It's interesting that they've chosen to launch the product on Kickstarter. They don't appear to need the funding structure; they're simply using it as a shop.
I'm guessing they have a understanding with Kickstarter. Pebble is guaranteed to break some records with Kickstarter and it will get great press. With competitors like GoFundMe and Indiegogo I'm sure that Kickstarter welcomed Pebble back with open arms. Good for them!
Does it matter? That's just how Kickstarter makes money. The idea that they wouldn't welcome Pebble because it's low-risk and somehow makes them appear more "store-like" is unrealistic.
I'm quite surprised at the number of people who have just said "marketing". I don't doubt that's part of it but even without it I think it's a fairly solid idea.
Kickstarter have all the right tools for selling and a proven capacity to scale well. They've sold over 4 million dollars worth to over 20 thousand people in three hours without any hassle. They're handling all the user management, accounts, live updating figures, "stock" and payments.
How much would it have cost them if right at the peak their site went down for 2 hours? Or people weren't sure if their order was accepted? Could it cost them 5% of their orders minus the amount it would have cost them to build on their own? How long would it take to have built and tested their own site to handle the load of orders (and given that they only see this peak for a short period after launch).
Plus of course marketing and the fact that a lot of people already have a kickstarter account (reducing even more the barrier between "oh cool" and clicking buy).
This is way more common than you think. The most successful kickstarter campaigns usually have their demand already assessed (the number I've heard is usually 25%) before launching.
For independent comics creators, drawing the book then going to Kickstarter to handle pre-orders is a great thing. I've done it twice and will be doing it again soon; it's a great model that lets you generate some excitement around a book release, and maybe get some new fans as well. If you go to a comics convention, I can bet that a lot of the books you'll find being hawked by their creators were funded via Kickstarter, with roughly that model. You can only say "here is a pitch, give me lots of $$$ to spend a couple years making it" if you have one hell of a track record, and a huge fan base.
Kickstarter seems to be considered mostly as a marketing tool by startups nowadays. My friend and his hardware company is in the middle of a campaign right now and he told me that they aren't really hoping for much more than breaking even - they're doing it just for marketing and thus increasing the amount of money they can raise from investors.
Marketing as mentioned is one thing, but the other thing is that by having the community fund it before they invest in developing it, they don't run much financial risks themselves - a lot of products are developed where a company, or its employees, invest their own money, often having to do stuff like forfeit income. Having this kind of money beforehand prevents this.
They'll be shipping in 3 months, so components for the first run have been bought, tooling has been made, all the developer salaries have been spent on the new UI and firmware. Not much risk is being alleviated here.
Are you really willing to bet that they'll be shipping in three months? On what basis? Because it says so on the kickstarter page? Kickstarter never miss their targets, right?
Right. As a Marketing guy myself (6 years in Procter & Gamble), I'm always baffled when people in HN don't get obvious marketing moves, but in the other hand, I'm always learning so much about tech stuff that my colleagues would never get in a decade. This community is awesome.
I'm pretty sure they "get it", but agreeing with this practice is different thing. Sure, KS is as happy as everyone else, but that's not what they used to present themselves as.
