Kickstarter has become as much a marketing platform as a crowdfunding one in recent years. Particularly in hardware, smashing through your target on day one is the plan, rather than fretting about whether it will crawl to its goal over a month.
Loog Piano is a good example: a three-octave digital piano designed for children, complete with a companion app offering lessons and game-like exercises.
It launched on Kickstarter yesterday, and already has more than 670 backers and $174k of pledges at the time of writing – far surpassing its notional $10k goal.
This is no surprise for Loog, the startup behind the device, has run four other successful Kickstarter campaigns, getting started in 2011 with a line of three-string guitars for kids (and, as it turned out, Jack White).
The company has shipped more than 300,000 orders of its previous products, so Loog Piano’s first-day popularity is not a shock.