The website where start-up dreams go to die

One dream that didn't die: a Kickstarter campaign for asking for $10 to make potato salad raised more than $55k in funding. Photo / Thinkstock

A superhero film project with an attention-grabbing premise was listed in early 2012 on Kickstarter, a website where entrepreneurs and artists solicit funding for their ventures from friends and strangers. But the project received no pledges by the March 1, 2012, deadline. "0 backers. $0.00 pledged of $10,000 goal. 0 seconds to go," read the final ticker.

"Excremento: The Amazing Fecal Man" is now one of the more than 11,000 failed Kickstarter projects that are preserved on the website Kickended, an archive of failed business dreams that is equal parts funny and tragic. Curated by the Italian artist, designer and researcher Silvio Lorusso, Kickended brings together Kickstarter projects that received exactly $0 in funding before their time limits ran out.

America loves underdogs, and the media often trumpet stories of unlikely success. But if innovative entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are the backbone of America's new economy, Kickended reveals its soft, squishy underbelly.

In Excremento's case, Gilbert Smith, the superhero's creator, said he used the project to learn how to animate films - he uploaded a brief animation of Excremento to the Kickstarter site. He wasn't surprised that it didn't succeed. Yet Smith, a writer who lives in Thoreau, New York, still isn't soured on the experience; he's launched a new Kickstarter project - CUT, "an 80'ss slasher-flick inspired comic" - that is more in earnest.

"It hasn't changed my feelings on crowdfunding at all," he said. "If anything, the experience only confirmed what I suspected about crowdfunding in the first place, that it hasn't really changed how art needs to be developed and promoted, it's only taken some of the risk off of the creator's shoulders."

More than $1.8b raised

Since Kickstarter began in 2009, the site has been hugely successful, helping raise more than $1.8 billion for 86,000 creative projects. It has launched commercially successful businesses, and, in the process, reinforced the idea that, with a little luck and ingenuity, any entrepreneur can make it in America. "Even when the story is painful or tragic, to me it makes sense to show it, since it is part of the evolution of crowd-funding and personal entrepreneurship in general," said Lorusso in an interview via Skype.

The projects on Lorusso's site run the gamut from funny and weird to heart-breaking.

Some of the ideas are a little odd, but still passionate - for example, a proposal to build a 30-foot mushroom forest with a Frisbee-golfing course at Burning Man, a weeklong festival held in the Nevada desert.

Another project proposes hand painting your favourite design, scene or sports team on your favourite trophy animal skull. "Unlike a normal mount that hangs on a wall, this mount can be a centre piece on your table! You can even take this mount with you to family events, or any social gathering, to show off. These mounts will amaze anyone," the blurb says.

Sincere projects

Other projects are poignant in their sincerity - like Daley's hypoallergenic Doggie Nosh, a startup pet food business "formed out of love for a little 4-lb Yorkie" with a big heart and chronic digestive issues - or Miss V.I.P., a magazine designed to boost teenage girls' self-esteem and body positivity.

Amber Schrama, who proposed Miss V.I.P.,was disappointed with the results of her foray into Kickstarter but hasn't given up. "At the beginning I was hopeful, but also not expecting to reach the goal. But I did not expect to get no backers at all," she said. Schrama said she'll definitely try crowd-funding again after the publication gathers more followers.

This archive of failed start-ups ideas forms an interesting bracket to Kickstarter's much-publicised success stories.

A "crowd-funding" site, Kickstarter's model entails collecting lots of small payments from large numbers of funders. In return, the entrepreneur promises to deliver something to his backers, with different rewards given for different funding levels - a digital download of a film for $25, or your name in the credits for $100. Kickstarter projects must reach a funding goal during a specified period, or the money is returned to the backers.

No-lose proposition

The 5-year-old site is supposed to be a no-lose proposition: If the project is successfully funded, it gets the money, backers get the rewards they were promised, and Kickstarter takes a 5 per cent fee. If the project doesn't reach the funding goal, all the pledgers get their money back. And even if projects don't get funding, they can still build valuable followings and attract publicity.

In 2014, more than half a billion dollars was pledged through Kickstarter - about $1,000 a minute. It has given birth to popular products like Cards Against Humanity, the politically incorrect party game, and the Pebble watch, which connects with a smartphone via Bluetooth. Increasingly, the projects are not just things people have invented in their garage, but products that real companies are trying to put into production.

It has also given rise to some very silly success stories. In 2014, a man went on Kickstarter with a joking request to raise $10 to make potato salad for the first time. He ended up with more than $55,000 in funding. In the end, he used the money to throw a potato-themed festival, and donated the proceeds of the party to charity.

App users tap here to watch a video about the potato salad party