

Between Kickstarter’s frauds and phenoms live long-delayed projects - ChuckMcM
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/06/worth-the-wait-inside-kickstarters-world-of-delays/

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ChuckMcM
I found this a reasonably well balanced discussion of the challenges facing
Kickstarter type projects. To some extent the TLDR is "making things is a lot
more complicated than people realize" but that merely points out the challenge
between innovation and production.

I think Kickstarter gave a 'voice' to the market for new products that didn't
exist before. Here people vote on new ideas with money, something any
marketing manager can understand. And unlike Quirky people don't have to give
up all rights to their product to a manufacturing partner.

So perhaps there is another company here, "KickDoer" which is the 21st century
equivalent of FlexTronics or FoxConn.

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abandonliberty
I really think the only failure of kickstarter is that many backers don't
understand the risk they're buying into.

R&D always costs more than production, so wouldn't backers in theory pay more
than market value to be first and part of the creation cycle?

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msandford
The idea is usually that the project team either has already done the R&D and
they're just raising money for the production run, or that they're going to do
the R&D for free because they're going to own the business and make a profit
on every sale after the backers get the initial production run.

Both wildly naive it seems, but I suspect that's how people imagine it. The
demo videos usually show a "done-ish" product and downplay how much more needs
to be done to actually ship it. And they always talk about how strong their
team is and how it's totally doable even though it's not done yet.

The wifi lightbulb people come to mind. Total smoke and mirrors demo video and
it took a major multinational getting involved to actually ship the product.
That's the Belkin WeMo.

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larrys
Part of the appeal of a product on kickstarter is the marketing which has way
more appeal than just the actual product does itself.

It's the "trust us" attitude and the generally soft spoken videos and
collateral doing exactly what marketing is supposed to do. In other words it
all seems so genuine, possible and down to earth in tone and builds up a trust
factor. Even though the people behind the product are complete unknowns. Take
away those videos and there would be a drastic drop in funding and not just
because the videos explain features or benefits either or can go viral.

