When we asked Peak Design founder Peter Dering what it would be like to run a Kickstarter campaign without BackerKit he replied—
“I dunno, could you run your business without emails these days?”
Who is Peter Dering?
He’s a Minnesota-born product designer who specializes in photographic accessories and innovative bag design. He has a gift for solving unique challenges and presenting solutions in intelligent and useful ways. His company Peak Design is a direct reflection of his dedication and passion.
If you break down the top 12 most funded design projects on Kickstarter, Peak Design shows up an impressive 4 times. Over the years they’ve successfully delivered to over 110,000 backers raising well over $20 million across all of their campaigns. Needless to say, they are one of the most successful crowdfunding creators of all time.
Peak Design
Peak Design started in 2010 when Peter took a 3-month trip around the world. During the trip he discovered that traveling with a DSLR camera wasn’t very fun. DSLRs capture amazing images but you have to carry around a 2-pound, oddly shaped device that has to be within easy reach at all times.
When Peter returned home, he immediately started working on a solution that would become the Peak Design Capture Camera Clip, a rigid camera holder that can secure a DSLR to any belt or strap. He launched the project on Kickstarter in 2011 and found immediate success raising $364,698 from 5,258 backers.
Today, Peak Design is a major player in the world of photographic accessories and bag design. They’re consistently crafting innovative, intelligent, and useful products to their growing community.
“Our growth has been fueled by a continued reliance on Kickstarter as a product launching platform.”
Peter’s challenge—Delivering to thousands of backers
“There’s a lot of people who might do 9 things out of 10 right, but if they screw up the fulfillment then they don’t open up themselves to repeat success.”
Due to their high backer count, Peak Design became an early BackerKit customer and used our pledge management software and expert customer service to handle all their backer management needs.
“BackerKit fills a number of essential roles but, with respect to fulfillment, just having the confidence that all the information is correct, that it’s done by the users, and that it’s all organized in the right format and not having to worry about that is just huge.”
Peter’s solution—Removing the hassle and guesswork
“When we made a decision to do all of the data work through BackerKit, it was like, ‘wow!’ It just flows through and gets the job done, so we can keep on working in the very, very busy day jobs we already have.”
BackerKit provided the pledge management tools needed to keep fulfillment on track and allowed Peak Design employees to focus on manufacturing. Being able to manipulate information, process backers in batches, and get accurate data via detailed Backer Surveys supercharged operations.
Results—Solidifying a strong reputation
“It’s an easy business decision for me because it pays for itself several times over in actual revenue and profits and then all of the efficiency that you gain on top of that is just irreplaceable.”
Making sure backers get the right rewards at the right time is key to building a loyal customer base that will be excited to back your next campaign. You build and earn a strong reputation during your successful crowdfunding campaign. But if you mismanage the fulfillment stage, you are losing some of that reputation and blocking yourself off from repeat success.
Over the years, Peak Design has earned millions of dollars delivering to thousands of loyal backers. They trust BackerKit to not only take care of their growing community, but to honor and help build their reputation.
Travel Tripod is Peak Design’s latest Kickstarter success reaching over 15,000 backers and earning over $7 million in just a few weeks. Check out their campaign page today. According to Backer Tracker, they’re trending to reach over $10 million.
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