If you are planning to start a business in San Diego, but haven’t figured out where to get startup funding, consider what many other small businesses have done.  They used Kickstarter, or other crowdfunding platforms like Indiegogo, to raise money for their new venture.  Check out some of the companies and ideas that have been successfully funded by San Diego entrepreneurs in the following table.  These are the top San Diego crowdfunding projects in their respective categories on Kickstarter.

Crowdfunded Project Name

Crowdfunding Category Description Funding Amount Raised Number of Bakers

Date Funded

Dynamic Bible Art Self-published book by Peter Han on the Dynamic Sketching class he teaches at the Artcenter College of Design.

$55,941

1,122

6/26/16

Comic Book People Comics Book of photographs taken by Jackie Estrada of comic creator people.

$28,360

438

2/22/14

Hippo Sweat Sunscreen Crafts Sunscreen that is vegan friendly and provides protection for hours.

$7,469

108

10/1/15

Enhanced eBook Telling a Story Through Dance Dance e-Book created by Keone and Mari Madrid that combines film, dance and music to tell a story.

$57,144

904

7/29/16

Passion Planner Design Personal planner created by Angelia Trinidad designed with your passions and goals in mind.

$706,287

16,335

11/24/15

The Undress Fashion Dress that allows women to take their clothes off without getting naked.

$615,663

7,297

11/1/14

Veronica Mars Movie Film and Video Film about Veronica Mars who is a high school student and private investigator.

$5,702,153

91,585

8/12/13

Steak Locker Food Special refrigerator designed for dry-aged steaks created by Nadia Bruno.

$191,010

362

7/8/14

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Board Game Games Story driven board game featuring the iconic four Turtle brothers as they defend New York City from Ninjas and the Shredder.

$862,211

6,033

2/25/16

XI North American Soccer Quarterly Journalism Quarterly publication by Tom Dunmore, John Turnbull, and David Keyes about soccer from a North American perspective.

$15,075

339

5/2/12

Second Album by Hirie Music Album called Wandering Soul featuring Reggae music by Patricia “Trish” Anne Jetton.

$44,194

369

9/10/15

Behind Photographs Photography Pictures of legendary photographers holding their favorite photograph taken by Tim Mantoani.

$17,140

168

11/12/11

Freedom Journal Publishing Goal planner by entrepreneur and EOFire host John Lee Dumas to help you establish SMART goals.

$453,803

7,063

2/5/16

OSSIC X Technology 3D headphones that calibrates the sound based on your anatomy.

$2,708,472

10,263

4/21/16

Tik-Tok Man of Oz Theater Frank Baum’s sequel to the Wizard of Oz performed at the Regency Ballroom in San Diego.

$18,293

69

4/12/14

There are a couple of key takeaways from the San Diego Crowdfunding table above.  Firstly note that only a couple of categories have projects that raised more than a million dollars – Film and Video (Veronica Mars movie) and Technology (OSSIC X headphones).  Also the majority of categories raised less than $100,000, and the Crafts category actually raised the least amount of funds ($7,469) for Hippo Sweat Sunscreen.   So if you are thinking of raising millions of dollars from an arts and crafts idea, then you should probably set more realistic expectations.

Another takeaway you should notice is how many backers some projects got.  For instance, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Board Game has more than six thousand backers.  Having a lot of backers can be both good and bad.  Good because you have many people that want to back your idea and bring it to life.  Bad because you normally have to provide some type of reward for the backers.  If they are all going to get a free board game, then you need to make sure you have the right shipping address, adequate space to store the games, capacity to handle all of the comments on Kickstarter, and follow-up customer service calls for all those backers.

Finally you need to ask yourself where all of your backers will come from.  Is your social media presence large enough to interest that many people?  Do you have thousands of Facebook friends, LinkedIn contacts and Twitter followers?  If the answer is no, then you will need to build your social contact list prior to launching your startup business on Kickstarter or other crowdfunding platform.  While crowdfunding sites to offer you the ability to get additional backers for your new product idea, you should consider those icing on the cake, and be prepared to fund most your idea from your own contact list.