Timing co-creation: A reward-based crowdfunding perspective

Reward-based crowdfunding provides a rich arena for co-creation, where different types of dialogues between backers and project initiators aid crowdfunding performance. Nevertheless, research on how backers' co-creation, in the form of comments, influences crowdfunding performance is still scarce. Based on signaling theory, this research investigates the impact of backers' specific co-creation comments (we coded comments for co-ideation, co-evaluation, and co-design) on crowdfunding performance. The present study also examines whether the timing of posting co-creation comments influences associated performance benefits. We used a panel dataset of 446 reward-based crowdfunding projects with 7254 observation days. The results show that backers' co-ideation and co-evaluation activity leads to a higher funding amount. Furthermore, the impact of co-ideation is higher for comments made early in the project's lifecycle, while the effect of co-design is wholly contingent on the time of commenting, with early co-design comments contributing negatively to crowdfunding performance.