
Tindie says forget Kickstarter - jewelia
http://www.wired.com/2014/05/tindie-says-forget-kickstarter/
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eldavido
I'd like it if one of these marketplaces emerged that was more careful about
vetting sellers. I've ordered Raspberry Pi-related gear off of two unrelated
e-com sites in the past month (one was Tindie) and have yet to receive the
goods (or any indication they received my order) 3+ weeks after the funds
changed hands.

This isn't kickstarter. When I pay for something, I expect to receive it in a
reasonable amount of time, or at least receive an explanation of what's going
on. A little transparency would go a long way.

~~~
eldavido
I think it's ridiculous that this comment got downvoted. I read hacker news
every day and want to have a conversation about fulfillment, business models,
and maybe learn about various marketplaces and how they're dealing with the
problem of fulfillment and inventory management.

Sometimes conversations here can get a little sharp-elbowed, but I can't help
but think I'm getting downvoted because I said something marginally negative
about Tindie.

Is this what HN is becoming -- say something nice, or don't say anything at
all?

~~~
avalaunch
I agree that your comment had value and didn't deserve to be downvoted. That
being said, I think you're jumping to too big of a conclusion based on a
single (assuming it was only one) downvote - that HN has become a place where
contrary opinions are squashed. Chances are good that someone simply isn't
aware of the community standards as to when they are and when they are not
supposed to downvote - that downvotes are meant to be reserved for when a
comment adds no value to the conversation, not when one simply disagrees with
the opinion being shared. In that case, the person needs to be educated to the
community's expectations. But we should also not rule out the possibility that
someone meant to upvote you and instead pressed the downvote button, which are
entirely too close to one another, and of which there is no ability to
reverse.

~~~
vidarh
Or someone simply thought that the comment was jumping to conclusions with no
real data about the actual cause of the problem.

Shipping problems are common enough that two instances close in time does not
say anything about _either_ seller, and even if one is bad is does not mean
the other is.

Only over the last month I've have one package I ordered from an Amazon
Marketplace seller get lost... by Amazon Logistics (first time ever I've seen
Amazon's tracking show "package lost by carrier"), and another, from a
Kickstarter project, stuck in DHL-limbo for 3 weeks - neither problem had
anything to do with the sellers.

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memset
I've been a member of the maker community for several years now - buying
purple PCBs, selling kits, going to Maker Faire's, etc.

I have a lot of friends, myself included, who started selling their items on
Ebay, PayPal's button, or some variant of Magento. Nearly all of them have
moved their shops to Tindie. When I was at PyCon, I happened to run into
people I knew (independently!) at their booth.

I'm still not sure exactly how they'll reach profitability (they only take 5%)
and I'd love to see better tools for sellers (a la shipping.) But I really
like what these folks are doing!

~~~
emilepetrone
thanks @memset!

------
emilepetrone
Hey HN,

Just saw this was picking up steam so if you have any questions, happy to
answer them! Some might remember me from my posts a few years ago when I quit
my job to learn how to code. Happy to answer any of those questions as well...

Emile

Founder of Tindie

~~~
jmgrosen
My dad and I have ordered all sorts of cool stuff off of Tindie, from
Launchpad Boosterpacks to RGB LED matrices. I just wanted to say thanks for
this cool service you've provided to sellers and buyers alike!

~~~
emilepetrone
Sure thing! Glad we could help!

~~~
unphasable
How was your experience teaching yourself how to code?

~~~
emilepetrone
Saved up, took a year off, and just went at it. Having friends that knew
Python definitely helped when Stackoverflow couldn't help. Usually that was
because I was asking the question/thinking of the problem wrong.

------
thanatropism
What I like about this is that it doesn't leave the buyer -- here, explicitly
a buyer -- in the twilight zone that Kickstarter does. Kickstarter calls you a
"backer", and a bearer of risk to some extent, and for this some people in the
Oculus case have come to feel like investors and felt seriously cheated.
Seriously, search HN.

Actually pricing what a Kickstarter "backing" offer should cost like is a lot
like pricing financial derivatives. By offering to back a project, you're
swapping a call option for something like a CDO - there are tranches, there
are levels of haircuts, etc. etc.

Tindie is just Etsy for Arduino hackers. Congratulations for cutting that
Gordian knot!

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lnanek2
Sounds like it is for already created products, so is for a different audience
than kickstarter. Although, honestly, if I were a maker I'd just pick the one
with more traffic and customize or V2 to qualify for kickstarter if I had to
since it gets a lot more eyeballs and eyeballs are where the money is.

~~~
neltnerb
Oh, I don't know. I don't think I'm alone in enjoying making things and
sharing them when feasible... but am not that interested in running a real
business doing it.

I realize that I'll never make enough income to replace a normal job building
this sort of stuff, so a way to make small runs of useful things and actually
get them to people who are interested sounds pretty appealing.

As is, I just post stuff I'm making on blog.saikoled.com, but when I have some
time I'll definitely look at putting up useful gadgets on something like this.
I just don't have the interest to quit working on my real company, get enough
investment/funding to make a serious product, and deal with the stress of
pitching it to people on kickstarter =P

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unwind
Tindie is an awesome service, if you're at all interested in (hobby)
electronics. There's a nice spectrum of products available, and there's always
something new.

I was sad the day the "Supplies" category of product was retired, since there
was plenty of stuff available which is hard to find, or just way more
expensive, but I understand the need to focus and try to find a clear niche.

Speaking of Kickstarter, it seems possible for the two to co-operate: there's
at least one product (Nick Johnson's "Re:Load Pro" active DC load) that I've
backed on Kickstarter, and on the day the funding was complete I noticed it's
also available (as a pre-order) on Tindie.

Kickstarter: [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nickjohnson/re-load-
pro...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nickjohnson/re-load-pro-a-dc-
active-load), and Tindie:
[https://www.tindie.com/products/arachnidlabs/reload-
pro/](https://www.tindie.com/products/arachnidlabs/reload-pro/).

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sirdogealot
I am wondering why I have yet to see this tindie mentioned on hackaday.com

To the founder, I would approach them for an advertising deal if at all
possible.

~~~
emilepetrone
They were the first to write about us :)

[http://hackaday.com/2012/04/30/tindie-an-etsy-for-
electronic...](http://hackaday.com/2012/04/30/tindie-an-etsy-for-electronics/)
[http://hackaday.com/2012/06/27/an-etsy-for-
electronics/](http://hackaday.com/2012/06/27/an-etsy-for-electronics/)

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tonylemesmer
As lnanek2 said below Kickstarter and Tindie are serving 2 different markets.
Kickstarter allows projects that require things like tooling to be crowdfunded
prior to launch. You cannot supply a plastic spoon product to customers before
you have the spoons.

