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Their domain still leads to an indigogo page. People should avoid startups those use crowdfunding websites as risk free capital gainer preorder pages. They do

Their domain still leads to an indigogo page. People should avoid startups those use crowdfunding websites as risk free capital gainer preorder pages. They don't get proper investment for a reason.

cyberferret 10y ago
Seriously? What about companies that emphatically don't want to sell off a large percentage of their company and their souls to a board of venture capitalists and the like?
- madeofpalk 10y ago
  Then bootstrap and self-fund.
  - cyberferret 10y ago
    One thing for a software or services based company, but if you are a product based company that needs significant capital investment to get production started, and you haven't got any credit history to be able to get a bank loan, then crowd funding seems to be a legitimate way to go. Plus you get the added bonus of getting marketplace validation from your actual customers if they fork out the money to subscribe to you. First responder to this thread was pretty much lambasting all projects that opt for the crowd funding pathway, which I think is a grossly unfair judgement call.
    - madeofpalk 10y ago
      Then talk to investors to take investment. I don't think its unreasonable that someone who takes a risk on giving you money in your infancy to realise your product should get some equity or something else from it that's more than just a "preorder".
  - quadrangle 10y ago
    It's crazy how many people do not realize that "bootstrap" as in "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" is a sarcastic MOCKERY of that sort of sentiment. It's like we need new idioms. Here's a suggestion: "This poor new mother doesn't need welfare, she can live off her own milk!" I bet it would take a long time before "live off your own milk" degrades to being taken non-sarcastically…
- dovdovdov 10y ago
  They should exploit consumers I guess.........
gingerbread-man 10y ago
> They don't get proper investment for a reason. That's not always true. Ergodox-ez.com has an awesome product (a keyboard) they funded through indiegogo. Not to mention basically every 3d printer company, even the VC funded ones. Crowdfunding (and pre-ordering in general) helps hardware startups raise the cash they need to manufacture a batch of product. Without it, they'd have to raise the full cost of the batch in advance, (which is probably a lot,) on the hope that customers will buy it up. I can't think of many startups that have that much goodwill from investors. It makes sense to be extremely skeptical when giving your money to an early-stage company, whether as an investor or a pre-order customer. But writing off crowdfunding in general means you're writing off almost every hardware startup, including some of the great ones.
- yellowapple 10y ago
  Speaking of the keyboard world, there's also the extreme of the crowdfunding concept: sites like Massdrop that emphasize crowdfunding individual batches of a product (almost always one-off) rather than aiming for eventual mass-production and general availability. It apparently seems to be working for some people, but as someone who doesn't follow every last Massdrop deal, it just seems more annoying than useful as a business practice.
  - Gracana 10y ago
    It's definitely better for customers if you have a constant supply of products to sell, but for niche hobbyist groups (like mechanical keyboard enthusiasts), it's the only way to get some stuff made. I like it. I was able to get a keyboard PCB fairly inexpensively, which is a big deal because getting one-offs of PCBs that size costs $$$.
- yunolisten 10y ago
  Ergodox-ez.com sure make a big deal about being 'open source', yet I can't find a schematic, PCB design or anything related to this on their site. Perhaps I'm missing something? What I do see is they use an open source firmware, used on several other keyboards.
elastic_church 10y ago
lol silly conclusion, teach 'em a lesson boys! (yes I just assumed your gender still flies helicopter away)
- dang 10y ago
  Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? We've asked you this before.

Their domain still leads to an indigogo page. People should avoid startups those use crowdfunding websites as risk free capital gainer preorder pages. They don't get proper investment for a reason.

cyberferret 10y ago

Seriously? What about companies that emphatically don't want to sell off a large percentage of their company and their souls to a board of venture capitalists and the like?

madeofpalk 10y ago
Then bootstrap and self-fund.
- cyberferret 10y ago
  One thing for a software or services based company, but if you are a product based company that needs significant capital investment to get production started, and you haven't got any credit history to be able to get a bank loan, then crowd funding seems to be a legitimate way to go. Plus you get the added bonus of getting marketplace validation from your actual customers if they fork out the money to subscribe to you. First responder to this thread was pretty much lambasting all projects that opt for the crowd funding pathway, which I think is a grossly unfair judgement call.
  - madeofpalk 10y ago
    Then talk to investors to take investment. I don't think its unreasonable that someone who takes a risk on giving you money in your infancy to realise your product should get some equity or something else from it that's more than just a "preorder".
- quadrangle 10y ago
  It's crazy how many people do not realize that "bootstrap" as in "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" is a sarcastic MOCKERY of that sort of sentiment. It's like we need new idioms. Here's a suggestion: "This poor new mother doesn't need welfare, she can live off her own milk!" I bet it would take a long time before "live off your own milk" degrades to being taken non-sarcastically…
dovdovdov 10y ago
They should exploit consumers I guess.........

gingerbread-man 10y ago

> They don't get proper investment for a reason. That's not always true. Ergodox-ez.com has an awesome product (a keyboard) they funded through indiegogo. Not to mention basically every 3d printer company, even the VC funded ones. Crowdfunding (and pre-ordering in general) helps hardware startups raise the cash they need to manufacture a batch of product. Without it, they'd have to raise the full cost of the batch in advance, (which is probably a lot,) on the hope that customers will buy it up. I can't think of many startups that have that much goodwill from investors. It makes sense to be extremely skeptical when giving your money to an early-stage company, whether as an investor or a pre-order customer. But writing off crowdfunding in general means you're writing off almost every hardware startup, including some of the great ones.

yellowapple 10y ago
Speaking of the keyboard world, there's also the extreme of the crowdfunding concept: sites like Massdrop that emphasize crowdfunding individual batches of a product (almost always one-off) rather than aiming for eventual mass-production and general availability. It apparently seems to be working for some people, but as someone who doesn't follow every last Massdrop deal, it just seems more annoying than useful as a business practice.
- Gracana 10y ago
  It's definitely better for customers if you have a constant supply of products to sell, but for niche hobbyist groups (like mechanical keyboard enthusiasts), it's the only way to get some stuff made. I like it. I was able to get a keyboard PCB fairly inexpensively, which is a big deal because getting one-offs of PCBs that size costs $$$.
yunolisten 10y ago
Ergodox-ez.com sure make a big deal about being 'open source', yet I can't find a schematic, PCB design or anything related to this on their site. Perhaps I'm missing something? What I do see is they use an open source firmware, used on several other keyboards.

elastic_church 10y ago

lol silly conclusion, teach 'em a lesson boys! (yes I just assumed your gender still flies helicopter away)

dang 10y ago
Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? We've asked you this before.