I love founder stories.

What about this story intrigued you?

The kickstarter part. Kickstarter is a strange, fast, and dynamic beast. It's nice they overcame that rejection -- and with the help of PG's nice comments about them on hacker news as a result of them being a YC company -- were able to overcome their seeming misfortune and turn it into a net positive.

They own their customers, not kickstarter, as would have been the likely outcome.

They don't talk about PG in the article.

Nor do they talk about how their product spread so fast.

They do make me not want to fund Kickstarter projects anymore.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4602821

Just because they don't say it ...

Frankly do they know why it spread? I'd bet that PG comment is worth 1000 customer reviews at 5-stars.

So you think 10,000 people bought in the basis of one PG recommendation?

Wow, that's power.

I'd estimate the first 10-25%, yes, and the rest spread through word-of-mouth and social media.

His comment convinced and influences folks to up vote it, gaining more visibility. Many folks on HN read comments before clicking links, so his comment serves as the ultimate social proof.

Wow, PG has constructed a universe in which he is the deity.

The patron saint of the hacker way.

I love Kickstarter but there may be trouble ahead for them.

Now that the model is established, the best and biggest projects can run a similar campaign on their own -- as long as they can build their own buzz/audience.

Examples?

App.net and Lockitron are two prominent examples that wanted to use Kickstarter but were not allowed. They each built a system to do it on their own in short order. Lockitron says they'll open source their scripts.

And now from Lockitron comes:

http://selfstarter.us/