(ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.)IntroductionMore than fifteen years ago, when the World Wide Web was still in its early years and its full potential as a social network was yet to be revealed, the British band Marillion was able to raise US$60,000 to finance their U.S. tour through an internet campaign. In the following years, we witnessed the rising of collective financing online.1 The music website ArtistShare was created in 2000, becoming the first online platform for fanfunding, successfully raising funds for a Grammy Award-winning album by Maria Schneider, among other projects.2 Since then, raising funds using the internet has grown by leaps and bounds. Today, crowdfunding is incorporated in the vocabulary, meaning online contributions by the general public, above all, to a diverse pool of creative projects. Gradually, other online platforms crowded ArtistShare out-notably among them, Kickstarter. Kickstarter broke the music financing record with Amanda Palmer's $1.2 million campaign, which paid for her new album and tour.3 The power of crowdfunding seems to grow by the day and the phenomenon now goes well beyond music. Recently, Ouya brought to market, also with Kickstarter, an Android-based video game console. The required pledge of $950,000 led to collections of $8.5 million, with 63,000 contributors advancing, on average, $135 each.4 The total compares in size to a first round of venture financing.According to trade organization Crowdsourcing.org there are currently four categories of crowdfunding platforms available on the internet, defined as Equity-based, Lending-based, Reward-based, and Donationbased.5 In the first two, contributors expect financial returns in exchange for their pledges; in the reward-based model, a person contributes to a campaign in exchange for a reward and the degree of exclusivity in those rewards generally grows with the size of the contribution; finally, in donation-based crowdfunding funders contribute without expecting anything in return because the project appeals to their personal beliefs. However, the most popular crowdfunding model is still the rewards-based model, representing 43% of the global crowdfunding industry, with an expected market growth of 524% in the next year.6 There are an increasing number of crowdfunding platforms in this category such as Indiegogo, PledgeMusic, RocketHub, and, of course, Kickstarter, which we will use as a reference in this paper because it is the largest and most widely known.The rewards-based crowdfunding model strongly appeals to music projects because it permits artists to raise funds before they start working on the project; the project can be executed only if the goal is met. Artists can then cover their production costs, and possibly break even before the project even starts. Kickstarter has launched more than 22,000 music campaigns in its four-year lifespan; however, only around 54% have suc- ceeded in reaching the campaign goal.7 This means one in two projects fail to raise the necessary money. Most importantly, but less discussed, is the fact that even when they succeed in meeting their goals, project owners might have not budgeted correctly, having to access other funds to conclude the project, delaying the expected delivery date of the campaign, and sometimes never fulfilling the project. Since crowdfunding functions also as a marketing platform, non-fulfillment, or less-than-par fulfillment, jeopardizes the image of artists, and makes them lose credibility with fans.Guesswork, Misconception, and MethodThe reason for these failures is that most of the campaigns are being planned based on guesswork and misconception.On guesswork: despite the availability of general data provided by some of the crowdfunding platforms, a more professional and statistical approach is missing. It would be extremely useful for new music projects to use the information available in order to realistically set goals and more accurately estimate the number of contributors needed to realize a successful endeavor. …