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I worked with both Kickstarter and Crowd Supply, and I have to say that the latter can help you significantly. Cashflow is certainly an issue. In our 1st KS we

I worked with both Kickstarter and Crowd Supply, and I have to say that the latter can help you significantly. Cashflow is certainly an issue. In our 1st KS we definitely did significant discounts. Thankfully we remained profitable, but what we didn't really considered well enough was the amount of money you need to build inventory AFTER the campaign. Rule of thumb now: 3x your production cost. 1x for manufacturing, 1x for various expenses including discounts, 1x for next batch.

closetohome 6y ago
That squares pretty well with the old rule of thumb for the cost of opening a restaurant or bar: Figure out what you think it will cost, then triple it and add a third.
macspoofing 6y ago
That's a great perspective. I actually think Kickstarter could be great, if backers really treated it as a way to fund projects they like, instead of a pre-order of a final product with an early-bird discount. That is, if you're building hardware with a target price of $100, early backers should be paying $300+ for that product (or $x no-string attached donation + small $ amount for the right to be first to pre-order to be used against the final price of the product) because otherwise, yeah, like you said, you're going to use the Kickstarter capital to finish development and have no money left over to fulfil orders.