Big Changes To Kickstarter Make It Easier Than Ever To Launch The Crowdfunding Project Of Your Dreams

Crowdfunding site Kickstarter has introduced a feature called Launch Now and is rolling out a new set of simplified rules.

The new rules boil down to these three points, per the company's blog post on the topic:

• Projects must create something to share with others.
• Projects must be honest and clearly presented.
• Projects cannot fundraise for charity, offer financial incentives, or involve prohibited items.

There's also a new "Launch Now" feature, which lets you set your Kickstarter project live without review by a human member of Kickstarter staff. This used to be required before any project that appeared on the site, but an algorithm now scans projects instead, and upon approving the project, gives creators the opportunity to launch right away or to instead get some help from Kickstarter staff to make the project pop. Here's how The Verge explains it:

An algorithm [will look] at keywords in the campaign, the creator's track record on Kickstarter, and other metrics to create a profile of the project and compare it to similar projects that have been approved, rejected, flagged, and removed. If the campaign passes the algorithmic check, the creator can choose to either launch without a human review or request feedback from the Kickstarter team.

This means more projects on the site more quickly. The only other crowdfunding site of note for creative projects is Indiegogo, but Kickstarter has already differentiated itself from that site in major key ways: projects on Kickstarter are more likely to meet their goals, and Kickstarter raises more money in general. As Adrianne Jeffries writes on The Verge, "all the blockbuster crowdfunding hits have been on Kickstarter."

With simpler rules in place and the change to make it easier than before to get a project live on the site, it seems like Kickstarter will maintain its favored place.