Communications of the ACM
Got a Kickstarter Project? This Man Can Predict Within Four Hours If It Will Fail
A new method of predicting whether a Kickstarter project will succeed within four hours of its launch claims 76-percent accuracy.
Credit: Vincent Etter
Researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) have developed a method of predicting whether a Kickstarter project will succeed within four hours of its launch with 76-percent accuracy.
The method combines information on interest shown in the project on Twitter, the earlier projects backed by supporters, the number of first-time supporters, and how fast money is coming in.
The researchers also have created Sidekick, a tool that applies their hypotheses to live Kickstarter projects.
"The model reaches 85-percent accuracy after only 10 percent of the campaign [duration]," notes EPFL researcher Vincent Etter. "The accuracy is, of course, close to 100 percent near the end of the campaign, but this is pretty useless, as there is not much you can do at that point."
Etter also observes that a lack of project momentum by the middle of the campaign indicates low odds of success.
An earlier method by a U.S. team predicts Kickstarter project success with 68-percent accuracy, and the key distinction between the two techniques is that the U.S. team only studies information available prior to the campaign's launch. The EPFL researchers presented their findings at the recent ACM Conference on Online Social Networks.
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