As someone with over 30 years in hardware + software + mechanical product design and manufacturing one thing that always bothers me on Kickstarter is the dishonesty of funding goals.
Now, I do realize quite a few project owners come at it without the product manufacturing experience. I definitely get that part. Yet, I don't see it as an excuse. People need to do due diligence and get numbers closer to reality.
I remember one of the first (if not the first) RGB LED light bulb project (don't remember the name), perhaps two years ago. I think they went out with a raise target of $50K. If I remember correctly, they ended-up raising nearly $2MM.
The instant I saw that campaign I knew that if they raised anywhere south of somewhere between $1MM and $2MM there was no way in hell they'd be able to get the project done and delivered. The required iterations covering DFM (Design for Manufacturing), mechanical, electrical, firmware, tooling, environmental testing and regulatory testing would burn cash as if it were free. In hardware, each iteration cost real money --and potentially lots of it. $50K was not going to make a dent.
If they go into it knowing the funding goal will not be sufficient and are banking on exceeding it, they are simply not being honest.
My scam alerts go off immediately when I see such a severe project-to-funding-target mismatch. And that's why I call it "dishonest". It could also be "naive" but, again, it's the old "ignorance of the law isn't an excuse" situation. If you are going to go on Kickstarter with a hardware project and have no prior experience in manufacturing, do everyone a favor, do your homework and set a funding goal that will not have you scam your supporters out of money when you burn through it too quickly and can't deliver.
It's probably the number one question we get asked now rebootthesystem, by people in our network who considering KS. It's a catch 22. Aim too low, you can't deliver (unless you get additional capital... which might be the point), aim too high, people don't believe you'll get there, project fails.
It's because of these incompatible goals that projects will keep going to low and keep posting eulogies on HN.
I don't understand the "people not believing you'll get there" point. The pledger loses no money if the project doesn't attain its goal so there is no reason to not pledge just because it might fail.
It doesn't seem rational, but it's a real effect. The theory is that people don't want to back a loser, and perhaps that they are psychologically purchasing the product at the point they make a pledge.
I wonder if anyone has looked at the idea of not showing the funding goal at all until it is funded (or not) or some other metric. For example, show it during the last week of the campaign.
I am trying to think of a way to allow project originators the freedom to set reasonable goals (a million, whatever) without fear of this one number becoming a drag on their campaign despite the fact that they are actually being honest about what it will take to deliver a quality product.
I think that'd be worse because a goal does create a rallying point, and is also used as a signal for how realistic funding this project is (keeping in mind that people irrationally want to back a sure thing).
Yes, it's a problem, though not like IndieGoGo's flexible funding. But I don't take it in isolation - determined creators can make a lot happen with a little money, I know.
I look more closely at the level of detail of what has been done and what needs to be done, and judge whether I think these people have few enough unknowns to complete it. But that's not a metric that most people are able to judge themselves, which is why it's a problem, and also where the Kickstarter community of other backers should kick in.
You're talking about LIFX, and many were there with you speculating on their chances to deliver. Given that Kickstarter was booming and the failures were becoming more public (and the creator hadn't even delivered his much simpler previous project), it led to this article: http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2012/09/18/kickstarter...
And also led Kickstarter to writing the "not a store" post and encouraging LIFX to cap their campaign.
While I hope for more diligence from project creators, I think setting a high bar to eliminate risks also eliminates many interesting Kickstarter successes.
Now, I do realize quite a few project owners come at it without the product manufacturing experience. I definitely get that part. Yet, I don't see it as an excuse. People need to do due diligence and get numbers closer to reality.
I remember one of the first (if not the first) RGB LED light bulb project (don't remember the name), perhaps two years ago. I think they went out with a raise target of $50K. If I remember correctly, they ended-up raising nearly $2MM.
The instant I saw that campaign I knew that if they raised anywhere south of somewhere between $1MM and $2MM there was no way in hell they'd be able to get the project done and delivered. The required iterations covering DFM (Design for Manufacturing), mechanical, electrical, firmware, tooling, environmental testing and regulatory testing would burn cash as if it were free. In hardware, each iteration cost real money --and potentially lots of it. $50K was not going to make a dent.
If they go into it knowing the funding goal will not be sufficient and are banking on exceeding it, they are simply not being honest.
My scam alerts go off immediately when I see such a severe project-to-funding-target mismatch. And that's why I call it "dishonest". It could also be "naive" but, again, it's the old "ignorance of the law isn't an excuse" situation. If you are going to go on Kickstarter with a hardware project and have no prior experience in manufacturing, do everyone a favor, do your homework and set a funding goal that will not have you scam your supporters out of money when you burn through it too quickly and can't deliver.