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Backers can get a Coolest Cooler by pledging $185 in the final days of Ryan Grepper's Kickstarter campaign. It will retail for $299.

(Coolest Cooler)

Ryan Grepper

9 p.m. update: The Coolest Cooler has done it -- it has become the most successful Kickstarter campaign ever.

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As this is written, the Coolest Cooler has not quite set the Kickstarter record for most funds ever raised -- but perhaps by the time you read this, it will have. And that means Portlander Ryan Grepper will have switched into an even higher gear.

Grepper set out to raise $50,000 on the popular crowdfunding platform. Had he met that goal and nothing more, he would have been on the hook to produce roughly 270 units of his multipurpose, partygoing invention -- a music-playing, USB-enabled, illuminated, partitioned, accessory-holding cooler with an inboard blender.

Instead, he's about to top the Pebble's Kickstarter record of about $10.27 million, which means he's obligated to make and deliver roughly 49,000 coolers. By February.

What's the first thing he has to do when the Kickstarter campaign ends Friday afternoon?

"You mean after my celebratory margarita?" he asked in a phone interview.

Yes. After that.

"Every day I see as a production deadline," he said. He said he's been working steadily with industrial designers, engineers and sourcing companies to ramp up for production. The timeline, he acknowledged, is "aggressive." But he thinks he's still on track.

But if the Coolest Cooler runs into delays, as three-fourths of Kickstarter campaigns do, Grepper said he will be transparent with his nearly 49,000 backers.

Grepper's campaign wasn't a smash hit on Day One. In fact, a Coolest Cooler campaign last winter fell short of its $125,000 goal. After that experience, "my confidence was pretty low," he acknowledged.

But he had stirred interest among potential customers. He had learned some ways he could refine the product. And he knew he could launch in a more appropriate season.

Now the Coolest Cooler has taken over his life.

"If you're going to be consumed, how fortunate for it to be with your dream product and your dream project," he said.

Grepper, 39, is bubbling with gratitude this week. His wife, he said, has been amazingly supportive. His backers have been tremendously supportive with their pledges and messages.

"Certainly, I'm overjoyed," he said. And a part of it is helping to demonstrate the power of crowdfunding.

"It doesn't take a giant company to get a great product launched," he said. "I'm excited about what crowdfunding can do for inventors and creators."

-- Mike Francis