Speaking of how our rewards came to be, below are all of Taco’s Kickstarter project stats. Most of these screenshots are normally only shown to project creators.

Taco’s funding progress looks like most crowdfunded projects: front-loaded and then tapering off. The spikes were us telling people we knew (first 3 days) and David Heinemeier Hansson tweeting (June 19).

We mostly attracted our own backers, especially at first. These charts don’t show change over time, as of the second day, more than 90% were direct or Twitter. Being a staff pick helped, but getting to that point came entirely from elbow grease and didn’t make or break the funding goal.

Out of 5,600 plays, we received support from 135 backers (2.4%). This strikes me as low on an anecdotal level, but I don’t have anything to compare it to. Taco definitely applies to more than 2.4% of the productivity-aware population - developers, entrepreneurs, consultants, and the like. Whether it’s 5%, 15%, or 50% depends entirely on the audience.

30% played the entire video. While making the video (twice), I don’t think I would have guessed that we could hold the attention of 1,700 people (0.3*5,600) for 3 minutes. I can’t tell whether this is low or high compared to other projects.



26 of 135 backers pledged $100 or $50, collectively warming our hearts by about six degrees. Thank you. As the math shows, you’re the reason we’re here. (Here’s the back story on Taco’s mostly-pay-what-you-want rewards). The average pledge is $37, so backers see enough potential to support it significantly more than the minimum.

10 of 135 pledged under $25 even though there’s no reward. Non-committal? Fans who want to show support but don’t need it? Interested parties who want to receive backer updates and see where it leads? Beggars, er, crowdfunders can’t be choosers, so we appreciate even a modest vote of confidence.

Along the way, we received a 13 inquiries via Kickstarter messages, including 2 pieces of spam for services, 2 offers to work for Taco, and a business proposal to contract for someone else.

We’ll continue to over-share here and on Twitter. Contact us if another statistic would be helpful for your project.

