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How a PR Agency Stole Our Kickstarter Money

172 points by iamdeedubs 9y ago

late2part 9y ago
There are a few things about this I don’t understand. How much money was it? Were they supposed to get a percentage of money raised, or did they get paid a fee and then get a percentage on top? Do I understand correctly that they’re having money problems so they kept your money to solve their money problems? The simple way to solve this is to take them to court. Is there anything more to the story than you trusted them with your money and they kept it?
- otakucode 9y ago
  It certainly should go to court... but that would be an international lawsuit, which is far from cheap. And the people who were wronged are the ones who would be ponying up the cash for a long, long time before they might see any restitution... I can't understand going public, and really I'm glad they did. I'm sure the other side will whine about 'libel', but in order for it to be libel you have to prove that it is false, and prove that the other party knew it was false and intended to do harm. I don't think Woodshed can even manage the first of that, let alone the other two.
  - late2part 9y ago
    I don't know what "international lawsuit" means. The plaintiff would sue the defendant local region. It's implicitly an "international" transaction, so why would rectifying the problem be considered unfairly burdensome when they entered into the relationship.
    - otakucode 9y ago
      If I understood the article correctly, the PR company is in the United States and the Kickstarted company is in another country. If they tried to bring a suit in their country, the court might not have jurisdiction. Even if they did say they had jurisdiction, the likelihood of them being able to compel US citizens to suffer penalties levied by a court in another country is extremely slim. So most likely, they would need to hire a lawyer in the US to bring the suit in a US court. That requires finding a lawyer who is familiar with the intracacies of international contract law, the details involved in establishing jurisdiction, etc, and they would need to travel to the US many times (possibly very many if the opposition thinks they can drag the case out and make it too burdensome for the plaintiff to continue) for various hearings. Then there's the issue of finding a lawyer who won't start off by asking 'and what is a kickstarter?' which is harder than you might expect. Also, I just thought, Kickstarter might have some kind of standing in this which might also require the case to occur in a US court. Not sure about that.
- pavel_lishin 9y ago
  > The simple way to solve this is to take them to court. Is there anything more to the story than you trusted them with your money and they kept it? It seems like the point of the post is to publicize what happened, and make sure other people are aware of the dangers of working with this agency: > If we don’t tell people what happened, it could happen to someone else. > We are cutting our losses and doing what we can on a legal front, but we need to warn the community. The legal system moves slowly; this appears to be their way of holding them accountable for their actions, and for helping others avoid their fate.
  - spelunker 9y ago
    Or possibly damaging a reputation of a company unreasonably because we're only hearing one side of the story: https://twitter.com/Woodshedagency/status/943508162002513923 https://twitter.com/Woodshedagency/status/943508162002513923 I mean there's a reason why the "court of public opinion" isn't the best way to resolve issues... edit: well, looks like Woodshead Agency protected their twitter account so you can't see the tweet now. That's not great.
    - pavel_lishin 9y ago
      That's absolutely true.
    - valuearb 9y ago
      If there is another side to the story, whats taking so long to tell it? And if they have a good explanation, why have they been blocking people on twitter for asking for it?
      - pavel_lishin 9y ago
        > If there is another side to the story, whats taking so long to tell it? To play devil's advocate, they need to be able to respond to the accusation well. They can't just jot something down and fire it off, right? They're starting off in a defensive position, and need to address the accusation in away that paints them as the good guys (which they might be).
- learc83 9y ago
  According to the post, they paid Woodshed a retainer and were supposed to pay Woodshed a small percentage of the total if they hit their goal. Court is the obvious way to handle it, but I see nothing wrong with going public to warn other people, or shame the company into paying up. The company is still apparently doing business. This goes a bit beyond not being able to pay your vendors, and depending on how exactly it went down, what Woodshed did could be outright illegal.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  How much money was it? https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rdacalos/upstart-the-board-game https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rdacalos/upstart-the-bo... Looks like $35k. No one would risk destroying their reputation over that small sum. I wonder what the other side of the story is? Abuse is pretty common in gamedev, but this would be flagrant.
  - anthonybsd 9y ago
    > No one would risk destroying their reputation over that small sum. You really underestimate how bad some people's finances are right now in places like Michigan.
  - gamblor956 9y ago
    Looks like $35k. No one would risk destroying their reputation over that small sum. I wonder what the other side of the story is? People have killed for far less...If they were in a bad enough financial position, they could have thought that they would borrow their client's money to pay immediate bills, and pay the account back with future client earnings. It happens quite frequently in the legal world--it's the number one reason lawyers get disbarred in CA after drug use.
    - panglott 9y ago
      Possibly even a single partner was defrauding the business. If the other partners were not aware this was occurring until now, that might be a more benevolent explanation of why the agency has gone dark.
  - ceejayoz 9y ago
    > Looks like $35k. No one would risk destroying their reputation over that small sum. People risk a lifetime in jail over $35k, on a regular basis.
  - Jotra7 9y ago
    Must be nice to be so privileged as to think 35K is a "small sum."
- panglott 9y ago
  They linked to the Kickstarter, which says the campaign raised about $35k.
the-dude 9y ago
What I feel is lacking from this postmortem is looking inwards : did you make mistakes and how did it affect the outcome. Answer : we made a huge mistake to trust people with all our money. This mistake has led to all our problems. I know it sounds obvious, but still.
- learc83 9y ago
  It's in big bold letters. "We were wrong."
  - the-dude 9y ago
    I see what you are getting at, but my comment stands. Responsibility is not being taken.
    - learc83 9y ago
      It was a stupid risk, they said as much. Why are you insisting on self-flagellation? They are the victims here (assuming they are telling the truth). I don't blame people for being taken advantage of by a conman. I might advise them not to be so trusting, but I don't go around demanding they publicly take full responsibility for being the victim of a scam.
      - the-dude 9y ago
        > Why are you insisting on self-flagellation? Because people who externalize tend to learn poorly.
        steve_adams_86 9y ago
        A signifiant point of the post is to say that they learned something, and they hope others can learn from it too. Maybe the issue is you didn't read the full article?
      - slantyyz 9y ago
nimos 9y ago
I don't know why but it kind of rubs me the wrong way PR agencies for Kickstarter/crowd-funding even exist. I'd rather back something that had someone passionate with a shitty cell phone video over the generic sterile PR videos that everything seems to have now. https://twitter.com/Woodshedagency https://twitter.com/Woodshedagency The hashtags on their twitter description almost seem like satire.
- the-dude 9y ago
  This does not work ( passionate developer with a failed KS ) edit : and this was not because the project sucked, the project is profitable now.
  - Xeoncross 9y ago
    2x ditto
- matte_black 9y ago
  I don’t. Some low budget shitty cell phone pitches are down right cringey. There is nothing wrong with hiring a PR firm to present your pitch in the best light. It’s part of fundraising.
  - kjrose 9y ago
    Pretty much. You need to hire the people who know how to do the job right. Ironically showing wisdom in that means the money donated will likely also be used correctly by hiring the right specialists.
    - the-dude 9y ago
      Insightful, had not considered this point of view.
- kjrose 9y ago
  The reason these guys exist is because the difference between a 100k+ campaign and a 10k failed campaign can come down to straight marketing which most engineering minded folks are not trained/knowledgeable with.
stablemap 9y ago
https://twitter.com/Woodshedagency/status/943508162002513923 https://twitter.com/Woodshedagency/status/943508162002513923
- rabidonrails 9y ago
  "Sorry, you are not authorized to see this status."
- DoreenMichele 9y ago
  "These Tweets are protected Only approved followers can see @Woodshedagency's Tweets. To request access, click Follow. Learn more." This does not exactly make them look like innocent above board victims of libel.
  - slazaro 9y ago
    They've now posted their response, and if true, everything on their side makes sense, and makes this situation a good example of not 100% trusting one sided accusations without having the other side's version first.
    - DoreenMichele 9y ago
      Well, it is rather annoying to be crabbed at like I was on a witch hunt. I also wrote this comment which was downvoted into the negatives and remains at zero: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15971899 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15971899 The witch-hunt atmosphere in this thread is not my doing. Other people chose to upvote comments that agreed with the one sided smear campaign and downvote anything arguing for a more evenhanded approach. Please note the final paragraph of that comment was added after it was downvoted into the negatives and initially was prefaced with "I have no idea why this is being downvoted, but... " So I feel rather aggravated with my entire experience of this discussion. Get downvoted for an evenhanded comment, then later get lectured for a different one that could be framed as agreement with the smear campaign. Not to self: Maybe I need to just avoid mudslinging discussions on HN lest I get mud slung all over me, no matter what I do. Trying to be a voice of reason in the face of this crap apparently does not do any good at all.
soared 9y ago
I don't buy this story. The entire post is one sided - am I really supposed to believe some pr agency straight up stole your money? And now 7 months later you are "doing what we can on a legal front"? This is a perfect example of why we should all follow the "innocent until proven guilty" idea. There is no proof, no chance for the agency to refute claims, etc. Convenient that they are also asking for more financing.
- aqme28 9y ago
  I think it's great to get both sides of a story, but this is a blog post by one side of the issue. Of course it's going to be their side. And if the other side has "cut off all communication," I don't know how you can expect them to not be one-sided.
  - soared 9y ago
    True, but outside of 2 screenshots of messages we don't see any of their communication prior to them cutting it off. I feel like there are a thousand details the author didn't share with us.
- valuearb 9y ago
  The culprits have chosen to block people who ask them about it on twitter, and so far haven't told "their side".
  - soared 9y ago
    Blocking people on twitter doesn't mean anything, and this blog post came out today so I'm sure the agency is working on writing something with actual proof to respond with.
    - valuearb 9y ago
      They’ve had 7 months to get their story right.
DoreenMichele 9y ago
As others are noting, it is one side of the story and very blamey. I think this could have been written differently and been on very solid ground instead of the smear campaign it is. A better framing might be: Lessons learned: 1. If you are not US-based, be aware that there are extra challenges wrt actually getting your money and it may take additional time to handle that piece, so don't delay setting that up and thereby get yourself inti a scheduling mess like we did, which is what led to this decision. 2. Be aware that a favor of this sort from a non bank business is risky. All kinds of things can go wrong. 3. If you can't get your ducks in a row to make this work properly, it may be a de fecto waste of time. We still haven't gotten our money, but made it work anyway. I would have had more time and energy for side projects etc had I not been wasting my time on this debacle. 4. Woodshed told us they are "reorganizing," which sounds like our money is being used as a free bridge loan. If so, that's an abuse of our naive trust. It also does not look good that they have largely stopped communicating with us. However, I still hope they do the right thing and get our money to us. -- Of course, if they had that level of diplomatic skill in house, they might not feel they need a PR company. So, it sort of isn't shocking that they don't really know how to do this well, all things considered. The diplomancers they thought they hired to help craft their public communications are the very people with whom they have a conflict. I will add that part of the reason to handle it this way is to cover your own butt, not to be "nice" to people who are probably assholes, by the sound of it.
tjpaudio 9y ago
I find it absolutely amazing that they would let someone else handle the money that represents the life of their business. Hard to feel sorry for them. No doubt the correct thing to do would have been to delay the campaign until the banking issues were resolved. This was an amateur mistake. Yea it would be nice if we lived in a world where we could be naive and let strangers handle our money without fear but we all know thats just not the case and not prudent even if it was. I don't feel sorry for this project, lesson learned they won't make the same mistake again.
- ineedasername 9y ago
  I don't think blaming the victim is a useful criticism. Trusting a vendor to perform the tasks for which they've been hired is hardly a fault. Woodshed represented this as a service they had offered clients in the past, and the client had a contractual addendum. In the world or raising money, it is extremely common, even required at times, for a fundraising partner to control some or all aspects of the financial arrangement. Indeed, many times it is this logistical coverage that is a primary service sought by the client. You protect yourself by having the appropriate contractual agreements in place, which the client did here. That is the way modern business works: Not without trust, else all business would be impossible. But with limited trust, and recourse to a legal system when the trust is betrayed. Again, this is the path taken by the client.
  - tjpaudio 9y ago
    They were not hired to handle their campaign banking, that was a side deal made with a hastily written contract because the founders failed to put time into setting up the necessary accounts. This is the start-up version of going to a check cashing service. We all cut corners trying to push our product out the door but I do think keeping the books in-house and having your own bank account is pretty sound advice, not victim blaming.
  - slantyyz 9y ago
    >> You protect yourself by having the appropriate contractual agreements in place, which the client did here. I disagree. You protect yourself by doing your necessary homework before you even sign the contracts. Contracts are helpful, but in the real world, getting a resolution can be very messy. Lawsuits are stressful, expensive and time consuming. If you've been through a lawsuit, you'll know that being right is often very small consolation, especially if your adversary happens to have better legal representation than you.
georgestephanis 9y ago
Sounds like someone needs to get a (•_•) ( •_•)>⌐■-■ (⌐■_■) trip to the woodshed.
- sctb 9y ago
  Please don't do this here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - georgestephanis 9y ago
    It was the perfect pun!
joshuaheard 9y ago
You violated my number one rule of business: never, ever, give a contractor your money unless and until they have earned it. I learned this the hard way as well. I own several rental properties, and I don't let the property managers collect the rent; I collect it myself (using ViewPost email invoicing). You don't explain, but I don't understand why you couldn't open a bank account. Citizenship is not required. There are online agencies as well, such as Paypal. Was the problem on Kickstarter's side? It seems to me they would have provisions for international clients. I wish you luck, and am glad you are able to warn people. Out of state lawsuits against out of business corporations (I assume they are out of business, or are about to be) are difficult to collect, but hiring a lawyer is a necessary first step.
- earlyriser 9y ago
  I have some experience on this: If you want your KS campaign to be in USD, you need to have a US bank account and, if I remember, a member of the team living in USA. Paypal is not a solution on their system. There's a deal between KS & Stripe's Atlas to let you create a US company and bank account to solve this issue, but for a gameboard that's going to maybe collect 10K is a lot of complexity for not enough gains.
LaundroMat 9y ago
I can imagine one scenario where Woodshed was in dire financial straits and calculated that the brand damage resulting from keeping the game developer's money was worth it.
- beckler 9y ago
  Bingo. I'm sure they were banking on the project failing and they would come out clean.
- matte_black 9y ago
  I can imagine another scenario where they secretly converted all the money to Bitcoin thinking they could skim a profit from the rising prices and then pay back the client in USD, but now Bitcoin isn't liquid enough and they can't get their money out so they are stuck.
- rasz 9y ago
  or wanted a new car. Afair https://hackaday.com/2014/03/07/soap-the-home-automation-router-and-kickstarter-scam/ https://hackaday.com/2014/03/07/soap-the-home-automation-rou... dude(or was it two guys) running this scam just bought new car with crowdfunded money and posted pictures on instagram.
busterarm 9y ago
This is well into "criminal complaint" territory.
- gfisher 9y ago
  Having been taken for a lot of money by contractors in the past, getting the local DA to issue criminal complaints are near impossible. Recently had a GC on a job fake receipts, fake bank statements, everything you could think of to steal money from us. In the end, the DA wouldn't make it a criminal case, said it was just a civil matter.
  - CPLX 9y ago
    In fairness, those things do, in fact, sound like the kinds of things that civil matters are intended to address.
- crb002 9y ago
  More lucrative to go civil; get default treble fraud damages with a 20% withholding on all their future income that survives bankruptcy because of the fraud. But then IANAL.
  - chii 9y ago
    but going civil requires your own lawyers, while a criminal fraud case is initiated by the state prosecutor. if you can't afford a lawyer...
cr0sh 9y ago
If I were a backer of the KS, I think I would be pretty po'd to know that my money didn't go to the people/organization I was backing. This is definitely something that needs to go to the courts; it has to be a form of financial fraud, and depending on the amount raised by the KS, it could end up being a fairly big deal. As it is, if I were a backer, I would feel like I had been defrauded in some manner. Even if I got the "prize" (game) in the end, when I back a KS, I don't do it solely for the item or prize being offered for being a backer, but because I want to see someone succeed with their ideas and company.
- justboxing 9y ago
  Yes, it's wire fraud if intent can be proven. Relevant to this situation is 'electronic communication'... > The elements of wire fraud under Section 1343 directly parallel those of the mail fraud statute, but require the use of an interstate telephone call or electronic communication made in furtherance of the scheme. > essential elements of wire fraud are: > (1) a scheme to defraud and > (2) the use of, or causing the use of, interstate wire communications to execute the scheme) Source: https://www.justice.gov/usam/criminal-resource-manual-941-18-usc-1343-elements-wire-fraud https://www.justice.gov/usam/criminal-resource-manual-941-18...
cypherpunks01 9y ago
Nobody has mentioned the irony of the actual game: "Upstart is a board game that simulates the ups and down [sic] of starting and sustaining a business." A 3rd party contractor/service provider stealing your money is certainly one of the "downs" of running a business.
- jxramos 9y ago
  "Every town, has its ups and downs. Sometimes ups, outnumber the downs, but not in Nottingham..." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2dImprgiB8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2dImprgiB8
keypusher 9y ago
If only there was some way to send and receive money, using the internet, that didn't rely on banks.
dmitrygr 9y ago
Woodshed replied: https://medium.com/@jeff_52578/how-a-failed-kickstarter-campaign-told-the-world-half-the-story-and-painted-us-as-crowdfunding-6fd0adf91c45 https://medium.com/@jeff_52578/how-a-failed-kickstarter-camp...
- figgis 9y ago
  "The author deleted this Medium story"
  - dmitrygr 9y ago
    EDIT: i made a copy: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1s3ymjWo7lQJxsrf0uDEurJZ3FBeLKkzH https://drive.google.com/open?id=1s3ymjWo7lQJxsrf0uDEurJZ3FB... original post: The summary as stated (and as i understood it) is as follows. I take no sides here, just trying to summarize the post since i managed to see it before it went bye-bye > campaign did not succeed as promised, owners allegedly propped it up with own money from fraudulent credit cards that never cleared > kickstarter paid woodshed $16K (the amount that did clear) > depending on fee counting, woodshed owed 10% of that, plus 4K they spent on promoting the game > their accountant told them that they are on hook if game isnt delivered since they have the money so they waited till game delivered > their accountant told them they are on hook for taxes since they are in USA and got the money and they don’t know what to do now > "words we said. allegations made. reputations ruined. it is in the hands of lawyers now"
    - valuearb 9y ago
      I don't understand the tax concerns. They got $16k, they were owed $3-5K, they would have sent the rest to the owners, only what they kept needs to be reported as income for tax purposes. The rest makes sense and I regret jumping to conclusions (though a quick tweet from Woodshed saying the story was inaccurate and they had a response coming without blocking people would have made it easier to trust them). If it's true as told by Woodshed, if them I'd just refund the $16k to the backers, and wash my hands of it.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
scaryclam 9y ago
Looks like Woodshed agency have given their side of the story, and D-Cal are not exactly an innocent party in all of this: https://medium.com/@jeff_52578/how-a-failed-kickstarter-campaign-told-the-world-half-the-story-and-painted-us-as-crowdfunding-b0582fd11f93 https://medium.com/@jeff_52578/how-a-failed-kickstarter-camp...
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  Wow, thanks for posting this. It looks like the initial skepticism was warranted. It was massively dumb to shut off their social media accounts, but I guess they were just folding under pressure. Smooth recovery. Also it's remarkable how much power good writing has. Both for ill and for good.
devdad 9y ago
I really don't understand the mentality that you should act as your opponent is a decent person while at the same time claim that they're spreading lies. If someone would act like this against me, I would try to crush them in court. I'd never act as I like them. Is this an American cultural thing? Or maybe a crowdfunding thing? If Woodshed are to be believed, D-Cal has basically tried to crush their reputation. They did the right thing not responding to tweets.

172 points by iamdeedubs 9y ago

There are a few things about this I don’t understand. How much money was it? Were they supposed to get a percentage of money raised, or did they get paid a fee and then get a percentage on top? Do I understand correctly that they’re having money problems so they kept your money to solve their money problems? The simple way to solve this is to take them to court. Is there anything more to the story than you trusted them with your money and they kept it?

otakucode 9y ago
It certainly should go to court... but that would be an international lawsuit, which is far from cheap. And the people who were wronged are the ones who would be ponying up the cash for a long, long time before they might see any restitution... I can't understand going public, and really I'm glad they did. I'm sure the other side will whine about 'libel', but in order for it to be libel you have to prove that it is false, and prove that the other party knew it was false and intended to do harm. I don't think Woodshed can even manage the first of that, let alone the other two.
- late2part 9y ago
  I don't know what "international lawsuit" means. The plaintiff would sue the defendant local region. It's implicitly an "international" transaction, so why would rectifying the problem be considered unfairly burdensome when they entered into the relationship.
  - otakucode 9y ago
    If I understood the article correctly, the PR company is in the United States and the Kickstarted company is in another country. If they tried to bring a suit in their country, the court might not have jurisdiction. Even if they did say they had jurisdiction, the likelihood of them being able to compel US citizens to suffer penalties levied by a court in another country is extremely slim. So most likely, they would need to hire a lawyer in the US to bring the suit in a US court. That requires finding a lawyer who is familiar with the intracacies of international contract law, the details involved in establishing jurisdiction, etc, and they would need to travel to the US many times (possibly very many if the opposition thinks they can drag the case out and make it too burdensome for the plaintiff to continue) for various hearings. Then there's the issue of finding a lawyer who won't start off by asking 'and what is a kickstarter?' which is harder than you might expect. Also, I just thought, Kickstarter might have some kind of standing in this which might also require the case to occur in a US court. Not sure about that.
pavel_lishin 9y ago
> The simple way to solve this is to take them to court. Is there anything more to the story than you trusted them with your money and they kept it? It seems like the point of the post is to publicize what happened, and make sure other people are aware of the dangers of working with this agency: > If we don’t tell people what happened, it could happen to someone else. > We are cutting our losses and doing what we can on a legal front, but we need to warn the community. The legal system moves slowly; this appears to be their way of holding them accountable for their actions, and for helping others avoid their fate.
- spelunker 9y ago
  Or possibly damaging a reputation of a company unreasonably because we're only hearing one side of the story: https://twitter.com/Woodshedagency/status/943508162002513923 https://twitter.com/Woodshedagency/status/943508162002513923 I mean there's a reason why the "court of public opinion" isn't the best way to resolve issues... edit: well, looks like Woodshead Agency protected their twitter account so you can't see the tweet now. That's not great.
  - pavel_lishin 9y ago
    That's absolutely true.
  - valuearb 9y ago
    If there is another side to the story, whats taking so long to tell it? And if they have a good explanation, why have they been blocking people on twitter for asking for it?
    - pavel_lishin 9y ago
      > If there is another side to the story, whats taking so long to tell it? To play devil's advocate, they need to be able to respond to the accusation well. They can't just jot something down and fire it off, right? They're starting off in a defensive position, and need to address the accusation in away that paints them as the good guys (which they might be).
learc83 9y ago
According to the post, they paid Woodshed a retainer and were supposed to pay Woodshed a small percentage of the total if they hit their goal. Court is the obvious way to handle it, but I see nothing wrong with going public to warn other people, or shame the company into paying up. The company is still apparently doing business. This goes a bit beyond not being able to pay your vendors, and depending on how exactly it went down, what Woodshed did could be outright illegal.
sillysaurus3 9y ago
How much money was it? https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rdacalos/upstart-the-board-game https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rdacalos/upstart-the-bo... Looks like $35k. No one would risk destroying their reputation over that small sum. I wonder what the other side of the story is? Abuse is pretty common in gamedev, but this would be flagrant.
- anthonybsd 9y ago
  > No one would risk destroying their reputation over that small sum. You really underestimate how bad some people's finances are right now in places like Michigan.
- gamblor956 9y ago
  Looks like $35k. No one would risk destroying their reputation over that small sum. I wonder what the other side of the story is? People have killed for far less...If they were in a bad enough financial position, they could have thought that they would borrow their client's money to pay immediate bills, and pay the account back with future client earnings. It happens quite frequently in the legal world--it's the number one reason lawyers get disbarred in CA after drug use.
  - panglott 9y ago
    Possibly even a single partner was defrauding the business. If the other partners were not aware this was occurring until now, that might be a more benevolent explanation of why the agency has gone dark.
- ceejayoz 9y ago
  > Looks like $35k. No one would risk destroying their reputation over that small sum. People risk a lifetime in jail over $35k, on a regular basis.
- Jotra7 9y ago
  Must be nice to be so privileged as to think 35K is a "small sum."
panglott 9y ago
They linked to the Kickstarter, which says the campaign raised about $35k.

the-dude 9y ago

What I feel is lacking from this postmortem is looking inwards : did you make mistakes and how did it affect the outcome. Answer : we made a huge mistake to trust people with all our money. This mistake has led to all our problems. I know it sounds obvious, but still.

learc83 9y ago
It's in big bold letters. "We were wrong."
- the-dude 9y ago
  I see what you are getting at, but my comment stands. Responsibility is not being taken.
  - learc83 9y ago
    It was a stupid risk, they said as much. Why are you insisting on self-flagellation? They are the victims here (assuming they are telling the truth). I don't blame people for being taken advantage of by a conman. I might advise them not to be so trusting, but I don't go around demanding they publicly take full responsibility for being the victim of a scam.
    - the-dude 9y ago
      > Why are you insisting on self-flagellation? Because people who externalize tend to learn poorly.
      - steve_adams_86 9y ago
        A signifiant point of the post is to say that they learned something, and they hope others can learn from it too. Maybe the issue is you didn't read the full article?
    - slantyyz 9y ago

nimos 9y ago

I don't know why but it kind of rubs me the wrong way PR agencies for Kickstarter/crowd-funding even exist. I'd rather back something that had someone passionate with a shitty cell phone video over the generic sterile PR videos that everything seems to have now. https://twitter.com/Woodshedagency https://twitter.com/Woodshedagency The hashtags on their twitter description almost seem like satire.

the-dude 9y ago
This does not work ( passionate developer with a failed KS ) edit : and this was not because the project sucked, the project is profitable now.
- Xeoncross 9y ago
  2x ditto
matte_black 9y ago
I don’t. Some low budget shitty cell phone pitches are down right cringey. There is nothing wrong with hiring a PR firm to present your pitch in the best light. It’s part of fundraising.
- kjrose 9y ago
  Pretty much. You need to hire the people who know how to do the job right. Ironically showing wisdom in that means the money donated will likely also be used correctly by hiring the right specialists.
  - the-dude 9y ago
    Insightful, had not considered this point of view.
kjrose 9y ago
The reason these guys exist is because the difference between a 100k+ campaign and a 10k failed campaign can come down to straight marketing which most engineering minded folks are not trained/knowledgeable with.

stablemap 9y ago

https://twitter.com/Woodshedagency/status/943508162002513923 https://twitter.com/Woodshedagency/status/943508162002513923

rabidonrails 9y ago
"Sorry, you are not authorized to see this status."
DoreenMichele 9y ago
"These Tweets are protected Only approved followers can see @Woodshedagency's Tweets. To request access, click Follow. Learn more." This does not exactly make them look like innocent above board victims of libel.
- slazaro 9y ago
  They've now posted their response, and if true, everything on their side makes sense, and makes this situation a good example of not 100% trusting one sided accusations without having the other side's version first.
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    Well, it is rather annoying to be crabbed at like I was on a witch hunt. I also wrote this comment which was downvoted into the negatives and remains at zero: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15971899 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15971899 The witch-hunt atmosphere in this thread is not my doing. Other people chose to upvote comments that agreed with the one sided smear campaign and downvote anything arguing for a more evenhanded approach. Please note the final paragraph of that comment was added after it was downvoted into the negatives and initially was prefaced with "I have no idea why this is being downvoted, but... " So I feel rather aggravated with my entire experience of this discussion. Get downvoted for an evenhanded comment, then later get lectured for a different one that could be framed as agreement with the smear campaign. Not to self: Maybe I need to just avoid mudslinging discussions on HN lest I get mud slung all over me, no matter what I do. Trying to be a voice of reason in the face of this crap apparently does not do any good at all.

soared 9y ago

I don't buy this story. The entire post is one sided - am I really supposed to believe some pr agency straight up stole your money? And now 7 months later you are "doing what we can on a legal front"? This is a perfect example of why we should all follow the "innocent until proven guilty" idea. There is no proof, no chance for the agency to refute claims, etc. Convenient that they are also asking for more financing.

aqme28 9y ago
I think it's great to get both sides of a story, but this is a blog post by one side of the issue. Of course it's going to be their side. And if the other side has "cut off all communication," I don't know how you can expect them to not be one-sided.
- soared 9y ago
  True, but outside of 2 screenshots of messages we don't see any of their communication prior to them cutting it off. I feel like there are a thousand details the author didn't share with us.
valuearb 9y ago
The culprits have chosen to block people who ask them about it on twitter, and so far haven't told "their side".
- soared 9y ago
  Blocking people on twitter doesn't mean anything, and this blog post came out today so I'm sure the agency is working on writing something with actual proof to respond with.
  - valuearb 9y ago
    They’ve had 7 months to get their story right.

DoreenMichele 9y ago

As others are noting, it is one side of the story and very blamey. I think this could have been written differently and been on very solid ground instead of the smear campaign it is. A better framing might be: Lessons learned: 1. If you are not US-based, be aware that there are extra challenges wrt actually getting your money and it may take additional time to handle that piece, so don't delay setting that up and thereby get yourself inti a scheduling mess like we did, which is what led to this decision. 2. Be aware that a favor of this sort from a non bank business is risky. All kinds of things can go wrong. 3. If you can't get your ducks in a row to make this work properly, it may be a de fecto waste of time. We still haven't gotten our money, but made it work anyway. I would have had more time and energy for side projects etc had I not been wasting my time on this debacle. 4. Woodshed told us they are "reorganizing," which sounds like our money is being used as a free bridge loan. If so, that's an abuse of our naive trust. It also does not look good that they have largely stopped communicating with us. However, I still hope they do the right thing and get our money to us. -- Of course, if they had that level of diplomatic skill in house, they might not feel they need a PR company. So, it sort of isn't shocking that they don't really know how to do this well, all things considered. The diplomancers they thought they hired to help craft their public communications are the very people with whom they have a conflict. I will add that part of the reason to handle it this way is to cover your own butt, not to be "nice" to people who are probably assholes, by the sound of it.

tjpaudio 9y ago

I find it absolutely amazing that they would let someone else handle the money that represents the life of their business. Hard to feel sorry for them. No doubt the correct thing to do would have been to delay the campaign until the banking issues were resolved. This was an amateur mistake. Yea it would be nice if we lived in a world where we could be naive and let strangers handle our money without fear but we all know thats just not the case and not prudent even if it was. I don't feel sorry for this project, lesson learned they won't make the same mistake again.

ineedasername 9y ago
I don't think blaming the victim is a useful criticism. Trusting a vendor to perform the tasks for which they've been hired is hardly a fault. Woodshed represented this as a service they had offered clients in the past, and the client had a contractual addendum. In the world or raising money, it is extremely common, even required at times, for a fundraising partner to control some or all aspects of the financial arrangement. Indeed, many times it is this logistical coverage that is a primary service sought by the client. You protect yourself by having the appropriate contractual agreements in place, which the client did here. That is the way modern business works: Not without trust, else all business would be impossible. But with limited trust, and recourse to a legal system when the trust is betrayed. Again, this is the path taken by the client.
- tjpaudio 9y ago
  They were not hired to handle their campaign banking, that was a side deal made with a hastily written contract because the founders failed to put time into setting up the necessary accounts. This is the start-up version of going to a check cashing service. We all cut corners trying to push our product out the door but I do think keeping the books in-house and having your own bank account is pretty sound advice, not victim blaming.
- slantyyz 9y ago
  >> You protect yourself by having the appropriate contractual agreements in place, which the client did here. I disagree. You protect yourself by doing your necessary homework before you even sign the contracts. Contracts are helpful, but in the real world, getting a resolution can be very messy. Lawsuits are stressful, expensive and time consuming. If you've been through a lawsuit, you'll know that being right is often very small consolation, especially if your adversary happens to have better legal representation than you.

georgestephanis 9y ago

Sounds like someone needs to get a (•_•) ( •_•)>⌐■-■ (⌐■_■) trip to the woodshed.

sctb 9y ago
Please don't do this here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- georgestephanis 9y ago
  It was the perfect pun!

joshuaheard 9y ago

You violated my number one rule of business: never, ever, give a contractor your money unless and until they have earned it. I learned this the hard way as well. I own several rental properties, and I don't let the property managers collect the rent; I collect it myself (using ViewPost email invoicing). You don't explain, but I don't understand why you couldn't open a bank account. Citizenship is not required. There are online agencies as well, such as Paypal. Was the problem on Kickstarter's side? It seems to me they would have provisions for international clients. I wish you luck, and am glad you are able to warn people. Out of state lawsuits against out of business corporations (I assume they are out of business, or are about to be) are difficult to collect, but hiring a lawyer is a necessary first step.

earlyriser 9y ago
I have some experience on this: If you want your KS campaign to be in USD, you need to have a US bank account and, if I remember, a member of the team living in USA. Paypal is not a solution on their system. There's a deal between KS & Stripe's Atlas to let you create a US company and bank account to solve this issue, but for a gameboard that's going to maybe collect 10K is a lot of complexity for not enough gains.

LaundroMat 9y ago

I can imagine one scenario where Woodshed was in dire financial straits and calculated that the brand damage resulting from keeping the game developer's money was worth it.

beckler 9y ago
Bingo. I'm sure they were banking on the project failing and they would come out clean.
matte_black 9y ago
I can imagine another scenario where they secretly converted all the money to Bitcoin thinking they could skim a profit from the rising prices and then pay back the client in USD, but now Bitcoin isn't liquid enough and they can't get their money out so they are stuck.
rasz 9y ago
or wanted a new car. Afair https://hackaday.com/2014/03/07/soap-the-home-automation-router-and-kickstarter-scam/ https://hackaday.com/2014/03/07/soap-the-home-automation-rou... dude(or was it two guys) running this scam just bought new car with crowdfunded money and posted pictures on instagram.

busterarm 9y ago

This is well into "criminal complaint" territory.

gfisher 9y ago
Having been taken for a lot of money by contractors in the past, getting the local DA to issue criminal complaints are near impossible. Recently had a GC on a job fake receipts, fake bank statements, everything you could think of to steal money from us. In the end, the DA wouldn't make it a criminal case, said it was just a civil matter.
- CPLX 9y ago
  In fairness, those things do, in fact, sound like the kinds of things that civil matters are intended to address.
crb002 9y ago
More lucrative to go civil; get default treble fraud damages with a 20% withholding on all their future income that survives bankruptcy because of the fraud. But then IANAL.
- chii 9y ago
  but going civil requires your own lawyers, while a criminal fraud case is initiated by the state prosecutor. if you can't afford a lawyer...

cr0sh 9y ago

If I were a backer of the KS, I think I would be pretty po'd to know that my money didn't go to the people/organization I was backing. This is definitely something that needs to go to the courts; it has to be a form of financial fraud, and depending on the amount raised by the KS, it could end up being a fairly big deal. As it is, if I were a backer, I would feel like I had been defrauded in some manner. Even if I got the "prize" (game) in the end, when I back a KS, I don't do it solely for the item or prize being offered for being a backer, but because I want to see someone succeed with their ideas and company.

justboxing 9y ago
Yes, it's wire fraud if intent can be proven. Relevant to this situation is 'electronic communication'... > The elements of wire fraud under Section 1343 directly parallel those of the mail fraud statute, but require the use of an interstate telephone call or electronic communication made in furtherance of the scheme. > essential elements of wire fraud are: > (1) a scheme to defraud and > (2) the use of, or causing the use of, interstate wire communications to execute the scheme) Source: https://www.justice.gov/usam/criminal-resource-manual-941-18-usc-1343-elements-wire-fraud https://www.justice.gov/usam/criminal-resource-manual-941-18...

cypherpunks01 9y ago

Nobody has mentioned the irony of the actual game: "Upstart is a board game that simulates the ups and down [sic] of starting and sustaining a business." A 3rd party contractor/service provider stealing your money is certainly one of the "downs" of running a business.

jxramos 9y ago
"Every town, has its ups and downs. Sometimes ups, outnumber the downs, but not in Nottingham..." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2dImprgiB8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2dImprgiB8

keypusher 9y ago

If only there was some way to send and receive money, using the internet, that didn't rely on banks.

dmitrygr 9y ago

Woodshed replied: https://medium.com/@jeff_52578/how-a-failed-kickstarter-campaign-told-the-world-half-the-story-and-painted-us-as-crowdfunding-6fd0adf91c45 https://medium.com/@jeff_52578/how-a-failed-kickstarter-camp...

figgis 9y ago
"The author deleted this Medium story"
- dmitrygr 9y ago
  EDIT: i made a copy: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1s3ymjWo7lQJxsrf0uDEurJZ3FBeLKkzH https://drive.google.com/open?id=1s3ymjWo7lQJxsrf0uDEurJZ3FB... original post: The summary as stated (and as i understood it) is as follows. I take no sides here, just trying to summarize the post since i managed to see it before it went bye-bye > campaign did not succeed as promised, owners allegedly propped it up with own money from fraudulent credit cards that never cleared > kickstarter paid woodshed $16K (the amount that did clear) > depending on fee counting, woodshed owed 10% of that, plus 4K they spent on promoting the game > their accountant told them that they are on hook if game isnt delivered since they have the money so they waited till game delivered > their accountant told them they are on hook for taxes since they are in USA and got the money and they don’t know what to do now > "words we said. allegations made. reputations ruined. it is in the hands of lawyers now"
  - valuearb 9y ago
    I don't understand the tax concerns. They got $16k, they were owed $3-5K, they would have sent the rest to the owners, only what they kept needs to be reported as income for tax purposes. The rest makes sense and I regret jumping to conclusions (though a quick tweet from Woodshed saying the story was inaccurate and they had a response coming without blocking people would have made it easier to trust them). If it's true as told by Woodshed, if them I'd just refund the $16k to the backers, and wash my hands of it.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

scaryclam 9y ago

Looks like Woodshed agency have given their side of the story, and D-Cal are not exactly an innocent party in all of this: https://medium.com/@jeff_52578/how-a-failed-kickstarter-campaign-told-the-world-half-the-story-and-painted-us-as-crowdfunding-b0582fd11f93 https://medium.com/@jeff_52578/how-a-failed-kickstarter-camp...

sillysaurus3 9y ago
Wow, thanks for posting this. It looks like the initial skepticism was warranted. It was massively dumb to shut off their social media accounts, but I guess they were just folding under pressure. Smooth recovery. Also it's remarkable how much power good writing has. Both for ill and for good.

devdad 9y ago

I really don't understand the mentality that you should act as your opponent is a decent person while at the same time claim that they're spreading lies. If someone would act like this against me, I would try to crush them in court. I'd never act as I like them. Is this an American cultural thing? Or maybe a crowdfunding thing? If Woodshed are to be believed, D-Cal has basically tried to crush their reputation. They did the right thing not responding to tweets.