Kickstarter's Poor Record in Tech

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Kickstarter's Poor Record in Tech

Post by Chuckt » Sat Jul 21, 2012 2:43 am

There are some negative articles on the OUYA console by PC Mag and Slashgear concerning Kickstarter. I think that everyone should review Ouya's potential problems including the ones faced by Apple and others in the articles considering the success rate is 33%:

Kickstarter's Poor Track Record in Tech
Of the 21 "most funded" projects in Kickstarter's tech-heavy "design" category, a grand total of four appear to be currently available for sale. Of the top 12 "most funded" in Technology, four are available. Yes, many are available for "pre-order," which is another way to say "we'll take your money for a product that doesn't exist yet."

These projects aren't all new, either. ZionEyez took in $343,415 starting a full year ago and still hasn't delivered a pair of heads-up camera sunglasses. Plenty of the projects have little updates explaining that oops, the products are taking longer to make than expected.

Yes, this is heartbreaking, because many of the products look gorgeous. Many have prototypes. Many have had demos. I want some of them. I want to review some of them. But. They. Don't. Exist. Just because you can build one of something doesn't mean you can get proper quality control out of a factory line.

A success rate of 33 percent is good for a venture capitalist, because actual investors expect to hit it big often enough to offset other losses. But when you give money to Kickstarter for a tech product, you're not a real investor. Investors have equity. You're just a buyer who isn't getting your gadget for who-knows-how-long. The longer you don't have the product, the less value your money had - and if you never get that product, well, remember, they don't have to refund your money.

Why Kickstarter's Ouya Looks Like a Scam
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2407046,00.asp

With $3m Ouya’s problems are just starting
http://www.slashgear.com/with-3m-ouyas- ... -11238176/

What is Ouya?

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouy ... me-console
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouya

I could never figure out what Ouya means in Swahili but it probably isn't good.

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Re: Kickstarter's Poor Record in Tech

Post by brad » Mon Jul 23, 2012 9:15 pm

Ouch, I am just about to launch my first KickStarter campaign!

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Re: Kickstarter's Poor Record in Tech

Post by Chuckt » Tue Aug 14, 2012 9:33 am

I have found myself researching this topic again. Here are five companies that have exceeded expectations that have found problems delivering:

http://www.wired.com/design/2012/07/st_ ... ewall=true

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Re: Kickstarter's Poor Record in Tech

Post by brad » Sat Aug 18, 2012 9:47 am

I Guess this is why I am taking so long in getting mine released on kickstarter. I am making sure that the manufacturer can deliver, and at a reasonable cost.

There is a lot of planning involved I have discovered!

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Building without Kickstarter

Post by Chuckt » Mon Sep 24, 2012 11:25 am

There are new rules on the way.
Of course Kickstarter is looking at the long-term, trying to dissuade project creators from taking the money and running off to South America. We’re wondering what the effect will be in the coming months, though; under these rules Ouya wouldn’t have passed Kickstarter’s litmus test, and smaller projects depending on Kickstarter funding for tooling and molds probably wouldn’t either.
http://hackaday.com/2012/09/23/kickstar ... e-anymore/

Imagine Kickstarter without the Ouya game console that raised millions of dollars. There are users who were planing on getting funding for a computer and now those ideas may be up in the air because of the apparent risk involved. If you raise too much money, you could be disqualified or orders could be capped off which requires different pricing and planning.

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Re: Kickstarter's Poor Record in Tech

Post by brad » Tue Sep 25, 2012 8:39 pm

That's quite interesting since kickstarter is normally all about projects (and improving on projects)

I have seen numerous kickstarter campaigns that have evolved while the campaign was still going. I wonder if that means you can't change anything once it's started?

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Re: Kickstarter's Poor Record in Tech

Post by Chuckt » Thu Apr 30, 2015 1:25 pm

Former Kickstarter darling Ouya is up for sale: Report

It is kind of strange but shows how a record breaking $8.6 million dollar Kickstarter campaign can fail. I saw Ouya in a popular department store called "Target" so what gives? Even though the Kickstarter campaign was highly successful, development is that expensive and the market is that competitive while most people have Android on their phones.

http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/20448 ... the-double

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Re: Kickstarter's Poor Record in Tech

Post by brad » Mon May 04, 2015 9:58 pm

Oh dear, that is not good at all. I wonder if they will be able to get all the money they need to pay off their investors? I thought the OUYA was doing quite well?

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Re: Kickstarter's Poor Record in Tech

Post by Chuckt » Mon Jul 27, 2015 11:16 pm

brad wrote:Oh dear, that is not good at all. I wonder if they will be able to get all the money they need to pay off their investors? I thought the OUYA was doing quite well?
They lost $100,000 or about 10% due to invalid credit card numbers. They had cost overruns and when that happens, you lose money because you are working for free which means you take a loss. And they were working with faulty numbers because the actual costs were more sophisticated than what they planned and they had to secure outside funding which saved them but I think it caused future problems for them. The article in the link is worth pondering and studying.

My own employer won't sell something unless he charges at least 5%. Is that a lot? Some people won't pay 5%. What is 5% of $1 million? $50,000? Yes. $50,000 may only pay a salesman. Some buyers not only want to get something for free but they expect it.

Why I Won't Do Another Kickstarter Campaign
Andreas Olofsson

http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?doc_id=1327192

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Re: Kickstarter's Poor Record in Tech

Post by Chuckt » Tue Jul 28, 2015 5:03 am

Startups And The Big Lie

http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/25/startu ... qjhe2:SQS7

What will happen if they don't deliver and how to you force that conversation?

What people need to understand is that a Kickstarter is a startup with at least the appearance of a project and we need to understand why a startup can fail. What is the health of the company you want a Kickstarter from if they don't have money? Have they ever been in debt? Have they ever been bankrupt? I'm not really sure that you have to disclose these things. The reason they are on Kickstarter is because they aren't really established and companies that aren't established can have troubles that would sink established companies. A lot of companies go into business but not everyone stays in business because it is risky.

There are a lot of poignant statements and questions in the article.

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Re: Kickstarter's Poor Record in Tech

Post by brad » Thu Jul 30, 2015 3:09 pm

I hadn't really thought of it like that to be honest. But it is exactly right - most projects on Kickstarter are there because they don't have a business and they don't have money! and yet we are trusting them (or in the case of my projects, people were trusting me) to deliver.

I found it quite time consuming to run each of my kickstarter campaigns, but I guess mine were quite simple to fulfill compared to what others have come up with.

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Re: Kickstarter's Poor Record in Tech

Post by Chuckt » Fri Jul 31, 2015 12:06 am

I pledged for two kickstarter campaigns. I got an email from one saying I basically have to wait six weeks more because the fulfillment centers lost the (shipment) product and don't know where they are so the factory is working on weekends to reproduce our orders. I guess it could happen but I have suspicions and I don't know if I will ever see my product but I expect to.

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Re: Kickstarter's Poor Record in Tech

Post by brad » Sun Aug 02, 2015 9:55 pm

Can I ask what the project was that you backed?

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Re: Kickstarter's Poor Record in Tech

Post by Chuckt » Mon Aug 03, 2015 12:15 am


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Re: Kickstarter's Poor Record in Tech

Post by brad » Fri Aug 07, 2015 11:20 am

Thats not looking good for them at all is it.

I was interested in seeing the specifications for a 9v battery and found that a duracell 9v battery will drop to 5v after 1 hour when used in a load drawing 250mA. (see datasheet)

http://ww2.duracell.com/media/en-US/pdf ... _US_CT.pdf

a lot of phone chargers are rated at 5W (5V @ 1000mA) so if we assume that when we draw 1000mA from the plan V device with a 9V battery, then it seems to me that after about 15 minutes, the 9V battery voltage will have dropped to about 5v. It seems you would want to buy a bulk pack of batteries to charge your phone.

Have you seen what others have had to say about the practical outcomes of the device?

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