Consumer Products
Coolest Cooler
The Coolest Cooler was a cooler with a blender, speaker, and phone charger that became the most-funded Kickstarter ever in 2014, raising about $13 million from 60,000 backers. Then the hard part began. It badly underestimated what it cost to build, ran out of money, sold units on Amazon while backers waited, and wound down in 2019 with roughly 20,000 people who paid never getting a cooler.
Narrative
The story
The ambition
The Coolest Cooler was a genuinely fun idea, packaged perfectly for the internet. Ryan Grepper's design took an ordinary cooler and stuffed it with extras: a built-in blender, a Bluetooth speaker, a USB phone charger, LED lights, big all-terrain wheels, even a bottle opener. Pitched as the life of the party, it went viral on Kickstarter in the summer of 2014, helped along by morning-show and late-night television coverage that carried it far beyond the usual gadget crowd. It raised roughly $13 million from about 60,000 backers, becoming the most-funded Kickstarter project ever, edging past the Pebble watch.
The rise
For a moment it was the feel-good crowdfunding story of the year: a clever product, an enthusiastic crowd, and more money than almost any Kickstarter had ever gathered. Backers pre-paid, many at a discount, and waited for the delivery promised in early 2015.
The cracks
The money was the easy part; making 60,000 complex coolers was not. Coolest badly underestimated the cost and difficulty of manufacturing and supply chain, and the crowdfunding cash, which was really customers' pre-orders, not investor capital, proved far too little. By 2016 the company said it needed another $15 million to fulfil the orders, and it began doing things that enraged the people still waiting: it asked backers to pay an extra $97 to jump the queue, and it sold the cooler on Amazon at a marked-up price while tens of thousands of backers had received nothing. The goodwill that built the campaign curdled.
The collapse
The company limped on for years, fulfilling some orders and missing many more. In 2017 an Oregon Department of Justice investigation produced a settlement under which out-of-state backers who never got a cooler would receive just $20. In December 2019 Coolest finally wound down, admitting that roughly 20,000 of its 60,000 backers would never receive the product they had paid for, some of whom had pledged well over $185. The company blamed US tariffs on Chinese-made goods, though the deeper problem had always been its own inability to make the product at the scale and cost it had promised.
The aftermath
The Coolest Cooler became the emblem of crowdfunding's central risk: that a wildly successful campaign is a beginning, not an achievement, and that raising money is not the same as being able to build. Backers who thought they were buying a cooler learned they had, in effect, made an unsecured bet on a first-time manufacturer's ability to scale.
The lessons
Winning the campaign is the easy 5%; manufacturing and fulfilment are the other 95%, and they are where crowdfunded hardware dies. Coolest raised a record sum for a product it did not yet know how to build at cost, then discovered that 60,000 complicated units are a supply-chain problem no amount of enthusiasm solves. Crowdfunding money is pre-orders, not capital, so spending it before proving you can produce leaves nothing to fall back on, and treating your earliest, most patient backers worst, by selling to strangers first, converts a fan base into a furious one. A viral idea is not a manufacturing company.
Causal timeline
Failure Anatomy
- 2014-08
The most-funded Kickstarter ever
Ryan Grepper's Coolest Cooler, a cooler with a blender, speaker, USB charger, and lights, went viral in 2014 and raised about $13 million from ~60,000 backers, surpassing Pebble as the most-funded Kickstarter project. [1]
- 2016-03
- 2016
Backers betrayed
The company asked waiting backers to pay an extra $97 to jump the queue and sold the cooler on Amazon at a markup while tens of thousands had received nothing. [4]
Leadership failure - 2017
The $20 settlement
A 2017 Oregon Department of Justice investigation produced a settlement under which out-of-state backers who never received a cooler would get just $20. [5]
- 2019-12
Wind-down
In December 2019 Coolest wound down with roughly 20,000 of 60,000 backers never receiving the product, blaming US tariffs on Chinese-made goods. [6]
Unsustainable economics
Structured analysis
What Went Wrong
Root causes
Could not manufacture at scale or cost. Coolest badly underestimated the cost and difficulty of manufacturing and supply chain for a complex product, and could not make 60,000 units at the price it had promised. [2] [3]
Crowdfunding cash was not capital. The roughly $13 million raised was customers' pre-orders, not investor capital, and it was far too little to fund production, leaving the company needing another $15 million it could not raise. [1] [3]
Contributing factors
Alienated its own backers. Coolest asked waiting backers for an extra $97 to jump the queue and sold the cooler on Amazon at a markup while tens of thousands had received nothing, destroying goodwill. [4]
Immediate trigger
Wind-down with 20,000 unfulfilled. In December 2019 Coolest wound down, admitting roughly 20,000 of 60,000 backers would never receive a cooler, blaming tariffs on Chinese goods. [6]
Visible symptoms
Years of missed deliveries. Deliveries promised for early 2015 stretched for years, with many backers never receiving the product. [2] [6]
Warning signs
Needing millions more to fulfil. By 2016 Coolest said it needed another $15 million just to fulfil orders, a sign the crowdfunding money never covered production. [3]
Affected groups
Keep reading
Related failures
Evidence
Claims & sources
Every numbered marker in the analysis links to the claim it rests on, and each claim to its sources.
- [1]
The Coolest Cooler, a cooler with a built-in blender, speaker, USB charger, and lights designed by Ryan Grepper, raised about $13 million from roughly 60,000 backers in 2014, becoming the most-funded Kickstarter project ever (surpassing Pebble).
- [2]
Coolest badly underestimated the cost and difficulty of manufacturing and supply chain, and could not produce 60,000 complex coolers at the price it had promised, missing its early-2015 delivery target by years.
- [3]
By 2016 Coolest said it needed another $15 million to fulfil orders, since the roughly $13 million raised was customer pre-orders rather than investor capital and did not cover production.
- [4]
Coolest asked waiting backers to pay an extra $97 to jump the fulfilment queue and sold the cooler on Amazon at a marked-up price while tens of thousands of backers had received nothing, angering its supporters.
- [5]
A 2017 Oregon Department of Justice investigation produced a settlement under which out-of-state backers who never received a cooler would receive just $20.
- [6]
In December 2019 Coolest wound down, admitting roughly 20,000 of its 60,000 backers would never receive a cooler, and blamed US tariffs on Chinese-made goods.
Sources
A Fancy Cooler Has Stolen The Title Of Most-Funded Kickstarter Project From Pebble
TechCrunch · 2014-08-27
Thousands of 'Coolest' Kickstarter backers will only receive $20
Engadget · 2019-12-10
$13m+ Swiss Army Knife of blenders biz collapses to fury of 20,000 unfulfilled punters
The Register · 2019-12-11