Kickstarter Statistics 101 – Statistics Behind Success and Failure

My goal with this blog is to provide statistics based explanations for what actually helps make Kickstarter projects successful, and what hinders their success. My plan is start with broad topics and slowly move into more specific areas that have been hotly debated by many bloggers and in a number of forums.

If you want to jump right into some of my results and conclusions, then scroll down to the Kickstarter Statistics 101 – Statistics Behind Success and Failure.

But if you want to really understand the statistics I’ll be using, and get a quick crash course in the meantime (this is the method I would recommend) then start off with the Kickstarter Statistics 101 – A Rough Introduction to Stats via Kickstarter before moving on to the next set of blogs.

“I can prove anything by using statistics… except the truth”– George Canning

Why I Wrote These Blogs on the Statistics of Kickstarter

After researching Kickstarter for a number of years now, and writing about a few Kickstarter related topics, I have noticed myself become ever more uncomfortable and hesitant to give my opinions where others were more than willing to do so. Much of this was due to my lack of experience but that changed in April, 2014 when I launched my first campaign.

But there was something else that gave reason for my pause – the lack of actual data, and thus the statistics to support the ever growing swath of claims about what makes for a successful Kickstarter project, and what does not.

My intention here is not “prove” anything right or wrong, rather to simply explain what the Kickstarter data says so that we have a bit more insight to support ourselves.

“Statistics are used much like a drunk uses a lamppost: for support, not illumination” – Vin Scully

I have a strong background in engineering and statistics, so I decided to try and tackle this issue. But before we get too far, I think it’s important to understand what data I am using, and little background about it, and a few basics about statistics.

Kickstarter Statistics 101 – A Rough Introduction to Statistics

These first few blog posts address some introductory information about the data and about statistics in general. These are not necessary to read, but it may help you to further understand how some of the important conclusions I made were derived.

Kickstarter Stats 101: A Little About The Data

Kickstarter Stats 101: Preparing The Data For Analysis

Kickstarter Stats 101: The Meaning of Statistical “Significance”

Kickstarter Stats 101: What’s a “Normal Distribution”