Reddit takes on Kickstarter with crowdfunding site Redditmade

Reddit has entered the crowdfunding arena with Redditmade, a new competitor to the likes of Kickstarter and Indiegogo.

But unlike those sites, Redditmade is targeting a particular user with a laser focus: the existing moderators of Reddit communities, called subreddits.

“One of the biggest reasons we created redditmade was to allow subreddits an easy way to create official subreddit merch for their communities,” the site explains in its launch announcement. “Whatever you want to make, we’ll connect you to our network of quality sourcing partners for a variety of products and walk you through every step of the process so your community can celebrate your connection and show off your pride without all the work.

The social news site is massive, with 175 million unique visitors in the last month spread over more than 8,000 active subreddits. But as a business, it’s comparatively small, with just two major sources of income: display advertising, and sales of its premium membership service Reddit Gold.

The latter represents an effort to monetize the community aspects of Reddit, but can only reach as deep as the overarching Reddit community. But while there is a sense of belonging amongst many Redditors, much of that communal sentiment belongs to the subreddits, rather than the site as a whole.

Redditmade lets those subreddits, which unite communities as diverse and specific as mixologists, supporters of charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, and members of Reddit’s clan for videogame Modern Warfare 3, create and sell merchandise to their members. In exchange, of course, Reddit takes a cut.

Unlike full-blown crowdfunding sites, however, Reddit also takes a strong hand in creating the product. The majority of the site is focused around t-shirt sales, where the designer submits the artwork and sets a price but Reddit handles manufacturing and shipping.

For other goods, Reddit requires “rough examples of artwork”, and then “connects you with sourcing partners, work with you to finalise designs, and help you step through all the other creative, legal, logistical, promotional, and financial hoops to make your campaign happen, but we can only help you as much as you’ll let us”.