What's with the shitty naive algorithm? Can't they borrow something from a stock trading site?
Ouch.
I'll google "stock trading algorithm" and implement that right away. But in all seriousness, it's a projection based on collected data. I don't care how magical an algorithm is, if you have one sampling of data and a period to projected it onto, of course it's going to be wildly inaccurate, especially at the start of a kickstarter campaign which I cover in detail in a thread over at BGG:
http://boardgamegeek.com/article/8849498#8849498
The longer the campaign goes the more reasonable the projection gets. Once it gets out of the initial pledge ramp, the projection will get more in-line with realistic projections.
Would you rather not even see a projection after a certain period of time so it's more accurate?