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Yeah, I feel like there are members of the public who think a $20,000 dollar goal should pay for 3 or 4 people to work on a thing for a while... IT DOESN'T! It

Yeah, I feel like there are members of the public who think a $20,000 dollar goal should pay for 3 or 4 people to work on a thing for a while... IT DOESN'T! It might pay 1 person to work on something for a few months. This is why kickstarters should already have substantial progress made on a project before asking for crowdfunding, but if people want to bet on the Longshots with nothing to show but an idea, they should expect to get burnt from time to time.

krick 12y ago
Nice wages you have there, huh… No, seriously, I pretty damn well understand that projects fail, it is hard to guess how many resources will be needed, etc. But if you are not another scam artist you are probably to calculate in advance, what you will need, then add some risks, then dive into adventure. And the argument "they didn't have enough money, what 0.5M is nowadays, really!" seems to me completely invalid. For several reasons. First off, the head of the project is Neal Stephenson. He is a public person, well known. It is important. If I'd back the project (I didn't) it probably would matter to me that it belongs to Neal Stephenson, not John Doe. Well known name is worth a lot. And as you know with great power comes great responsibility. Second (actually, the first one, but I'm ordering then as they take into action), they asked for 500k, they got 500k and then some. It doesn't sound like a big money for such an ambitious project for me too, but if you ask for that you have to know already, how much will be spent on what, right? Planning shouldn't be payed by public. It isn't a backer to think if 500k is enough — ideally you should not only prove it for yourself, but for them too. Maybe you outsource to somewhere, where human resource aren't so expensive, how can I know? By the way 20k for 1 person for a month of work is pretty much hilarious. I mean, yeah, I know that somebody somewhere gets paid that well, but on the other hand I know others, who aren't paid even close that good and often happen to be much better specialists than that first one. So, anyway, as a project manager it's your job to plan right. Third. Ok, 500k turned to be not enough, you failed. That happens, sometimes things are so complicated that it even isn't really fair to say it was your fault. But taking into account first 2 points it would be pretty natural to explain explicitly why you failed and how that money was spent. How many people worked for you, how much you paid them. What they managed to do over that time. Making it open source if possible, to show that money really weren't spent for nothing, it just wasn't enough, really. So, I understand that it is always easier to talk sitting on the couch, but I'm trying to imagine myself on Neals place and I can't explain that kind of behavior. Especially because of my first point. For some people knowing that you disappointed people ("a fan" would be right word in case of Stephenson) that believed in you so much could be easily worth of committing seppuku or something. Not just "sorry guys, it didn't work out, we tried; support us some other time, we'll do better, maybe".
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- mnutt 12y ago
  This is a dangerously low-quality comment. For some people knowing that you disappointed people ("a fan" would be right word in case of Stephenson) that believed in you so much could be easily worth of committing seppuku or something. For all of the threads recently discussing failure and founder depression, you flippantly suggest someone should kill themselves for "disappointing some fans". Have you ever failed as ambitiously and publicly as Neal Stephenson did here? Maybe you read the story and thought he did not sound as apologetic as you'd like, but having read the rest of the backers' notes I'm pretty sure that he and the rest of the team have put their lives into this for years.

krick 12y ago

Nice wages you have there, huh… No, seriously, I pretty damn well understand that projects fail, it is hard to guess how many resources will be needed, etc. But if you are not another scam artist you are probably to calculate in advance, what you will need, then add some risks, then dive into adventure. And the argument "they didn't have enough money, what 0.5M is nowadays, really!" seems to me completely invalid. For several reasons. First off, the head of the project is Neal Stephenson. He is a public person, well known. It is important. If I'd back the project (I didn't) it probably would matter to me that it belongs to Neal Stephenson, not John Doe. Well known name is worth a lot. And as you know with great power comes great responsibility. Second (actually, the first one, but I'm ordering then as they take into action), they asked for 500k, they got 500k and then some. It doesn't sound like a big money for such an ambitious project for me too, but if you ask for that you have to know already, how much will be spent on what, right? Planning shouldn't be payed by public. It isn't a backer to think if 500k is enough — ideally you should not only prove it for yourself, but for them too. Maybe you outsource to somewhere, where human resource aren't so expensive, how can I know? By the way 20k for 1 person for a month of work is pretty much hilarious. I mean, yeah, I know that somebody somewhere gets paid that well, but on the other hand I know others, who aren't paid even close that good and often happen to be much better specialists than that first one. So, anyway, as a project manager it's your job to plan right. Third. Ok, 500k turned to be not enough, you failed. That happens, sometimes things are so complicated that it even isn't really fair to say it was your fault. But taking into account first 2 points it would be pretty natural to explain explicitly why you failed and how that money was spent. How many people worked for you, how much you paid them. What they managed to do over that time. Making it open source if possible, to show that money really weren't spent for nothing, it just wasn't enough, really. So, I understand that it is always easier to talk sitting on the couch, but I'm trying to imagine myself on Neals place and I can't explain that kind of behavior. Especially because of my first point. For some people knowing that you disappointed people ("a fan" would be right word in case of Stephenson) that believed in you so much could be easily worth of committing seppuku or something. Not just "sorry guys, it didn't work out, we tried; support us some other time, we'll do better, maybe".

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mnutt 12y ago
This is a dangerously low-quality comment. For some people knowing that you disappointed people ("a fan" would be right word in case of Stephenson) that believed in you so much could be easily worth of committing seppuku or something. For all of the threads recently discussing failure and founder depression, you flippantly suggest someone should kill themselves for "disappointing some fans". Have you ever failed as ambitiously and publicly as Neal Stephenson did here? Maybe you read the story and thought he did not sound as apologetic as you'd like, but having read the rest of the backers' notes I'm pretty sure that he and the rest of the team have put their lives into this for years.