Kickstarter potato salad project raises $35,000

A project seeking to raise $10 to make a potato salad from donors on the crowd-funding website KickStarter has inadvertently raised over $35,000 (£20,000).

More than 1,900 people have contributed to Zack "Danger" Brown's bid to make his first ever potato salad.

"We will not be letting the internet down," Brown said in an interview with the Washington Post.

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Brown, from Columbus, Ohio, posted the tongue-in-cheek "project" on Thursday with the goal of raising $10 towards his lunch. "Basically I'm just making potato salad. I haven’t decided what kind yet," he wrote.

Several days later he had raised significantly more than he had originally hoped. Most donors offered small amounts but some pledged $50 or more.

"There was never any, 'Hey how can we validate our business model?'," Brown said. "It was about potato salad and potato salad only. Sincerity is important. That's why people react to it."

Brown has now modified the ambition and scale of the project to account for his newfound windfall. He has pledged to make several different types of potato salad in a live-stream, while reading out the names of each of his backers. He will also produce "I love potato salad hats" and may ship some of his salad overseas, ITV reports.

Brown said that what started out as a joke could now take "weeks" to complete.