crowd funding campaign details & analysis

Our indiegogo campaign is finished and was a huge success, thanks again to everyone involved, and particularly to all the backers who trusted us and joined the AXIOM Beta community. If you add the money for the over 450 at-cost cameras to be built to the money raised in crowd funding (€ 174,520) we now have a virtual final balance of the insane amount of € 1,210,420 (yes that’s 1.2 Million Euros) contributed in the 4 week campaign.

You can see the typical “s” curve that most crowdfunding campaigns go through with peaks when the campaign is launched and when it ends and not a lot happening mid campaign. The other interesting feature is the boost the campaign got when Magic Lantern started to officially endorse AXIOM around Sept 30th and that triggered that we crossed the campaign goal just a few days later, around the time the end phase usually kicks into high gear. Statistically, most campaigns that raise about 2/3rds of their goal before the final few days reach their goal, but Magic Lantern and the press it generated likely allowed the end boost to surpass all four stretch goals. A list of all contributions is available in anonymized form here.

We were quite surprised to see what kind of unintended side effects a big and successful campaign will create. We received countless emails, messages and comments offering us campaign clicks for money or organizing articles in big tech blogs about the campaign if we paid them, some even were as blatant as saying “give me 5$ and I will share your campaign on twitter”. Others sent us marketing mails about their software solutions or manufacturing shipping, distribution and promotion services that we would surely soon need after the campaign. The most memorable one was a service offering “cheapest production in China with top intellectual property protection”. Exactly what we need with Open Source and Fair Labor principles :)

We will start fulfilling perks like printing t-shirts, posters, and buttons, etc. that don’t depend on camera development. At the same time we will set up a feature/bug tracking system so we can better keep track of, store, and discuss ideas and feedback within the community to make the Beta really the result of what this community wants it to be. And of course the Beta development continues (as it did during the campaign). But now we are finally ready to place orders for the more expensive tools we need. It’s gonna be one hell of a ride, and we will take you on it with us. Remember there will likely be bumps and difficulties but together we will get through them!