Kickstarter Jacket Aims For $20,000 But Receives A Staggering $9 Million In Funding
For those that need some successful ideas to crowdfund, perhaps coming up with a cool jacket will get people excited. That’s what the people behind the BauBax jacket did, and they not only met their $20,000 goal hours after launching their campaign, but they exceeded over $9 million when it was all said and done.
Hiral Sanghavi, the creator of the jacket, never imagined the project would take off as big as it did. According to reports, it was one of the most successful crowdsourcing projects ever: “The BauBax jacket drive, which ended Thursday, also became Kickstarter’s fourth-most funded campaign ever after the two Pebble Smart Watches and the multi-purpose Coolest Cooler box.”
How did the BauBax jacket take off? It’s a unique idea that Sanghavi actually got from his wife. They’re in a long distance relationship that includes flights from the West Coast to the Midwest. Instead of buying a costly neck pillow when they forgot one for the long trip, this jacket allows you to inflate a neck pillow attached to it. There’s 14 other hidden attachments on the jacket, including areas to hold your phone and tablet, a portable charger, stylus, insulated cup holder, and gloves for each sleeve.
Over 45,000 backers for the Kickstarter project ordered approximately 70,000 jackets and will be shipped out this November. Sanghavi hopes that the jacket will hit retail stores sometime next year. His team is already growing and moving from Chicago to San Francisco, and hopes to have more ideas for products soon.
