A friend is also using Kickstarter to raise funds and I'm glad to say she has also managed to exceed her target amount via the website, so its very encouraging to read another success story - esp. a WordPress related one - as it will certainly raise awareness and hopefully it will inspire other plugin developers to try this route too instead of e.g. going commercial.

The Pods plugin does have a very strong community following, so am not sure if that was a major factor in achieving its target and more, as it was able to propagate the news quickly.

Perhaps upcoming developers without such a strong community backing can contact Jeff in the future to help raise their profile if they decide to go down the Kickstarter route :)