Kickstarter joining forces with Amazon could mean big bucks for small companies

Kickstarter announced recently a partnership with Amazon to continue the sales funnel for Kickstarter projects. It’s called Amazon Launchpad, and makes widely available for order products from leading crowdfunding campaigns.
“Creators behind hundreds of these projects are getting a lift today thanks to Amazon Launchpad — a program that helps startups and other creators launch, market, and distribute their products to hundreds of millions of customers across the globe,” a blog post by Kickstarter announced.
The partnership will help solve a problem Kickstarter projects run into frequently. After a successful Kickstarter campaign, then what? Now you’re just a company, out there, all alone, in the wild.
Amazon Launchpad will extend that runway. One of the hardest things for startups is finding a market. Well, Amazon has a market. The online retailer had $107 billion in revenue last year and grew 26 percent year over year.
Kickstarter’s Amazon Launchpad page has five product categories: STEM products, Always Be Learning, Exquisite Objects, Inventing the Future, and Public Benefit. None of the categories has more than about 20 products in it, but that number is expected to grow.
Only one of the products on Launchpad has Brooklyn connections, the Digital Art Display by Electric Objects, a Manhattan-based company with ties to the Brooklyn art and tech world.
But, if they’re looking for ideas, here are a few great Brooklyn products that would do well with a bigger market:

• Keap Candles — A direct-to-consumer candle project based in Industry City and founded by two ex-Google employees.
• Misen — A critically acclaimed knife campaign done by a 25-year-old, which raised more than half a million dollars.
• BioLite’s BaseLantern — A battery-powered lantern that can hold its charge for more than 50 hours.
• The Paralo Play VR Headset — A VR headset as easy to use as Google Cardboard, but which fits well on a face.
• A hat that says “movies” on it — A Technical.ly Brooklyn fave, it’s just what it sounds like.

If you have a Kickstarter campaign and wanna get on Amazon, there’s an application process for Kickstarter projects to be included in Launchpad.