ThingsWeStart is a real-time map of Kickstarter’s current projects.

Discover projects you love, support places you love.

Screenshots Galore

Why are we building it?

We think Kickstarter, and sites like it, will change the world.  We want to help them do it, one community at a time.

Also, we could.

Who are we?

ThingsWeStart is being built by a group of friends scattered amongst Seattle, Puerto Rico, and San Francisco:

Stephanie Haller Infographic Starter San Francisco	Jose Padilla Code Starter Puerto Rico	Elving Rodriguez Experience Starter Puerto Rico
Lori Williams Visualization Starter Seattle	Derek Lactaoen Social Starter Seattle	Adriana Dunn Relations Starter Seattle
Justin Wilcox Starter Undetermined

Doesn’t Kickstarter do this already?

Unfortunately, no.

We love Kickstarter, but if we’re being honest, searching for projects there is a little lame.

Kickstarter will tell you the projects in a specific “location”, so if you want a list of projects in “New York”, you can get them.  Unfortunately, that list won’t include any of the thousands of projects in “Brooklyn”, “Manhattan”, “Lower East Side”, “Long Island”, etc.

That means both backers and project owners miss out.

ThingsWeStart shows projects in, and around, New York all at once.  Same goes for projects in and around San Francisco’s Bay Area, and Seattle’s Puget Sound. [Screenshot]

Fancy filters

We’ve also gone one step further, letting you combine filters, which you can’t do on Kickstarter today.

1. “What Art projects are going on in Chicago?”
   Combine project category and location filters
   
2. “Show me all of the Technology and Games projects across the US.”
   Search for projects in multiple categories

Finally, ThingsWeStart offers project alerts via email.

So let’s say you wanted to know about “new Food projects in LA” – just select Food projects, zoom into LA, and enter your email address.  You’ll get one email every month with new Food projects on your map. [Screenshot]

Also works if you want to “Show me all Design projects, no matter where they are” – just zoom out to the see the entire world and enter your email.

Hmm, I forgot. There’s more.

1. Quickly see the Top 25 funded projects in your search [Screenshot]
2. Discover the projects that are “Almost There” – need just a little more help before they reach their goal [Screenshot]
3. Watch project videos directly on ThingsWeStart [Screenshot]

Alright, that should be it…for now.

Pick your Infographic!

What are the Top 10 Kickstarter cities in America? Who’s hot for tech? Who’s hot for film? Design? Games? Films? Movies?

We’ve got infographics for them all – please feel, free to use any/all of them!

Daaaaata!

There are a pile of stories that emerge when combining Kickstarter & communities. Here’s just a sample of what’s in the data spreadsheet:

1. Top Kickstarter cities, per capita
2. Top Kickstarting countries
3. How much has     [pick a city]    raised?
4. What categories does    [pick a city]    love?

Here’s a snapshot of the data. You can view/download the whole spreadsheet here.

Important Dates

Sat 9/8 @ 9 am EST – We’ll update the infographics and spreadsheet with the latest data, and remove the watermarks so they can be included in any articles

Mon 9/10 @ 9 am EST – ThingsWeStart launches!

Help us tell the world

We’re really excited to give ThingsWeStart to the world - we’d love your help letting them know it’s out there.

Please let us know if there’s anything you need from us.

Questions? Fire away!

We’re happy to chat.  Just email Justin@ThingsWeStart.com.