“We think we make it by showing people a lot of original photos, gifs and videos of the product in the early stage of this campaign. What steps have you taken to gain the trust of your backers and reassure them that they aren’t throwing their money away? What makes a campaign like this so successful, especially these days when would-be backers might be a little extra wary of pledging their money to a 3D printer crowdfunding effort? We spoke to the company briefly to find out. The campaign was launched by Snapmaker, a startup founded by mechanical engineer Daniel Chen, and has raised nearly $1.5 million with less than two weeks left (its initial goal was to raise $50,000).

That’s rarely been more evident than in the soon-to-conclude Kickstarter campaign for the Snapmaker 3D printer, a simple but sturdy machine that also functions as a CNC machine and a laser engraver. However, for as many people who may have backed away from instead of backing new campaigns, there are still plenty of 3D printing enthusiasts willing to put their trust in a promising product.

We’ve seen some trust in crowdfunding begin to erode among potential backers lately, however, after several campaigns raked in a great deal of money and then were unable to deliver their product for a variety of reasons. If you’re a regular or even semi-regular reader of, you know that we cover crowdfunding campaigns quite frequently – and for good reason, because some of the most successful businesses in the 3D printing industry got their start on sites like Kickstarter or Indiegogo.

Snapmaker 3d print files