Raising $100,000 In Three Hours - Using Kickstarter To Quit Your Job

Kickstarter is the #1 Crowdfunding platform, allowing a person with an idea or passion to post their project and have friends, family, fans, and strangers donate money to the success of the project.

Kickstarter isn't a charity donation site and it isn't an equity investment site. It is a place to give money and receive money for your ideas.

My good friend, Jamey Stegmaier launched a project on Kickstarter today, called Tuscany. Jamey makes boardgames as a hobby...Correction, Jamey made boardgames as a hobby. He now designs and publishes board games as his job.

In the first three hours of his Kickstarter campaign, he has successfully raised $100,000, five fold over his goal of $20,000. His project still has 28 days to go, and I'm estimating that he will approach three quarters of a million dollars in that time frame. This is Jamey's third Kickstarter project in the past three years. Two months ago, Jamey quit his day job and dedicated himself to being the full-time owner of Stonemaier Games, using Kickstarter as his funding vehicle to raise enough money to launch his business as a full-time endeavor.

Last year, Jamey raised more than $300k on Kickstarter for his second project, and ~$60,000 the year before that. Without asking for any investment and without sacrificing any equity or loans that need to be repaid, Jamey has successfully launched a business with the support of his fans and future customers and this is the beauty and magic of Kickstarter.

Word of Caution

This isn't a get rich quick story. Jamey has put a tremendous amount work into reaching this point. He is a big fan of inbound content marketing. He blogged every business day for six straight years, building up a base of fans used to his regularly produced content. Then, when he began launching campaigns on Kickstarter, he created a series of Kickstarter blog posts. His latest is post #86 and you can read it here on his website for Kickstarter lessons.

Jamey has put time, effort, and given back to his community over the past few years. And now, when the time has come for him to ask something from the community in return, they have responded.

The lesson to be learned here is that you can find success for your own dreams and passions. With hard work and dedication you can create your own 3 hour $100,000 success story that takes six years to create.