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Kickstarter’s Biggest Shitshow Somehow Got Even Messier

• wjnc 11y ago
  An interesting situation. Obviously, being a backer on Kickstarter means taking risks. At first the risk feels binary: either the product succeeds or not. But obviously, quality and delivery matter. So the risk is not binary. Some delivered products still fail expectations. But hey, it's a Kickstarter. Here it is different. Product succeeded to market, on the backs of the backers, the business got pre-funded and is running, but the cashflow generated from the final product is not enough to forfill the promise to the backers. The implicit promise to me is: IF I succeed in building the product, THEN I promise to deliver. You pre-fund me, and see what happens. The term shitstorm is pretty adequate. You promise, you succeed and then renegotiate. This is worse than failing. It's like lending money from your mom to start a business and forget to pay back. The hint for future Kickstarters is: sell out sooner and do better calculations. The profits of future retail should at least cover the costs implicit in the pre-funded promise to backers. This makes electronic kickstarters a lot harder, since it is less easy to deliver low quality than in software. But it's the nature of the business you're aspiring to be in. If you fail, fail hard. Don't try to hang on to your business, while skipping on your promises. You've got a moral obligation to work hard and fail hard.