is only natural to wonder how much money exactly will Zack Danger Brown be hauling in when the campaign wraps up at 9.47 P.M. SGT on August 2, 2014.
Kickstarter is a crowdfunding website based in The United States, and allows people to donate money to listed projects that they wish to support.
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This ‘Potato Salad’ Kickstarter project is probably the most talked about crowdfunding campaign in 2014 so far. Zack Danger Brown, the man behind the campaign, listed his project and aimed for a USD$10 goal to make potato salad. To his own surprise, he easily garnered over US$70,000 within five days of starting the campaign, but things took a twist after the fifth day and backers retrieved nearly USD$30,000. These were backers who reportedly donated a five-figure amount and didn’t actually have the intention to donate.
The amazing results of the Potato Salad campaign has gathered a lot of fanfare over the media. But several people have doubts about the founder’s promises to pledgers such as “receiving a bite of the potato salad…” and “I will say your name out loud while making the potato salad”.
For backers who donated USD$50 and above, they are promised a recipe book with potato salad recipes from each country a backer comes from, and will also have their names read aloud while Zack makes the potato salad.
Just last week, the project had over USD$63,000 but it has reduced a little and is now nearing USD$55,000. The numbers are constantly changing, and has been fluctuating ever since the project started. The campaign now has close to 7,000 backers and the digits are still climbing as you are reading this article.
Still in awe at the unbelievable success of this campaign, Vulcan Post approached 20 random Singaporeans from as young as 19 years old to as wise as the age of 40 and presented them with a tongue-in-cheek survey to hear what they have to say about this.
Out of 20 respondents, only four said that they would donate to this project. The remaining 16 gave a myriad of reasons like “It’s a waste of money” and “Why not just give the money to people who really need it?”.
On their initial thoughts of the campaign, their responses came in mixed. Some commented on the absurdity of the idea of donating to someone who had nothing better to do and “it reflects the superficiality of the online community”, when the money could be given to other projects more worth the attention. Some gave the credit to the power of the Internet and a handful described it as great marketing and awesome.
“It’s a brilliant campaign. It’s impressive to see that it was just made out of a plain fun idea but to see how far such a thing has led to is amazing.” – Female, 19.
“It’s bad. I mean it’s great that he got ample funding to make a potato salad, but there are thousands of other Kickstarter campaigns who haven’t met their goals and had to be shut down, and these campaigns are legit and serious and probably some might change the world.” – Female, 20.
Why would you donate/not donate to this project?
If you had an addition of USD$64,000 in your bank account today, what would you do with it?
Instead of a potato salad, what type of food would you make?
“Happiness” as given by one of the respondents does draw parallels to the whole concept behind the Potato Salad campaign. It was all in the name of fun, and people just wanted to support something that is creative, out of the box and light-hearted. And it just so happens that a lot of people viewed it the same way and a simple joke blew out of proportion.
It’s funny and interesting, however it is definitely unimaginable to predict what can happen within the next couple of hours because pledgers can pull out from their donations anytime before the campaign ends.
Will Zack Danger Brown, from Columbus, go down in history for creating the best crowdfunding project having achieved whopping results; or will he be in danger of having to pay off more money than he has received in the end?
Some Singaporeans who were successful in their own crowdfunding projects are individuals such as Chuah Ah Sun, who collected USD$63,879 for his bamboo bicycle business, Bamboobee; and Kenny Gee who used crowdfunding website, Indiegogo and collected USD$29,050 to produce his film, THE BODY.
Also read: One In Three Singaporeans Can’t Sleep! This Kickstarter May Help.
