The TC post includes this quote from Xiki's author. "If this campaign succeeds, the money will let me dedicate the time needed to bring this next, drastically improved, version of Xiki to the world."
Apparently he's looking for about one year's worth of money to work full time on Xiki. Why he didn't do that before, I don't know and it doesn't matter much. But using Kickstarter he's able to be very specific about what one should expect to get as a reward. Example: 35 $ buy a t-shirt and 10 votes for vim or sublime support, no specific features. 2k $ buy a command for your company. He writes "See the Twilio command in the video for an example". So it's true that if you donate a lot you get more. If only companies from a specific domain fund Xiki it could turn out to be a very domain specific shell. However being strong on a vertical market could be a nice strategy. Unfortunately it's out of Xiki's control.
Apparently he's looking for about one year's worth of money to work full time on Xiki. Why he didn't do that before, I don't know and it doesn't matter much. But using Kickstarter he's able to be very specific about what one should expect to get as a reward. Example: 35 $ buy a t-shirt and 10 votes for vim or sublime support, no specific features. 2k $ buy a command for your company. He writes "See the Twilio command in the video for an example". So it's true that if you donate a lot you get more. If only companies from a specific domain fund Xiki it could turn out to be a very domain specific shell. However being strong on a vertical market could be a nice strategy. Unfortunately it's out of Xiki's control.