Everyone’s heard of the wondrous success that is LeVar Burton’s Reading Rainbow Kickstarter project, which raised $5.4 million, a whopping five times its goal. One of the donors was celebrity, Seth McFarlane (Family Guy, Ted, American Dad), who gave $1 million to the cause. Prizes included dinner with LeVar, and a chance to wear the visor he wore on Star Trek. Congratulations LeVar. Your cause is very much worth it.
Memory Alpha
Move over, grammar. Potato salad is coming through!
But we’re not here to talk about Reading Rainbow. Our topic for today is a lot more… unique in a sense. What if you kickstarted your own dinner, and the project boomed to become worth thousands of dollars? That is exactly what happened to Zack Danger Brown’s potato salad. As I write this, it is currently at $15,000+, seven thousand more than what it was this morning, and it’s still got 25 days to go!
jeffreyww via photopin ccWhat could be so special about this project? Is Zack Brown a world-renowned chef? is this a charity project? Is it an elaborate teaser to kick off a movie about two potatoes who fall in love and must escape the clutches of the cucumber army? None of these are true, as this is honestly just a way for the guy to fund his salad. In fact, he states in the FAQ that this is
his very first potato salad.
So what do you get for donating to this amazing cause? Pledge options range from $1 to $50, and prizes include everything from the usual thank you note and shout-out, to the unusual potato-salad themed haiku, potato carving of your name, signed jar of mayonnaise, etc. My favorites though, have to be the $25 award of a potato salad-themed hat, and the $50 award of a potato salad cookbook, covering recipes from all the countries where the donors came from. FANTASTIC!
Now, coming from a $10 stretch goal and achieving $16k (Yes. He achieved a thousand dollars as I am typing this.), he got a LOT of stretch goals covered, which he stopped at $3000 just because his creative juices for stretch goals ran out. But rather than a humble single recipe of potato salad, Zack Brown is now entitled to the following:
- A lot more than 4x as much potato salad than originally intended
- A pizza party
- 4 recipes
- Better mayonnaise
- Counsel from a chef
- A live stream of the potato salad making
- Film documentary
- Invitations to the entire internet to a potato salad party
This is truly a great thing worth following. Not only because it’s silly and unique, but also because it’s interesting from a marketing point of view. A humble project with the rawest Kickstarter page I’ve ever seen and barely any marketing from the guy himself getting over 1,600x his target. That’s great.
UPDATE
The internet has discovered more information on Zack Brown, and he isn’t as noobish to the Kickstarter scene as it seems. Reports show that he has funded four campaigns, including a book on drawing, a strategy game, a heart-rate sensor for Arduino, and the expansion of the Columbus Idea Foundry. All of which succeeded. The strategy game even almost made 10x its goal.
Even though the Potato Salad Phenomenon may still most likely be a fluke, Zack has a great head on his shoulders. Guess what? He’s an entrepreneur. His company, Base Two, focuses on developing projects for web, mobile, and desktop.