

Show HN: We open sourced Lockitron's crowdfunding app - ccamrobertson
http://selfstarter.us/

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noonespecial
Outstanding. I was going to try to contact you privately and beg for advice on
how to run something similar.

My hats so far off to you guys, it's on the floor in front of me. Can't wait
for my Lockitron to arrive.

~~~
moens
When they mentioned that they would open source their code, I started looking
at payment gateways that did cool things. Here's my research so far:
[http://www.geekphd.com/lockitron-selfstarter-us-payment-
gate...](http://www.geekphd.com/lockitron-selfstarter-us-payment-gateways-
that-allow-pre-orders/)

~~~
ccamrobertson
Thank you for doing the leg work with this. I think that anyone who wants to
use this needs to look at payments _very_ carefully so as not to run the risk
of rampant chargebacks or getting shut down by your processor.

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rkaplan
This could start a trend towards moving away from Kickstarter. So far, the
more famous projects that have pursued funding from a similar model without
using Kickstarter itself (e.g. Lockitron, App.net) have done so out of
necessity – they weren't allowed to use the Kickstarter platform.

But if people keep succeeding without being hosted on Kickstarter itself, that
5% fee might look more and more unattractive to people starting large
projects. How much value does being on Kickstarter really add to your project,
and how much is simply due to the brilliant fundraising model?

~~~
akennberg
I am currently running a Kickstarter campaign and I must say that this is far
from being a trend. The run away success campaigns have a track record and a
following, which is leveraged to create the initial PR push. Without hitting
20% funding very early on the project has very little chance of succeeding
(kickstarter stats).

A lot of our pledging happened from traffic coming directly from Kickstarter.
My guess here is that people that come to Kickstarter have an intent to back
and they become shoppers. User lands on one cool project, gets excited,
browses, which leads to other projects being discovered and potentially backed
as well.

At the end of the day, it's a funnel and your project has to be discovered in
order for some users to convert to backers. It's also about connecting your
project with the right audience. By cutting out Kickstarter you cut out a
large portion of users that are more likely to convert, reducing chance of
initial social sharing, crazy trends that create press stories, etc. This is
why I don't think this is a trend.

~~~
ccamrobertson
I agree - I believe that hardware products that are accepted to Kickstarter
should still leverage its inherent momentum. Based on reports from project
creators, I have heard anywhere from 30-50% of traffic comes sources internal
to Kickstarter.

~~~
helen842000
Maybe the way around this with selfstarter is to have a simple directory page,
anyone using the skeleton to create a project can submit their URL. That could
be the agregator for those folks to browse through multiple projects. It would
be another source of traffic for projects.

~~~
dbh937
Like a Reddit for selfstarter projects, but the up votes are pledges.

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ryanlchan
I'm curious to see what happens to Amazon FPS if these product based crowd-
funding apps take off. We may be in for a bit of a Paypal style crackdown
debacle.

I actually spoke with the Kickstarter guys back in 2009 when I was considering
branching off their idea _specifically_ for product based ideas, thinking that
it could be "Amazon for stuff that doesn't exist yet".

We all agreed that the idea should happen, but Kickstarter didn't want to do
it for two reasons:

1\. Their goal is to help artists succeed. They're artists themselves, and the
guy who started the site's been working on this for _years_. It means a lot to
them to help the little one-man filmmakers.

2\. The risk in having products that aren't delivered on time, in the same
form as envisioned, or aren't even completed was just too high. They were
terrified of having a backlash of backers who thought they were purchasing a
product when in fact the transaction is structured as a donation.

The second one is what makes me worried. What happens if, worst case scenario,
Pebble goes bankrupt without producing any items? Who takes the hit there? Is
it Amazon, Pebble, Kickstarter, or the backers? It isn't clear yet because we
haven't had a high-profile failure yet. But it's only a matter of time.

~~~
eichin
I'm surprised that the idea that _anyone_ other than the backers are going to
lose money keeps coming up; it's always looked pretty clear to me (even though
I've gotten rewards delivered from around 30 out of 45 projects, mostly
hardware, and the remaining ones are still pretty visible and active - past
success doesn't feel like a guarantee on anyone's part, it's just pretty
cool.) It's helped that I'm pretty well-qualified to judge these projects,
though the only ones that looked unlikely to actually deliver have been
_really_ obvious (the "projector" that was supposed to be something mini-
maglite sized that plugged into an iPhone headphone jack comes to mind) so
it's not like it's actually taken all that much effort :-)

It also seems like the small-donation structure should make it difficult for
any individual to have cause for action; I see some of KickStarter's recent
changes as not wanting to even get into that fight, but that's because even
_winning_ would be expensive (and as has been suggested elsewhere in the
thread, they're actually in it for the indie films.)

Or do you mean just the popularity risk, if enough projects don't deliver?

~~~
marknowotarski
Eichin,

I’ve also backed quite a few Kickstarter design projects. The biggest risk
backers face from Kickstarter design projects is personal safety, not failure
to deliver. I’ve spent many years in new product development and the items
delivered to me wouldn’t come close meeting even the most basic consumer
safety codes. Plus I have no expectation that the project creators have any
sort of product liability insurance.

That being said, I think the Selfstarter model can directly address that risk.
Backers are dealing directly with project creators. The liability is clear. I
expect that in the future, project creators will need to demonstrate product
liability insurance coverage and that they will meet safety regulations. I
hope to see that option somehow added to the Selfstarter code so that project
creators can show they have insurance coverage and that they will meet safety
standards.

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staunch
Looks like Kickstarter is going to end up being known as the company that
(kick)started a phenomenon but didn't own it. They should have become a
marketplace for projects, not an arbiter of what gets a shot and what doesn't.

~~~
brackin
Interestingly they don't seem to want to own the whole phenomenon. Which could
be a good thing for what they want to achieve. They want to focus on creative
projects over being a platform to fund anything or a store with little
accountability.

~~~
loceng
The attention and revenues they would generate from having bigger and more
successful products (revenue size wise) would benefit the smaller creative
projects IMHO.

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andrewljohnson
A couple months ago, I had added "kickstarter widget for start-up websites" to
my list of ideas that I never do, but think are cool. This is a really
wonderful open-source contribution, so hat tip!

We also ordered a Lockitron for our office already. We have keypads on our
house, and we love them, and imagine Lokcitron will be even more love.

~~~
ccamrobertson
I still believe there is room for a proper platform to manage crowdfunding for
hardware - maybe with a distributed option as well.

~~~
rdl
Maybe Amazon would be in the best position to do it.

~~~
jkestner
Given the new Amazon Lending program, I'm guessing they're starting to move in
that direction. It's for sellers buying inventory now, but Amazon has a lot of
data about what sells that can help it determine what's a good risk for
investment.

Cam, you rock.

~~~
marknowotarski
Amazon has a "lending program"? Can you point to it. That's the magic that
holds this together. Get prefunding that's only available when you are ready
to ship. Secure a loan with the prefunding to go into production.

~~~
rdl
Amazon Lending through Amazon Capital Services

[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087239639044349330457803...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443493304578034103049644978.html)
(google "Small Businesses are Finding An Unlikely Banker: Amazon" to get
around paywall)

~~~
marknowotarski
Excellent. Thank you.

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mttsn
Spent the better part of an afternoon cloning the lockitron site a few days
ago... you guys are fucking awesome. And I'm impatient. I'll share a python
version when I have a chance to clean it up.

Thanks for being awesome.

~~~
phineas
Did you make any progress with python? I'm not much of a ruby guy.

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freeslave
i'm guessing this is in response to this:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4625371> in other words, OP delivered!

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mmahemoff
Something funny happened when I tried to share this on G+ (screenshot -
<http://goo.gl/VK404>). Suggest the creators remove that hidden Latin div.

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daenz
Is the "Fork Now" button supposed to go to a Lockitron preorder page?

EDIT>> Apparently only the second fork button does this...the one I clicked
after reading the page content :)

~~~
Jarred
Good catch!

I just pushed a fix.

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dabit
Was working on something similar when this came out.
<https://github.com/crowdint/fundraiser>

Great job by the Lockitron team.

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loceng
Thanks for releasing this. The design works well for single-product offerings,
though would need to be modified for pledge-reward setups.. not too hard to do
though.

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viraj_shah
Thank you for this. This will be so helpful for my and many other startups.
Interesting to note that Kickstarter has an Amazon FlexPay gem on their
github.

~~~
ccamrobertson
It's very lean at this point, but hopefully it's a good starting point.
Kickstarter was amazing for doing the heavy lifting and open sourcing it with
their amazon_flex_pay gem.

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gary4gar
Number of tests(Unit,Integration etc) is __0 __!

~~~
matthuggins
So submit a pull request. ;)

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auston
Damn it! You just ruined my startup weekend idea!

~~~
damncabbage
There's plenty left to do:

 _"We've kept Selfstarter really simple, but that also means that you should
beef it up with your own authentication, administration and product management
code."_

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mck-
This is so awesome -- have the Kickstarter guys contacted you? I wonder how
they take this, and what this means for the entire crowd-funding space for
that matter, especially the smaller ones that don't have the network effects
of Kickstarter.

I just did a project on Fundrazr last month. If only this was available then..
kudos!

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outdooricon
This is really nice! If a project got accepted into Kickstarter, would it be
better to stay with them or use this instead? The benefit of exposure to a
large community as a Kickstarter project is pitted against the extra 5% that
they take... How do you turn exposure into a monetary value for comparison?
Pricing of ads maybe?

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johnx123-up
Can anybody share how it is different from other crowdfunding scripts like
Agriya?

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ommunist
This is absolutely fantastic of you, guys to share an app like that. Most
hardware makers cant make self-serving software like that, and you rock! I am
sending the link to all of my engineering friends.

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jkeesh
Thanks for open sourcing this. We are probably going to launch a crowdfunding
campaign soon, and I am excited to check this out as an option.

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helen842000
Excellent! I was just about to look your site up again and see how you put
your own crowdfunding project together.

This is perfect! Thanks!

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lelf
It looks this way without flash installed — <http://imgur.com/zcPSG>

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obilgic
I am a hardcore rails guy, but for some reason using sinatra for this app,
would be a better option.

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erohead
Awesome work, guys! Thanks for sharing. I wish you went with my suggestion for
bootstarter.js...

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francov88
Best idea ever! Great job to all involved - wonder how Kickstarter is going to
take this?

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31reasons
This is how it should be. Most of the kickstarter projects get funded after
doing lot of promotions and leveraging founders's own social network.
Kickstarter taking % cut of the fund is completely unnecessary in many
situations. They do provide some kind of project validation which is important
in high-risk projects.

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rohamg
Nicely done guys. Someone fucked with the wrong hackers.

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keytovlad
This is awesome thanks for making this open source.

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Finbarr
Nice job guys! This is pretty awesome stuff.

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xfernandox
Thanks for sharing this with the community!

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propercoil
i'm loving it

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orange123
Really admire it! keep up sharing

