7 ms·

The worst project I ever funded on Kickstarter

188 points by barredo 15y ago

tlrobinson 15y ago
I've seen some neat things coming out of Kickstarter projects, but I get the impression most backers don't understand they're not guaranteed to receive an awesome perfectly functioning polished final product pitched by the creator. Kickstarter needs to make that more clear. Also, they need to do something about overfunding. Perhaps hold some of the money back until the product is ready to go into production or something.
matdwyer 15y ago
Disclaimer: I've never used Kickstarter This being said, I was under the impression that funding a project is still a bit of a risk - I'd expect that some projects (like businesses) simply don't work out how they planned - this seems like that type of problem. Of course they should have mentioned the signal problems (and even reached out to see if they could crowd source a solution) but buying in as an early "funder" would imply that there is a risk that it doesn't work, in my opinion. Seems like they simply couldn't deliver on the project, glad that it's only happened to him once in 72 times.
- marquis 15y ago
  I've funded a few projects of friends. One never materialized but it was worth the shot and the others are in production. If you spread your investments out, some are bound to take off no? I'm in line to receive some great products that wouldn't see the light of day otherwise and I'm excited. You don't get this excited over many things you can buy. I must say though, reading the content of this Kickstarter they don't deal very well with their failure. With the proper tone they could have gotten another round and kept their investors happy.
  - steakbomb 15y ago
    You're not investing when you give money away on KickStarter. That would be in violation of SEC regulations.
  - underwater 15y ago
    I don't quite understand what the "investors" are getting out of KickStarter. It doesn't seem like prouducts are that unique or cheap. The risk of a project failing or being delayed means I wouldn't buy anything I really needed from there. It seems like all the benefits are on the producers side. They can start a project with little risk, ask for more money when they mess up their budgetting and still finish up making a tidy profit.
    - InclinedPlane 15y ago
      As an investor you help create something that didn't exist before. Maybe something cool or interesting or important that you think should exist. Maybe something you desire to own as well. Sometimes the rewards are worth more than the investment, sometimes the personal value of contributing to something worthwhile is enough. People volunteer their time and donate their money to things beyond helping sick children and the poor.
rickyc091 15y ago
I was backing this project until the day they decided to raise shipping costs. It wasn't the raised shipping costs that made me withdraw my backing, but the fact that they had no respect for the backers. Just pulling a few quotes from the project starter... That is why I backed out of it. --- @Jeffrey Sorry you feel that way. But I owe you nothing. No one does. @PAIK Jackass, it's right here >> http://screencast.com/t/aPOddZQtDJ http://screencast.com/t/aPOddZQtDJ Stop harassing me!! And as I said, it was in the comments. @Noor from day one of the project we've always stated that there will be international shipping charges. So nothing has changed. Secondly. I don't believe that the customer is always right. And there's actually a strong community of business people out there that feel the same way.
- blakestein 15y ago
  Just more lessons on what not to do when raising funds. It's not even so much what he said, but his "tone."
  - kmak 15y ago
    Seems like kickstarters are mostly okay with the risks.. it is inherent in the site, after all, but man, it doesn't seem necessary to be mean about things..
antimora 15y ago
Could the founders take only a small portion of money and proceed till the bugs were resolved?
- DanBC 15y ago
  With hardware a lot of costs are up front. I have some knowledge of PCB manufacture. So, you need to design the PCB. You need to get artwork made. You need some prototypes. Then you need to decide whether you'll re-design, or include a mod. Re-design is expensive, that is balanced by having a bit of wire soldered between two points and a track cut by a low paid operative in some random factory. You now have some PCBs. You need production aids. You may need stencils for screen printing solder paste. The design can be generated from the PCB gerber files. But again, there are artwork costs for this. You need a pick and place machine program. If there are many conventional components you'll want a cropping machine plate made. (A steel plate which the PCB sits on with small holes for conventional components; you then put this on the cropping machine which pins the components down while a blade slides and crops the component leads). Then you build your prototypes. You need someone to buy components; to put these onto the pick and place machine (Which means stripping that machine down from the last job); to load the programs and set the reflow oven and align the screen print stencil. You can new see that it's just as easy to produce ten as it is to produce one. (I'd recommend people building prototypes to build a batch of, say, 3 rather than just 1 or 2. That gives you an early alpha; a beta, and a neat and tidy beta to create documents and production drawings from.) Hopefully I've shown how many of the costs are up front. The costs of components and actually building stuff is relatively cheap.
jonursenbach 15y ago
Without Apple-like innovation and fabrication technology, how could could they got the aluminum casing to not completely block out the signal? It seemed like the entire project was doomed from the start.
- FireBeyond 15y ago
  "Apple-like innovation"? What's "Apple-like" about making an antenna? Wasn't "Apple-like" the reason for free bumpers and "you're holding it wrong"?
  - swalsh 15y ago
    My guess is vast resources...
citricsquid 15y ago
The one thing that Kickstarter has taught me is something I don't really want to accept, but it's the sad truth: most project creators don't see Kickstarter as a real commitment to business, it's a way to get money for their "neat project" that they want to complete but without the hassle of raising money properly or selling pre-orders. It's a complete non-commitment and it seems a substantial number (enough for me to notice) take it this way. Kickstarter really need to fix this side of the site, I won't be backing any projects from this point on unless they absolutely have a pre-created product and I'm happy with what I can see at the time of backing, putting money into "creative" projects or "prototypes" seems to be a guaranteed way to come away with something you didn't expect (if you get anything at all). I would love to see either some retribution for people that never deliver or project curation from Kickstarter. On a positive note I backed "Romo" (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/peterseid/romo-the-smartphone-robot http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/peterseid/romo-the-smart...) a couple of months back and had an absolutely wonderful experience, they delivered on all their promises (so far) and the project is everything they promised.
- sp332 15y ago
  most project creators don't see Kickstarter as a real commitment to business, it's a way to get money for their "neat project" that they want to complete but without the hassle of raising money properly or selling pre-orders. But that's true, of course. Kickstarter isn't a marketplace like e.g. Etsy where customers buy items. Kickstarter lets people fund cool projects they like. Often (but not always) the item istelf is offered as a "perk" for backers. But that's not really the point of Kickstarer, it's just about funding a project.
  - citricsquid 15y ago
    This is what I'm talking about, if I choose to fund a project and the reward I choose is that project, isn't that the point of funding? For example, http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/petertreadway/spnkix-wearable-mobility http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/petertreadway/spnkix-wea... is a project being funded at the moment and will reach it's goal, I've backed with $500 so I can get a pair, if they don't deliver on that isn't that an issue? Kickstarter does not present it as a chance to maybe see a project and if not, well great free money for the project creator, it's presented as a way to fund a project to creation, to delivery.
deleted 15y ago
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mquinlan 15y ago
I'm not familiar with the outcome of any other "failed" projects, but has Kickstarter ever forcibly refunded money or intervened in any way? If not... they're obviously growing (nearly 4x as much pledged in 2011) and I don't know if more strict guidelines would really help.
hop 15y ago
I bought an aluminum Element Vapor Pro and it has no problems. I actually got it to see how it fits in my current Kickstarter project, the Elevation Dock, b/c a lot of people asked and they love them. It has plastic around the top left corner and small foam pads so the aluminum never touches the steel antenna. If I were these guys, I would machine out the corner and make a polycarbonate piece to fit. If anyone here has one, I'd machine the modifications for you just to show it.
- X-Istence 15y ago
  You have no idea much I am looking forward to having the Elevation Dock in my hands and using it!
davyjones 15y ago
This is a fairly known issue in elec. design. What is happening here is that the case is acting as a Faraday cage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage) that blocks out signals. It is not just enough to wear the designer hat. An engineer hat is absolutely essential as well.
- mikeash 15y ago
  It pretty well blows my mind that they just wrapped the whole antenna in metal and didn't think that it might cause problems. You shouldn't need to wear any hats at all for that one, just apply some common sense. When I saw the thing, I assumed they must have come up with some extremely clever way to avoid signal attenuation. Turns out they were just ignoring the blindingly obvious. Oops.
  - tesseract 15y ago
    > they must have come up with some extremely clever way to avoid signal attenuation Which itself would be fairly incredible, considering that Steve Jobs and Jony Ive wanted to make the iPhone out of metal, and for three years they couldn't do so because of the antenna issue, and finally after spending what must have been many millions of dollars and many engineering man-years they came up with a sophisticated solution that was pretty good but even so still had widely publicized issues when it first came on the market.
shadowmint 15y ago
I wish people would stop thinking of Kickstarter as a shop. It's not. The site is very clear in it's FAQ that once a project is funded, delivery of the promised perks is up to the project creator, not up to Kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq/backing%20a%20project#WhoIsRespForMakiSureProjCreaDeliWhatTheyProm http://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq/backing%20a%20project#Wh... I've seen some great projects on the site, but you have to realize that you're not buying something. When you see a project that is developing a product, and the promised reward is one of those items, you are _not buying one of them_. You are pledging your money to the sponsor in good faith that they will provide you with one. In effect, speculating your money on Kickstarter against the risk of the project failing after it's fully funded. If you want to buy something, use a shop. I actually think that Kickstarter (despite it not being in their best interests) should place an upper limit on the funding available on projects that effectively try to use Kickstarter as a shop, and dupe the public into thinking they are buying things. There's really nothing to stop me creating a "cool laptop" shop on Kickstarter, claiming to "rebrand" macbook airs and resell them with laser etched designs for $500 each, take all the money and walk away.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
newsio 15y ago
When you are designing a product for Kickstarter and you show prototypes, backers will assume you have worked all the bugs out first. Do backers on Kickstarter really assume that all the bugs will be worked out before the prototype is shown? I'm not familiar with how the community works, but would assume that the prototypes would be used to identify more bugs and design flaws, as well as elicit feedback from early users.
- nirvana 15y ago
  Yes. Backers on kickstarter are not sophisticated startup people. They're regular consumers. Most kickstarter projects are ones that appeal to them, and are also low tech. If a project expects a lengthy development process they can say it in the project. I've done some mechanical engineering, but I'm no mechanical engineer. I can't know whether an iPhone dock is going to require 3 prototypes and 4 nearly complete versions before being ready to ship, and all this will take 9 months, or if what they're showing in the picture can be manufactured in 60 days in volume, all they need is the money for the injection molding forms, which are very expensive. Hell, I bet most people who fund kickstarter projects don't even know injection molding forms are expensive. So, if the project has high risk, and this isn't disclosed by the leader of the project when asking for funding, that's an error on their part. The problem projects I've seen (that are products, rather than pieces of art) tend to pitch themselves as completed products that just need manufacturing help.
nirvana 15y ago
I got burned by a kickstarter project. Like others, I naively believed that they were at least an above board outfit. I also appreciated that Amazon was the payments service because I believe they are above board as well. I fell for the "Hexbright Flashlight" project: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/527051507/hexbright-an-open-source-light?ref=live http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/527051507/hexbright-an-o... His pitch was that the product was designed and that he just needed the funding to underwrite manufacturing startup costs with asian and local suppliers. Having been well down the path of getting a consumer electronics product manufactured, and knowing the costs and understanding that a lot of those costs are upfront, I this seemed very reasonable to me. I thought his asking amount was a bit low, but the project was overfunded to the tune of $800,000 - more than enough to cover these startup costs. Once funded, however, the October delivery date-- two months from the funding date, was never mentioned again. Instead the updates have increasingly focused on design choices. In fact, the early updates made it very clear that many of the design choices hadn't even been settled! He's clearly taking his time, doing some updates once a month or so, but it doesn't even look like this is full time. (excuses for having a new baby, etc. Jeez guy, you took on an $800,000 project with a baby on the way, really?) I have the very strong impression that it was a slight con job-- he got the money to dick around with his ultimate flashlight and "really do it right", but doesn't seem too concerned about his commitment to deliver the flashlights in a timely manner. I do believe has has every intention to deliver these flashlights... eventually. But I bought them for christmas presents, I've been out several hundred dollars for 6 months and I don't even have a promise date for delivery. In fact, the whole thing is so half assed that he doesn't even know which colors I want because he didn't give us a way to tell him. So, I contacted Kickstarter. I figured they had contingency plans for this kind of situation. I figured they were a standup organization. Their response? A form letter telling me that they advise their project leaders to deliver in a timely manner to backers. That's it. No suggestions for alternatives, nothing like that. Of course the 30 day credit card dispute period has long passed. But I don't think it will come to that. The FTC has a rule, that if you take money for a product, you have to deliver it in 6 weeks. This is why TV commercials and magazine ads often say "delivers in 4-6 weeks". Because they're using drop shippers, or whatever. If you don't deliver in 6 weeks, you have to get the customers permission to delay shipment, or you have to refund their money. Thems the rules. Its debatable whether the 6 weeks started at the funding date when our cards were charged (and kickstarter got their $80,000), or at the "end of october" when they were originally supposed to ship. Either way that time is up. Because I think this guy intends to deliver them, and was only dishonest about the level of completion of the project, and because I know that last %10 can take a lot of time, I'm going to give him a bit longer. Maybe the end of January. I'd go to the end of February if he promises to ship in that month. After that point, I'm going to take up the dispute with Amazon. I expect that amazon, having handled the payment will resolve the issue, but if they don't then I'm going to escalate. I actually blame kickstarter more than I do the guy behind the project. They should not blow people off when projects fail to deliver. This isn't a donation to some kid who wants to take pictures of trees in the Sierras. They are selling products here, and they are promising tangible goods on a specified date in exchange for the funds. That's the definition of being a store. I don't mind giving people some time. I only even got annoyed about this one after christmas came and went and there wasn't even an apology for not shipping in a reasonable amount of time. And I only got upset when kickstarter blew me off when I wrote them. Because of that, if this isn't resolved in 4-8 weeks, I'm going to Amazon, and then the police. Needless to say, I won't be backing any more Kickstarter projects, and until they start taking some responsibility, I no longer consider them a trustworthy outfit. Here's the introduction of the project: "I am offering pre-orders for two unique and powerful lights, the HexBright Prime for $35 and the HexBright Flex for $60. Both models are virtually identical looking with an ergonomic, very comfortable grip and use the best available LED light source. ... The major difference between the Prime and Flex models is the HexBright Flex is USB rechargeable and USB programmable. If you want, you can re-write the default code and tweak the HexBright Flex however you desire." He's offering pre-orders. That's what the project promised. (Elsewhere it gave a "late september, early october" ship date, but that has since been removed.) Kickstarter offers a FAQ. Here's the FAQ entry for this project: When will you ship? "Short answer- as soon as we can. Long answer- HexBright is not a product already on the shelf ready to be shipped. You are funding development of a top quality product where almost all your money is going into the parts and materials with almost no overhead, marketing or middlemen costs (we are projecting future retail prices to be over $100). As the saying goes, "CHEAP, FAST, GOOD, pick any two". Our price is fixed so we are choosing between "fast" and "good". Good wins every time. " The thing is, this FAQ was changed. Kickstarter helpfully tells us so: Last updated: Monday Nov 14, 1:22pm EST So, during the time he was asking for money, we were given the opportunity to "pre-order" these flashlights that are described as already existing: "the HexBright Flex is USB rechargeable and USB programmable." NOT: "the HexBright Flex WILL BE USB rechargeable and WILL BE USB programmable." Then, about 2 months after he was supposed to ship, the FAQ changes to "You are funding development of..." So, the project says one thing, but the FAQ says another, and the wording on the FAQ, updated 2 months after it should have started shipping, implies that people who expected it to ship when promised weren't actually promised a shipping product on any specific date.
541564654 15y ago
I just cannot help but notice how much the perception of what Kickstarter is has changed from its initial days. I learned about Kickstarter at the time the Diaspora project was there collecting money. It was clear that people are not "buying" but "investing". They were not "consumers", they were "investors". Diaspora wasn't a "product" on "pre-order" but a "project" which was "under development". How the intent and purpose of the site changed in the minds of both "backers" and project makers is just amazing. Its like the identity of what Kickstarter started out to be has been lost somewhere. Kickstarter was supposed to replace angle investors and VC. They were supposed to help the little guy start up without all the control of the big guy who had money. The idea, as explained to me on this very forum, was that this was crowd sourced investment. The users here went on to say how this will change the startup culture and help people start more bootstrapped startups without any strings attached. The "rewards" were never a guaranteed thing. They were sort of a thank you and giving out rewards were supposed to be a way to show off that they actually succeeded. Now it seems the whole thing has shifted to a marketplace of sorts. It seems like people are using it as an alternative to ebay or amazone, just that they can have higher flexibility and more contact to their "consumers". The inherent risk of "investing" has been lost and given way to the guarantee of "buying" a product.
- prodigal_erik 15y ago
  Kickstarter's guidelines specifically say > Offering financial incentives, such as ownership, financial returns (for example, a share of profits), or repayment (loans) is prohibited. If they ever claimed pledges were "investments", that was dishonest and I think the SEC could actually prosecute them for it.
  - 541564654 15y ago
    I think I made the wrong choice of words there. I am really truly sorry. I think donations is much more appropriate. I don't know, maybe someone will understand. I just wanted to say that kickstarter didn't imply any ownership in anyway. Ever.
milurally 15y ago
I don't see it as the worst project. I don't know why you are so dissapointed
- DanBC 15y ago
  Kick Starter appears to need to manage people's expectations of projects a bit better? People are not buying product, they're "investing" to help someone create a product. The return on a successful investment is a cheap version of that product, or some stickers, or a warm fuzzy feeling of helping someone.
tylermenezes 15y ago
I'm helping out with a Kickstarter project (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/studentrnd/plasma-speaker http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/studentrnd/plasma-speake...) which is already 2 months behind the delivery date, and I just wanted to offer a view from the other side. Shipping a product is hard. Our initial prototype used some components we had in our parts organizer, and a $100k variable DC power supply Boeing donated. It was pretty cool, so we put it online, and it picked up $20k in donations. As soon as we put it online, we started working on improvements to the design, and when it was to a point we considered done, we made a board design and ordered parts. And of course, nothing worked. We've been working on it for as much time as possible since then (as mentioned in our Kickstarter, the lead designer is a high school student), and even with the help of some local EEs, it's taken forever to get it to even start. The flybacks and PSUs took forever to get to the US, customs held up the package, and FedEx refused to deliver them. Our laser cutter, which we ordered to make the enclosures, was a week late, and took a few days to set up. Now we're at the point where we're balancing sound quality and time. We can redesign the entire project so it sounds better, but that means another few weeks to get the new boards and parts, or we can just ship what we have. If we do any Kickstarters in the future, we're obviously going to have a totally more realistic timeframe. But it's apparent that anyone who hasn't shipped a product is going to have no idea of how involved trying to reproduce something in a mass scale is. That said, it looks like these people took an AWFUL approach to customer support. We've tried to keep people as up-to-date as we were, we've refunded anyone who asked for it and offered to ship laser cut cards to anyone who was planning on giving the plasma speakers as a Christmas gift. tl;dr: Kickstarter is hard. As usual, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
- andrewfelix 15y ago
  Well said. I think offering a constructive and meaningful response to your potential customers goes a long way.
- Lewton 15y ago
  >we've refunded anyone who asked for it If you don't mind me asking, how many refunds have been requested? It might give an insight into what people expect from Kickstarter
deleted 15y ago
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Terretta 15y ago
After the iPhone "antenna gate" with a rubber bumper as the resolution, how did 1,053 backers conclude surrounding an iPhone 4 with a metal band would be a good idea? The author even owned Apple's bumper, but perhaps had not realized why it was rubber. Then the author's other stated reason was frequently dropping the phone. How shock absorbent does he imagine solid metal is, compared to that rubber bumper? As easily discerned from the photos, this antenna blocking, shock transmitting, "case" doesn't even extend past the face glass, allowing it to shatter if dropped on any front face corner. Seems like this project's backers should consider it a $65 lesson in weighing the plausibility of marketing claims for oneself.
goatforce5 15y ago
I've put done close to $300 to help fund a programmable espresso machine. Funding closes this Friday. Get in quick if it might be your sort of thing: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zpmespresso/pid-controlled-espresso-machine http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zpmespresso/pid-controll... Just yesterday they posted a very good update letting people know where they stand. Notably that the shipping times are already longer than originally stated, and that now is the time to ask them questions (before the money is taken). They also specifically state that they're not a storefront, and that setbacks in the schedule are possible: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zpmespresso/pid-controlled-espresso-machine/posts/163017 http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zpmespresso/pid-controll... Seems like a sensible way to set expectations upfront. (I discovered this project as I was close to spending $700 on a machine that is (on paper) lower spec'ed (but, to be fair, available now). I'm willing to wait the few months and risk some cash to give some guys a chance at producing something new/different.)

188 points by barredo 15y ago

I've seen some neat things coming out of Kickstarter projects, but I get the impression most backers don't understand they're not guaranteed to receive an awesome perfectly functioning polished final product pitched by the creator. Kickstarter needs to make that more clear. Also, they need to do something about overfunding. Perhaps hold some of the money back until the product is ready to go into production or something.

matdwyer 15y ago

Disclaimer: I've never used Kickstarter This being said, I was under the impression that funding a project is still a bit of a risk - I'd expect that some projects (like businesses) simply don't work out how they planned - this seems like that type of problem. Of course they should have mentioned the signal problems (and even reached out to see if they could crowd source a solution) but buying in as an early "funder" would imply that there is a risk that it doesn't work, in my opinion. Seems like they simply couldn't deliver on the project, glad that it's only happened to him once in 72 times.

marquis 15y ago
I've funded a few projects of friends. One never materialized but it was worth the shot and the others are in production. If you spread your investments out, some are bound to take off no? I'm in line to receive some great products that wouldn't see the light of day otherwise and I'm excited. You don't get this excited over many things you can buy. I must say though, reading the content of this Kickstarter they don't deal very well with their failure. With the proper tone they could have gotten another round and kept their investors happy.
- steakbomb 15y ago
  You're not investing when you give money away on KickStarter. That would be in violation of SEC regulations.
- underwater 15y ago
  I don't quite understand what the "investors" are getting out of KickStarter. It doesn't seem like prouducts are that unique or cheap. The risk of a project failing or being delayed means I wouldn't buy anything I really needed from there. It seems like all the benefits are on the producers side. They can start a project with little risk, ask for more money when they mess up their budgetting and still finish up making a tidy profit.
  - InclinedPlane 15y ago
    As an investor you help create something that didn't exist before. Maybe something cool or interesting or important that you think should exist. Maybe something you desire to own as well. Sometimes the rewards are worth more than the investment, sometimes the personal value of contributing to something worthwhile is enough. People volunteer their time and donate their money to things beyond helping sick children and the poor.

rickyc091 15y ago

I was backing this project until the day they decided to raise shipping costs. It wasn't the raised shipping costs that made me withdraw my backing, but the fact that they had no respect for the backers. Just pulling a few quotes from the project starter... That is why I backed out of it. --- @Jeffrey Sorry you feel that way. But I owe you nothing. No one does. @PAIK Jackass, it's right here >> http://screencast.com/t/aPOddZQtDJ http://screencast.com/t/aPOddZQtDJ Stop harassing me!! And as I said, it was in the comments. @Noor from day one of the project we've always stated that there will be international shipping charges. So nothing has changed. Secondly. I don't believe that the customer is always right. And there's actually a strong community of business people out there that feel the same way.

blakestein 15y ago
Just more lessons on what not to do when raising funds. It's not even so much what he said, but his "tone."
- kmak 15y ago
  Seems like kickstarters are mostly okay with the risks.. it is inherent in the site, after all, but man, it doesn't seem necessary to be mean about things..

antimora 15y ago

Could the founders take only a small portion of money and proceed till the bugs were resolved?

DanBC 15y ago
With hardware a lot of costs are up front. I have some knowledge of PCB manufacture. So, you need to design the PCB. You need to get artwork made. You need some prototypes. Then you need to decide whether you'll re-design, or include a mod. Re-design is expensive, that is balanced by having a bit of wire soldered between two points and a track cut by a low paid operative in some random factory. You now have some PCBs. You need production aids. You may need stencils for screen printing solder paste. The design can be generated from the PCB gerber files. But again, there are artwork costs for this. You need a pick and place machine program. If there are many conventional components you'll want a cropping machine plate made. (A steel plate which the PCB sits on with small holes for conventional components; you then put this on the cropping machine which pins the components down while a blade slides and crops the component leads). Then you build your prototypes. You need someone to buy components; to put these onto the pick and place machine (Which means stripping that machine down from the last job); to load the programs and set the reflow oven and align the screen print stencil. You can new see that it's just as easy to produce ten as it is to produce one. (I'd recommend people building prototypes to build a batch of, say, 3 rather than just 1 or 2. That gives you an early alpha; a beta, and a neat and tidy beta to create documents and production drawings from.) Hopefully I've shown how many of the costs are up front. The costs of components and actually building stuff is relatively cheap.

jonursenbach 15y ago

Without Apple-like innovation and fabrication technology, how could could they got the aluminum casing to not completely block out the signal? It seemed like the entire project was doomed from the start.

FireBeyond 15y ago
"Apple-like innovation"? What's "Apple-like" about making an antenna? Wasn't "Apple-like" the reason for free bumpers and "you're holding it wrong"?
- swalsh 15y ago
  My guess is vast resources...

citricsquid 15y ago

The one thing that Kickstarter has taught me is something I don't really want to accept, but it's the sad truth: most project creators don't see Kickstarter as a real commitment to business, it's a way to get money for their "neat project" that they want to complete but without the hassle of raising money properly or selling pre-orders. It's a complete non-commitment and it seems a substantial number (enough for me to notice) take it this way. Kickstarter really need to fix this side of the site, I won't be backing any projects from this point on unless they absolutely have a pre-created product and I'm happy with what I can see at the time of backing, putting money into "creative" projects or "prototypes" seems to be a guaranteed way to come away with something you didn't expect (if you get anything at all). I would love to see either some retribution for people that never deliver or project curation from Kickstarter. On a positive note I backed "Romo" (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/peterseid/romo-the-smartphone-robot http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/peterseid/romo-the-smart...) a couple of months back and had an absolutely wonderful experience, they delivered on all their promises (so far) and the project is everything they promised.

sp332 15y ago
most project creators don't see Kickstarter as a real commitment to business, it's a way to get money for their "neat project" that they want to complete but without the hassle of raising money properly or selling pre-orders. But that's true, of course. Kickstarter isn't a marketplace like e.g. Etsy where customers buy items. Kickstarter lets people fund cool projects they like. Often (but not always) the item istelf is offered as a "perk" for backers. But that's not really the point of Kickstarer, it's just about funding a project.
- citricsquid 15y ago
  This is what I'm talking about, if I choose to fund a project and the reward I choose is that project, isn't that the point of funding? For example, http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/petertreadway/spnkix-wearable-mobility http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/petertreadway/spnkix-wea... is a project being funded at the moment and will reach it's goal, I've backed with $500 so I can get a pair, if they don't deliver on that isn't that an issue? Kickstarter does not present it as a chance to maybe see a project and if not, well great free money for the project creator, it's presented as a way to fund a project to creation, to delivery.

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mquinlan 15y ago

I'm not familiar with the outcome of any other "failed" projects, but has Kickstarter ever forcibly refunded money or intervened in any way? If not... they're obviously growing (nearly 4x as much pledged in 2011) and I don't know if more strict guidelines would really help.

hop 15y ago

I bought an aluminum Element Vapor Pro and it has no problems. I actually got it to see how it fits in my current Kickstarter project, the Elevation Dock, b/c a lot of people asked and they love them. It has plastic around the top left corner and small foam pads so the aluminum never touches the steel antenna. If I were these guys, I would machine out the corner and make a polycarbonate piece to fit. If anyone here has one, I'd machine the modifications for you just to show it.

X-Istence 15y ago
You have no idea much I am looking forward to having the Elevation Dock in my hands and using it!

davyjones 15y ago

This is a fairly known issue in elec. design. What is happening here is that the case is acting as a Faraday cage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage) that blocks out signals. It is not just enough to wear the designer hat. An engineer hat is absolutely essential as well.

mikeash 15y ago
It pretty well blows my mind that they just wrapped the whole antenna in metal and didn't think that it might cause problems. You shouldn't need to wear any hats at all for that one, just apply some common sense. When I saw the thing, I assumed they must have come up with some extremely clever way to avoid signal attenuation. Turns out they were just ignoring the blindingly obvious. Oops.
- tesseract 15y ago
  > they must have come up with some extremely clever way to avoid signal attenuation Which itself would be fairly incredible, considering that Steve Jobs and Jony Ive wanted to make the iPhone out of metal, and for three years they couldn't do so because of the antenna issue, and finally after spending what must have been many millions of dollars and many engineering man-years they came up with a sophisticated solution that was pretty good but even so still had widely publicized issues when it first came on the market.

shadowmint 15y ago

I wish people would stop thinking of Kickstarter as a shop. It's not. The site is very clear in it's FAQ that once a project is funded, delivery of the promised perks is up to the project creator, not up to Kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq/backing%20a%20project#WhoIsRespForMakiSureProjCreaDeliWhatTheyProm http://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq/backing%20a%20project#Wh... I've seen some great projects on the site, but you have to realize that you're not buying something. When you see a project that is developing a product, and the promised reward is one of those items, you are _not buying one of them_. You are pledging your money to the sponsor in good faith that they will provide you with one. In effect, speculating your money on Kickstarter against the risk of the project failing after it's fully funded. If you want to buy something, use a shop. I actually think that Kickstarter (despite it not being in their best interests) should place an upper limit on the funding available on projects that effectively try to use Kickstarter as a shop, and dupe the public into thinking they are buying things. There's really nothing to stop me creating a "cool laptop" shop on Kickstarter, claiming to "rebrand" macbook airs and resell them with laser etched designs for $500 each, take all the money and walk away.

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newsio 15y ago

When you are designing a product for Kickstarter and you show prototypes, backers will assume you have worked all the bugs out first. Do backers on Kickstarter really assume that all the bugs will be worked out before the prototype is shown? I'm not familiar with how the community works, but would assume that the prototypes would be used to identify more bugs and design flaws, as well as elicit feedback from early users.

nirvana 15y ago
Yes. Backers on kickstarter are not sophisticated startup people. They're regular consumers. Most kickstarter projects are ones that appeal to them, and are also low tech. If a project expects a lengthy development process they can say it in the project. I've done some mechanical engineering, but I'm no mechanical engineer. I can't know whether an iPhone dock is going to require 3 prototypes and 4 nearly complete versions before being ready to ship, and all this will take 9 months, or if what they're showing in the picture can be manufactured in 60 days in volume, all they need is the money for the injection molding forms, which are very expensive. Hell, I bet most people who fund kickstarter projects don't even know injection molding forms are expensive. So, if the project has high risk, and this isn't disclosed by the leader of the project when asking for funding, that's an error on their part. The problem projects I've seen (that are products, rather than pieces of art) tend to pitch themselves as completed products that just need manufacturing help.

nirvana 15y ago

I got burned by a kickstarter project. Like others, I naively believed that they were at least an above board outfit. I also appreciated that Amazon was the payments service because I believe they are above board as well. I fell for the "Hexbright Flashlight" project: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/527051507/hexbright-an-open-source-light?ref=live http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/527051507/hexbright-an-o... His pitch was that the product was designed and that he just needed the funding to underwrite manufacturing startup costs with asian and local suppliers. Having been well down the path of getting a consumer electronics product manufactured, and knowing the costs and understanding that a lot of those costs are upfront, I this seemed very reasonable to me. I thought his asking amount was a bit low, but the project was overfunded to the tune of $800,000 - more than enough to cover these startup costs. Once funded, however, the October delivery date-- two months from the funding date, was never mentioned again. Instead the updates have increasingly focused on design choices. In fact, the early updates made it very clear that many of the design choices hadn't even been settled! He's clearly taking his time, doing some updates once a month or so, but it doesn't even look like this is full time. (excuses for having a new baby, etc. Jeez guy, you took on an $800,000 project with a baby on the way, really?) I have the very strong impression that it was a slight con job-- he got the money to dick around with his ultimate flashlight and "really do it right", but doesn't seem too concerned about his commitment to deliver the flashlights in a timely manner. I do believe has has every intention to deliver these flashlights... eventually. But I bought them for christmas presents, I've been out several hundred dollars for 6 months and I don't even have a promise date for delivery. In fact, the whole thing is so half assed that he doesn't even know which colors I want because he didn't give us a way to tell him. So, I contacted Kickstarter. I figured they had contingency plans for this kind of situation. I figured they were a standup organization. Their response? A form letter telling me that they advise their project leaders to deliver in a timely manner to backers. That's it. No suggestions for alternatives, nothing like that. Of course the 30 day credit card dispute period has long passed. But I don't think it will come to that. The FTC has a rule, that if you take money for a product, you have to deliver it in 6 weeks. This is why TV commercials and magazine ads often say "delivers in 4-6 weeks". Because they're using drop shippers, or whatever. If you don't deliver in 6 weeks, you have to get the customers permission to delay shipment, or you have to refund their money. Thems the rules. Its debatable whether the 6 weeks started at the funding date when our cards were charged (and kickstarter got their $80,000), or at the "end of october" when they were originally supposed to ship. Either way that time is up. Because I think this guy intends to deliver them, and was only dishonest about the level of completion of the project, and because I know that last %10 can take a lot of time, I'm going to give him a bit longer. Maybe the end of January. I'd go to the end of February if he promises to ship in that month. After that point, I'm going to take up the dispute with Amazon. I expect that amazon, having handled the payment will resolve the issue, but if they don't then I'm going to escalate. I actually blame kickstarter more than I do the guy behind the project. They should not blow people off when projects fail to deliver. This isn't a donation to some kid who wants to take pictures of trees in the Sierras. They are selling products here, and they are promising tangible goods on a specified date in exchange for the funds. That's the definition of being a store. I don't mind giving people some time. I only even got annoyed about this one after christmas came and went and there wasn't even an apology for not shipping in a reasonable amount of time. And I only got upset when kickstarter blew me off when I wrote them. Because of that, if this isn't resolved in 4-8 weeks, I'm going to Amazon, and then the police. Needless to say, I won't be backing any more Kickstarter projects, and until they start taking some responsibility, I no longer consider them a trustworthy outfit. Here's the introduction of the project: "I am offering pre-orders for two unique and powerful lights, the HexBright Prime for $35 and the HexBright Flex for $60. Both models are virtually identical looking with an ergonomic, very comfortable grip and use the best available LED light source. ... The major difference between the Prime and Flex models is the HexBright Flex is USB rechargeable and USB programmable. If you want, you can re-write the default code and tweak the HexBright Flex however you desire." He's offering pre-orders. That's what the project promised. (Elsewhere it gave a "late september, early october" ship date, but that has since been removed.) Kickstarter offers a FAQ. Here's the FAQ entry for this project: When will you ship? "Short answer- as soon as we can. Long answer- HexBright is not a product already on the shelf ready to be shipped. You are funding development of a top quality product where almost all your money is going into the parts and materials with almost no overhead, marketing or middlemen costs (we are projecting future retail prices to be over $100). As the saying goes, "CHEAP, FAST, GOOD, pick any two". Our price is fixed so we are choosing between "fast" and "good". Good wins every time. " The thing is, this FAQ was changed. Kickstarter helpfully tells us so: Last updated: Monday Nov 14, 1:22pm EST So, during the time he was asking for money, we were given the opportunity to "pre-order" these flashlights that are described as already existing: "the HexBright Flex is USB rechargeable and USB programmable." NOT: "the HexBright Flex WILL BE USB rechargeable and WILL BE USB programmable." Then, about 2 months after he was supposed to ship, the FAQ changes to "You are funding development of..." So, the project says one thing, but the FAQ says another, and the wording on the FAQ, updated 2 months after it should have started shipping, implies that people who expected it to ship when promised weren't actually promised a shipping product on any specific date.

541564654 15y ago

I just cannot help but notice how much the perception of what Kickstarter is has changed from its initial days. I learned about Kickstarter at the time the Diaspora project was there collecting money. It was clear that people are not "buying" but "investing". They were not "consumers", they were "investors". Diaspora wasn't a "product" on "pre-order" but a "project" which was "under development". How the intent and purpose of the site changed in the minds of both "backers" and project makers is just amazing. Its like the identity of what Kickstarter started out to be has been lost somewhere. Kickstarter was supposed to replace angle investors and VC. They were supposed to help the little guy start up without all the control of the big guy who had money. The idea, as explained to me on this very forum, was that this was crowd sourced investment. The users here went on to say how this will change the startup culture and help people start more bootstrapped startups without any strings attached. The "rewards" were never a guaranteed thing. They were sort of a thank you and giving out rewards were supposed to be a way to show off that they actually succeeded. Now it seems the whole thing has shifted to a marketplace of sorts. It seems like people are using it as an alternative to ebay or amazone, just that they can have higher flexibility and more contact to their "consumers". The inherent risk of "investing" has been lost and given way to the guarantee of "buying" a product.

prodigal_erik 15y ago
Kickstarter's guidelines specifically say > Offering financial incentives, such as ownership, financial returns (for example, a share of profits), or repayment (loans) is prohibited. If they ever claimed pledges were "investments", that was dishonest and I think the SEC could actually prosecute them for it.
- 541564654 15y ago
  I think I made the wrong choice of words there. I am really truly sorry. I think donations is much more appropriate. I don't know, maybe someone will understand. I just wanted to say that kickstarter didn't imply any ownership in anyway. Ever.

milurally 15y ago

I don't see it as the worst project. I don't know why you are so dissapointed

DanBC 15y ago
Kick Starter appears to need to manage people's expectations of projects a bit better? People are not buying product, they're "investing" to help someone create a product. The return on a successful investment is a cheap version of that product, or some stickers, or a warm fuzzy feeling of helping someone.

tylermenezes 15y ago

I'm helping out with a Kickstarter project (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/studentrnd/plasma-speaker http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/studentrnd/plasma-speake...) which is already 2 months behind the delivery date, and I just wanted to offer a view from the other side. Shipping a product is hard. Our initial prototype used some components we had in our parts organizer, and a $100k variable DC power supply Boeing donated. It was pretty cool, so we put it online, and it picked up $20k in donations. As soon as we put it online, we started working on improvements to the design, and when it was to a point we considered done, we made a board design and ordered parts. And of course, nothing worked. We've been working on it for as much time as possible since then (as mentioned in our Kickstarter, the lead designer is a high school student), and even with the help of some local EEs, it's taken forever to get it to even start. The flybacks and PSUs took forever to get to the US, customs held up the package, and FedEx refused to deliver them. Our laser cutter, which we ordered to make the enclosures, was a week late, and took a few days to set up. Now we're at the point where we're balancing sound quality and time. We can redesign the entire project so it sounds better, but that means another few weeks to get the new boards and parts, or we can just ship what we have. If we do any Kickstarters in the future, we're obviously going to have a totally more realistic timeframe. But it's apparent that anyone who hasn't shipped a product is going to have no idea of how involved trying to reproduce something in a mass scale is. That said, it looks like these people took an AWFUL approach to customer support. We've tried to keep people as up-to-date as we were, we've refunded anyone who asked for it and offered to ship laser cut cards to anyone who was planning on giving the plasma speakers as a Christmas gift. tl;dr: Kickstarter is hard. As usual, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

andrewfelix 15y ago
Well said. I think offering a constructive and meaningful response to your potential customers goes a long way.
Lewton 15y ago
>we've refunded anyone who asked for it If you don't mind me asking, how many refunds have been requested? It might give an insight into what people expect from Kickstarter

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Terretta 15y ago

After the iPhone "antenna gate" with a rubber bumper as the resolution, how did 1,053 backers conclude surrounding an iPhone 4 with a metal band would be a good idea? The author even owned Apple's bumper, but perhaps had not realized why it was rubber. Then the author's other stated reason was frequently dropping the phone. How shock absorbent does he imagine solid metal is, compared to that rubber bumper? As easily discerned from the photos, this antenna blocking, shock transmitting, "case" doesn't even extend past the face glass, allowing it to shatter if dropped on any front face corner. Seems like this project's backers should consider it a $65 lesson in weighing the plausibility of marketing claims for oneself.

goatforce5 15y ago

I've put done close to $300 to help fund a programmable espresso machine. Funding closes this Friday. Get in quick if it might be your sort of thing: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zpmespresso/pid-controlled-espresso-machine http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zpmespresso/pid-controll... Just yesterday they posted a very good update letting people know where they stand. Notably that the shipping times are already longer than originally stated, and that now is the time to ask them questions (before the money is taken). They also specifically state that they're not a storefront, and that setbacks in the schedule are possible: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zpmespresso/pid-controlled-espresso-machine/posts/163017 http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zpmespresso/pid-controll... Seems like a sensible way to set expectations upfront. (I discovered this project as I was close to spending $700 on a machine that is (on paper) lower spec'ed (but, to be fair, available now). I'm willing to wait the few months and risk some cash to give some guys a chance at producing something new/different.)