Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: At What Point Has a Kickstarter Project Failed?
skywiseguy writes "I have only used Kickstarter to back a single project so far, but one of the backers of that project pointed us to a project promising video capable glasses which was once one of the top 10 highest funded projects in Kickstarter history. After reading through the comments, it is obvious that the project has not met its expected deadline of 'Winter 2011,' but the project team rarely gives any updates with concrete information. All emails sent to them by backers get a form letter in reply, they routinely delete negative comments from their Facebook page, and apparently very soon after the project was funded, they posted pictures of themselves on a tropical beach with the tagline, 'We are not on a beach in Thailand.' Their early promotions were featured on Engadget and other tech sites but since the project was funded they've rarely, if ever, communicated in more than a form letter. So at what point can a project like this be considered to have failed? And if you had backed a project with this kind of lack of communication from the project team, what would you consider to be the best course of action? Disclaimer: I have not backed this project, but I am very interested in funding Kickstarter projects and I do not want to get caught sending money to a less than reputable project. According to the above project's backers, Kickstarter claims to have no mechanism for refunding money to backers of failed projects and no way to hold the project team accountable to their backers. This does not seem like a healthy environment for someone who is averse to giving their money to scam artists."
Other than requiring a sign agreement with project meetings, milestones and checkpoints you'll have to go on faith.
You don't give your money to strangers without some kind of collateral. All this "microfunding" or "crowdfunding" nonsense will not work, for the same reason that we don't have a gift economy: there are incompetent fools (who will fail to use the money well), or just greedy bastards who will take the money for themselves. Try investing in individual stocks after researching them.
Pretty much what you said - there's no way to guarantee people will use the funds for the purpose you've donated them for.
I was talking about a Kickstarter-type model ages ago on my blog, and I pretty much got it all right with Kickstarter except for one thing: I said that a crowdfunding system would have to essentially operate a trust, that released funds as certain project milestones were released, or on receipt of invoices, etc.
Obviously, Kickstarter managed to operate without such a mechanism, but I think it's definitely needed if the crowdfunding concept is going to grow. Maybe not for all projects, but ones that reach a certain amount of capitalisation, certainly.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Crowdfunding works only together with reputation. If you simply give money to any unknown person who starts a project, then it's your own fault if they run away with it. Reputation means that creators seeking funding need to do their first few projects for free until there are enough fans who believe that the creator will really deliver and who like the quality of the previous products.
"Someone who is averse to giving their money to scam artists" shouldn't be giving their money to random people on Kickstarter without some sort of contract or reputation. Full stop.
Which is why I don't touch Kickstarter. Sure, it'd be nice to get a few "crowdsourced" ideas up and running but, you know what? Those that *CAN* make sense, end up getting made anyway, and often making money anyway.
As soon as someone says "We need X amount of money to do Y", you have to look into exactly who they are and why they need it and what they'll do with it. Those Kickstarter projects that are basically "We'd like to make an indie game that does X" really annoy me. You do? Bugger off and do it then! One of the "big" ones a while ago had signed up a famous voice artist before the project had even been funded - sorry, but that's the LAST thing to worry about and probably the LAST thing I'd ever want added to a game I was funding (no matter how small) - the bloody janitor probably has a good enough voice that you'd never notice the difference.
Save your cash. Give it to established developers, those who have written games you've enjoyed, and those with proven results. Like indie developers in the Humble bundles, or things like Altitude, or whatever. Don't give it on the basis of promises of what they *think* they *could* do until they've actually done it.
Now, if we were talking about things like hardware manufacturing costs, etc. of something that someone has designed in order to get into mass production, then that's a different matter but the same principles apply. Too many "crowdfunded" projects (OpenPandora, etc.) fail miserably even when they have the best will in the world, purely because they've never done certain parts of it, or only handled smaller projects, etc. Where's my "Open Graphics Card" that was being designed / manufactured what? Ten years ago? Hell, it had AGP as an "option" last I looked, so it's already dead in the water for any commercial backer.
Making a video card work is far from easy - but you have to consider your investment like any other. If you don't trust the people involved to follow through, or you just think that throwing money at these sorts of problems is what's lacking, then you're going to be doomed to failure.
from the description.. and when the description makes no mention of actual how they're going to hide the electronics in the frame(at the sides?).
that hiding of the electronics is what would have made their product unique.
btw the frames look like shit and look like they'll be shit for your nose at that weight(add prescription lenses and it's only worse)
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
The real problem is a lack of accountability.
There are no consequences at for creating a "scam" project, collecting donations, and doing no work at all.
It's difficult to tell those from projects that fail honestly, either from lack of funds or mismanagement.
Required communication won't really help; that's too easy to fake. They'd need required deliverables, which won't work for ultimately commercial software projects or hardware projects.
Short of only releasing funds after certain milestones have been met might help, but the project would need enough capital already to achieve each milestone ahead of time. (To say nothing of intermediaries to verify progress!) The trouble is that honest groups may not be able to even begin a project until there were enough promised funds. Even then, if they fail they'd be on the hook for more than they may be able to reasonably afford. But that's the very risk that programs like KickStarter are designed to mitigate!
Required reading for internet skeptics
Between this and the above it might signal the end of the road for this form of funding. Lots more people are probably going to get burned. I backed the MARIE music robots after reading about them on Slashdot. It gave me a good feeling plus the promise of stuff sent to me in the post was a nice thing to have. I eventually got the stuff out of the blue, over a year later, and was very pleased to receive it having pretty much given up on it. When kickstarter works - it works well as in this case. One thing that projects should do is at least try to keep their backers in the loop. However we can only hope that the JOBS act isn't going to give this type of investment/funding a bad name.
The whole point of kickstarter is for people to chip in for projects they believe in. Not a formal investment, not a purchase.
The kickstarter money you give is a GIFT. What does it take for you to give your money to some random dudes on the interwebs who promise stuff in return? Well that's up to you, but for me if the team doesn't have some sort of track record that demonstrates they are capable, realistic and enthusiastic, I will not pledge.
Well, a Kickstarter project fails like any other project.
...it is also quite possible those Eyez guys simply took the money and mishandled it.
Deadlines mostly are guesstimates and no project ever can give guarantees that it will finish within budget, in the timeframe given and the featureset that was actually envisioned.
Their plan was actually ambitious. They'd need components to build that damn thing. They need to be small enough so it's not a helmet rather than a pair of glasses. They need the apps. They need a manufacturer. They need to find out how many of these things they'd sell so they can negotiate contracts with suppliers. They need to find out how to best shift those things because it obviously isn't a digital download. They need a price point. They need to market that stuff.
All of which needs money. If they used the Kickstarter bucks to build a working prototype then they still would need an investor to cover all of the above. I reckon if they want to shift it in bulk then that would be a couple of megabucks.
If you can't afford reps to handle customer relations then a techies last resort would possibly be to delete posts. The alternative would be to spend time to deal with potential customers instead of building the damn thing. Any engineer will tell you what he'd rather do. It's clumsy, it's not wise, but if you don't have the time...
A lot of projects use Kickstarter to only cover initial costs. In one case a team wanted to raise 100000 bucks so they could show their professional investors that their story actually floats. Money talks, bs walks.
Kickstarter is not about ROI. They pitch an idea and you decide if you give them money. That doesn't buy you any shares in the stakes. You don't get any guarantees. You may decide to take them to court but I wouldn't count on you getting anything out of it. It's best to write the money off right after you gave it away. You never know if you backed another Gizmondo.
Kickstarter still is a brilliant idea.
20 minutes into the future
Money put into Kickstarter is probably best regarded as venture capital, where there is a significant failure rate of projects.
The question perhaps ought to be how can failing projects be detected and prevented from being a complete waste of "investors" money?
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Alright, to start, full disclaimer is that I don't see anyway how I will get around mentioning projects I've kickstarted so I'll try to stick to ones that are done and no longer able to hit.
... I'd pretty much pass on this one and just buy them when they're out.
But the simple answer to me is "What do these people have to lose if they meet their goal and don't deliver? And would it be worth 'cashing' out all of your good faith with the community at that price?" I've never kickstarted something that costs more than a million dollars and if I kickstarted something over a hundred dollars, it had a company's name and site associated with it that was already in the business and would be smeared with mud if they decided to fleece a bunch of people trying to help them out. Using this guidance, I haven't had many poor experiences -- although a lot of my experiences are funding musicians to record albums or video. That's something that's pretty hard to fail at although, they're musicians, so I'm still waiting on a movie that was started filming over a year or more ago ("Flood Tide"). I kickstarted a book on programming ("The Nature of Code Book") and this dude has been sending me links to PDFs left and right and I'll probably review the book here on Slashdot when he has it finalized. So far we're talking $25 donations to each of these projects. But I did dump a couple hundred into the NASA space MMO and I sort of expect to be waiting 2-3 years on that one because it's a team of 20 developers making an MMO and I want them to make a nice product. But also, they have a reputation at stake and I know they'll put out something.
Anyway, keep your donations at levels you can afford to lose -- don't ever think you're "buying" something on kickstarter. And look at the reputation of the individuals involved with your project. Also keep in mind it takes a long time to go through all stages of development and you'll find projects at all stages. It looks like ZionEyez started at concept. Do you know how long it takes to go from concept to hardware product? Large companies with massive budgets who are in those businesses take a longtime, I would imagine smaller teams would take even longer. You might get your ZionEyez in 4-5 years and, like a lot of vaporware, maybe never. ZionEyez looks like they were offering you $50 off MSRP to kickstart them and you got some "limited edition" run of them. So
As for criticism, if this is a scam, they're sure committed to it with updates from yesterday. Hell, their site looks like it would cost 10-20k to develop so they're spending their money somewhere. These guys sound like they'll probably come through, they just don't understand FCC testing, engineering problems, etc. So I'd expect your ZionEyez 4 years from now when some Chinese manufacturer already has some knockoff out there. But it's a bad idea to kickstart a lot of money to these guys as I don't see them at risk of losing any reputation, just losing a really good idea (people are obsessed with putting their boring personal status updates online, think about them putting their mundane day-to-day video up).
My work here is dung.
You are correct in your statements about what kickstarter can do. They never promise anything and they are not backing non-profits that are being held accountable by other mechanisms. We are a trusting society in the US, but that is slowly changing. We used to trust our politicians much more than we do today. We used to trust our employer. We still seem to trust people we have never met and are willing to give them money for projects that they are not legally bound to complete. How many projects on their site fall into this category? Impossible to say.
I do know that sites for non-profits are heading in the direction of more accountability and transparency like www.hopevault.org. That sites creates accountability with phased funding that requires approval from the donors at each phase in odder to continue. Seems like kickstarter could learn something from small starting websites like that.
I ran a $2000 Kickstarter to fund a book called The Future We Deserve. The project was to collect 100 essays about the future from 100 people, and then write an analysis which drew out common threads and told a story about the future. The material that came in was so strong, individualistic and subtle that it was simply impossible, after a year of trying off-and-on to make an analysis so we simply accepted that the original task didn't make sense in the face of such strong material, and published it as-is.
We've had a few people be like "where's the book, man?" in that year, and we kept in pretty good touch ("it's in the oven, refusing to cook!")
The book is up on PediaPress now, and people are buying copies and are well pleased with the results, but it was an akward year!
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
I think you're right on with phased funding like www.hopevault.org is trying to start with non-profit projects. You need to add risk to the ones receiving the money. They need to be motivated to do what they say. If they are passionate about it, they will put everything they have into it--not just take they easy road and low risk for them. Hopevault.org is taking phased funding, waiting for proof of product, then giving the donors the power to approve or shut down the project. That seems like a model that had some serious thought about accountability.
How much do Eyez weigh?
Eyez will weigh less than 200 grams
Mmmm. How can someone find anything serious in this answer ?
And exactly why are you asking this here and not, let's say, on Kickstarter? I must have missed the "psychiatric help - 5 cents" sign.
My first program:
Hell Segmentation fault
I love Kickstarter, it is one of my secret vices. First rule though, never pledge any more than you can afford to write off and still keep a smile on your face. I have pledged to a couple of dozen projects from books and CDs, to paintings and sculptures, to gadgets and tech. Only one has failed to deliver so far, though after a year of silence, that seems to be getting back on track.
The worst thing that can happen to a Kickstarter project is for it to be TOO successful. You have a crazy idea to build something, Kickstart it and suddenly there are a thousand people after it. All of a sudden you are talking serious money and serious organizational skills to produce it. If they just want the money to bring something to market (you are essentially preordering) then fine, if its to do some R&D and actually design the thing then I'd be careful.
I just think of it as a way to be a kind of "patron to the arts" and to find some cool stuff along the way.
Finally, want to get a surefire success for your project? Just stick the words "Neil Gaiman" in in somewhere. They love him. ;)
I have excellent Karma and I am not afraid to Troll it.
The headline asks one question, but it's pretty clear that you just want to learn how to be an investor. Why don't you google it or ask the question you really want answered instead of not asking it.
https://www.google.com/search?btnG=1&pws=0&q=At+What+Point+Has+a+Kickstarter+Project+Failed%3F
8 of the first 10 links on Google point back to this slashdot article.
Kickstarter works really well for funding albums and art projects from people who have already established a reputation in their art form, because if you scam your fans your done. I'm not sure anyone is really dumb enough to fund a startup that way...
You can narrow down this question to 'Should you give a stranger with great ideas money for his project?'
In my case I only read about Kinckstarter on slashdot and other news websites. Tim Schafer's Double Fine Productions got a lot of attention with their success on collecting money for their next game.
That's probably a good example for team worth supporting. Most games developed by Double Fine Productions are great and they have a strong fan base.
If they would exploit the Kickstarter system, their reputation would be ruined and they probably would not be able to develop games anymore.
So the project team's reputation is important.
Another good hint for a good project is to see a constant development. If the team has a website for the project which receives frequent updates, like documentation, test results, pictures and demo videos then you can tell that people are working on the project.
In case of the project team mentioned at the start, I think it is Kickstarter's responsibility to find a way to prevent scammers from taking advantage of the system.
My perspective might be simplified but I think that there should be some kind of contract between Kickstarter and the project teams to ensure that the money is only used for the project and they should be able to verify to project's progress and funding. In case of a breach of contract, Kickstarter should have the right to demand the money back.
While you don't have a guarantee, at least one lawyer (registered with AZ state bar) believes you as a project backer do, in fact, have a contract with the project creator.
Therefore any failure to deliver as promised can be seen as a breach of contract, subject to whatever laws apply in your jurisdiction.
That lawyer is exploring filing a court case as a matter of principle. I'd point you to him, but 1. he's limited to AZ and 2. even though he's a lawyer, he's not your lawyer and I don't think he has any interest of becoming it either, limiting himself to a particular project. It's not difficult to Google anyway.
You do also have refund options. For one thing, you can dispute the charge with your credit card issuer (as KickStarter only goes through Amazon at the moment, which wants a credit card). I believe somebody also said you can go through some Amazon hoops, but I haven't really looked into this.
But I think the easiest route to begin with is to just ask the project creator about a refund. Many are willing to oblige if there's a good reason (and keep in mind that they do lose money on this, as they can only personally refund the amount they got - which is minus the charges by KickStarter and Amazon).
I'd expect 90% chance for a good techie startup with a cool innovative idea to go under, without producing a product or getting bought out, in 2 years. (Number can be radically different if it's a "copycat" techie startup. Ironically the copycats have a substantially better chance of getting bought out by a bigger company.)
Maybe 9% chance that the startup will get bought out by a bigger company if they had any vaguely promising technologies.
Maybe 0.9% chance that an actual product will be produced (if a service oriented company... there may be a different number) and not be successful in the marketplace.
0.1% chance the product will be successful. That's different than turning a profit on the balance sheet though.
Startups don't all work out (not even fucking close).
The idea of kickstarter, the entire idea of it, is to distribute the costs among many people so that each is investing no more than an amount they are comfortable losing.
Instead of a share of profits like you would get with a large investment in the business, you get token rewards if and when it succeeds.
Kickstarter is entirely clear about all of this, and anyone who invests in something should a) do their homework and ask the right questions and b) not give up more than they can walk away from.
The whole idea is that for the price of a theatre trip (for one!) you can help fund a cool idea, and lots of people are willing to do that. It's not about contracts and buying stuff it's about good will and helping something you believe in come to life.
It seems like this guy wants to take the risk out of his investments. Low-risk high-risk is called a bank account.
I took a quick look on the kickstarter of your book. And it didn't make a time promise. Most kickstarter projects set themselves unrealistic deadlines. And then people will get pissed if you mis them.
Or look at the pre-kickstarter example of OpenPandora, original promised to deliver in a year. Finally took 3 years. In those 2 extra years they kept saying "in 2 more months". Even if they delivered in the end, I consider that project failed.
Failure depends on your personal definition.
I think we can all agree that if the project creator takes the money and goes vacationing on a tropical island with it, then the project definitely failed as it was little more than a scam. Unless that's actually what the project was (not applicable to KickStarter, but there's plenty of fund-my-life crowdfunding platforms).
So that leaves failure modes that are a bit more intricate.
Say the developer throws in the towel - so you don't get the 'thing' you pledged for (be that a widget or a book or a movie or whatever) - after trying to make things work, and there's good reason to believe that they did indeed try.
That's a failure to deliver, but was the project a failure? Maybe they learned something from it, maybe others can take what they did and expand on it, etc.
Personally I still see it as a failure, but in the grand scheme of things, there are people who pledge just because they think the idea is interesting and deserves a chance. If in the end it doesn't work out, at least it was tried, and that's good enough for them.
Then there's those projects that do deliver, but they deliver late. How late is too late?
If a movie takes not 3 months to complete as written in the pitch, but ends up taking 9 months instead, does that mean the project failed?
You did, after all, get the movie in the end, so how is that failure?
Well, if the movie is supposed to be on-topic for fairly recent events (let's say the movie is supposed to come out just before the U.S. presidential elections to make people think about their choice) and ends up being so late that it becomes irrelevant, then I'd say it probably still failed. Otherwise, i.e. if the movie isn't really time-sensitive, then I don't see the problem other than the frustration of having to wait longer than expected to see it. That's enough for people to download movies rather than wait for release in their countries, so movie project creators can take away from that what they wish.
For widgets, it's much the same thing. The HexBright Open Source light, for example, is running late - way late - and some people are requesting refunds despite the progress shown in updates. In some ways, it has been overtaken by other flashlights (i.e. brighter, maybe more compact). If that's what a person backed that project for, then that project has failed. On the other hand, it still has the unique programmable features, its grip, the tailcap indicator, and open source implementation - so it still has an edge over other flashlights in that area and those who backed it for those reasons are less likely to consider the project failed.
Then there's projects that promise thing A, but end up delivering thing A'.
Recently there was a metal iPhone case, for example, that looked pretty good and - being an iThing project - got plenty of backers. Turns out that once delivered, people realized their signal dropped significantly.
Did that project fail, in terms of exploring whether what they wanted to do was actually a good thing?
To those who could no longer actually place any calls - yes.
To those who still could, and thought their iPhone now looks like the hottest thing since the iPhone - nope.
In fact, that project's creator adjusted their FAQ to indicate that some signal loss may be apparent, but if you like the look then you'll just take that for granted.
Another project was a capacitive touch stylus for tablets - it initially shipped with a nib that didn't work very well for some people. Did it fail? Largely, no. Why? Because the project creator got right on top of it, had better nibs made, and sent those out at no cost on request.
In this particular project, the Eyez, it really depends on whether or not you believe the project creators' updates (and their lack of updates for a long time does not instill confidence), and whether or not the product is quickly becoming irrelevant ('spy' glasses are available on ebay for cheap - they just generally don't connect to your
I have supported perhaps 10 kickstarter and Indigogo projects ranging from hardware ideas to movie production projects. Some were for friends but most were strangers. So far all of them are either still in active development or have delivered on their promises. I don't give money I can't afford to lose and I pick projects that seem to be useful or interesting to a wide audience.
wtf is the problem? what they are trying to do doesnt look that hard. I guess battery + usb connector + sensor + flash memory was too hard to fit in there.. they have a nice looking prototype though.
I've got one Kickstarter backing under my belt. It's the HexBright project that was featured here on /. and is yet to show a result in terms of a product shipped to me.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/527051507/hexbright-an-open-source-light
The reason I post is the difficulty I had paying the backing money. My bank repeatedly refused to allow the payment to go through (via Amazon) due to prior complaints. They have the Kickstarter payment account blacklisted. This is a mid tier Australian bank and I ended up having to ring them and explain what the payment was for, why I was making it, and to absolve them of all and any responsibility if it went wrong. The matter went though several levels of responsibility within the bank until it reached someone who could authorize the payment.
The same bank doesn't bat an eyelid if I order things direct over the internet straight out of China. But not with Kickstarter.
a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain. If you were one of the investors you could call the police and file a complaint.
Reply to self, would post anon if there weren't that annoying timer telling me it's only been 15 minutes since I last posted when I do so.
----
IndieGoGo, another crowdfunding platform, does actually spell out the option of taking the project creator to court yourself:
http://support.indiegogo.com/entries/20501033-how-does-indiegogo-deal-with-fraudulent-campaigns
( emphasis mine )
So while most platforms (try to) stay away from legal responsibility, you may have recourse against the project creator directly - and you'd certainly do wise to check the terms of the crowdfunding platform of choice.
IANAL, but it seems to me that backers of a project that doesn't actually happen (not referring to your Musopen example, which is merely progressing slower than promised, in part due to expanded goals from its high funding) might have grounds for a breach-of-contract suit, and possibly outright fraud charges could be filed.
As part of the deal between and backer and the project, the backer is promised one of various rewards, typically including a copy of the finished work. If I fulfilled my side of the deal, but they didn't deliver the promised reward, that's breach. Although I'm sure there are terms in the Kickstarter agreement to prevent suits like this, the courts get to rule on whether those terms are enforceable. Similarly, if someone says that they're raising money to do one thing, then take the money and immediately do something entirely different with it (e.g. going on a tropical vacation), then they solicited the money under false pretenses, and that's fraud. In either case, the $5/10/20/50-level backers individually don't have a practical recourse to get their money back. But major backers or backers as a class might in fact be able to take legal action.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
1. Give them the money concept: The first people to completely meet the requirements get all the money plus interest. I would expect the goal to be some sort of working prototype for whatever it is they want to fund.
2. Invest the money in their company concept: The first people to meet the requirements get all the money plus interest in exchange for a minority stake of non voting stock. This is how to encourage people to hand their "crowdsourced" money over.
i.e. They have to already have something more than an idea, to get the cash. Ideas are worthless, everyone and their dog has The Great Idea. The global supply of ideas is huge. The supply of people taking it beyond that and doing something with it is scarce and that is what is worth funding.
Deleted
I was surprised at how little I could find about what happens if a project just fails in its goals. It seems like that should be a fairly common occurrence, the backers just simply made a bad estimate of the funds needed or underestimated the difficulty of completing what they planned (or simply found that what they found as not feasible.) This is an unfortunate but understandable result. I kind of figure in this case the backers have to chalk it up to a failed investment and move on. They do deserve an update explaining the unplanned circumstances and apologizing.
But then there's cases where the promoters do all the hype, collect the money and then just skip out, with no intention of ever delivering. Don't know about this project, so can't say if that's the case here, Their lack of contact with their backers is a bad sign, but could just be the first case handled badly. The pictures of them on vacation right after funding ended could be a bad sign, or it could have just been intended as a joke.
it has not failed until a rigorous mathematical refutation shows that the goal is mathematically impossible, and this refutation has been published in a peer-reviewed journal and been accepted by the scientific community. But wait, the founder could still "pivot" and produce something else that satisfies customers. So, the founder(s) need to die as well, with no remaining interest in the project by anyone who has any claim to involvement. Then it is dead. /s
Everybody is complaining about their "investment".
Kickstarter projects aren't investments. You're gifting funds in the hopes of a premium back. There is no investment. If they decide to go to Tahiti, you just sent them there. Maybe you'll get a postcard.
Kickstarter and the like are not investment vehicles. They are supposed to be a fun way to give a few dollars of disposable income to an interesting project. If you are considering sending so much money that you start to worry it might vaporize, then stop and put that money into stocks, bonds, or canned goods.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
I "invested" in ZionEyez, since it sounded like an interesting project, and something that I'd be pleased to see come to market. I use "invested" liberally here, since I don't for a second think that this gave me ownership in the project, or anything like that. Perhaps "gambling" would be a better term.
I gave my money to help a project get sufficient funding to go ahead. The "reward" level I paid for was listed as "You will receive the Eyez by ZionEyez HD video recording glasses with clear and shaded removable lenses" but I read this as being dependent on the project succeeding — if I don't receive the glasses, I'll be disappointed, but I wouldn't consider it a breach of contract. I expected the project to give it its best shot, and to put effort into attempting to succeed, rather than taking the money with no intention of creating the project, but it's inevitable that some projects will fail.
Whilst I'm disappointed that the project has been delayed quite considerably, and I'm mindful of the fact that I may never see the glasses, to me, this was an "investment" which did not materialise the way I had hoped rather than buying a product which was not delivered.
I feel particularly sorry for some of the feedback posted to the creator of the Hanfree project too...
Start Kickstarter account
Promise Back to the future hover board.
Enjoy my new life of privilege.
I've always found playing in a running industrial chipper-shredder informative. I really think you should try it yourself!
This shows what the downside to such 'donation-based' funding schemes. The point of making it a donation is that you give someone your money with little or no expectation that you personally receive anything in return. That is how it differs from an investment. In that, you would sign a contract stating what portion you would receive of any profits made. If the project failed, you still had no recourse, but typically your required return would be more than what you put into it (and thus the risk element).
First you won't and shouldn't get your money back, at least in my opinion. I get that you don't want to get caught up in the fraud side of things but that's just a risk that supporting people you don't personally know (and sometimes people you do) carries. The whole point of investing is to spread the risk of failure out to as many people as possible while also spreading the rewards of success out.
The real question to me is how to make the system better and discourage the bad actors. I believe there needs to be some sort of reputation management features added to things like Kickstarter. First there should be a mechanism to identify users of the service (maybe a premium service that certifies identities of those asking for money). Verified accounts should carry more clout and be safer investments than unverified accounts. There should also be a reputation/feedback system that lets you know the success rates, communication frequency, general satisfaction of investors, etc. associated with a verified account on past projects. The more information that is out there and the more there is a threat of loosing something valuable (i.e. verified status and reputation) the more likely that the bad actors will be the anomolies not the rule.
None of this fixes the problem but it gradually makes things better which is all you can really achieve when you're trying to manage risks.
I have backed a half dozen projects so far. Even if none returns with a result, i will not be angry. I spent the money on an idea, not a product.
The only disturbing info was about the beaches. If they didn't even try, i would go from kickstart to kickass ;-)-
It has turned me off Kickstarter, for sure. I'll be much more skeptical in the future and probably won't fund the more expensive ventures since I've already been dinged for $150. I hope that the publications that covered the glasses will be a little more wary when these guys show up with the next big thing.
bah.
This really reminds me of th eTwinkie Torture project. Where they wanted a grant to fund the research. http://iparrizar.mnstate.edu/~juan/twinkie-torture/procedure.html
Paul: Father... father, the sleeper has awakened! - Dune
The main problem with this is the lack of accountability, and lack of a resulting permanent record. If you invest in the "real world", your credit rating will get shot to hell and banks will deny you funding for opportunities down the road. With these gifts, is there any sort of "real world" mechanism to track who has used their gifts honestly and who has pissed them away? ....Carrot, meet stick.
My wife and I backed a kickstarter project that, as of last night, is finished and we're proud of it. The Blue Like Jazz movie. It opens this Friday.
I think the issue is these people aren't familiar with the whole project development life cycles and project management. They fail to plot out the ourse of the project and come up with any "what if"s that could happen that they should factor into the needed time and costs
Isn't a Implied-in-Fact Contract formed with the Project Creator after he collects the money the backers pledged for his offered rewards(/products)?
A good clue is that they state that their CTO has a B.A in "Science"... what ever that is. They say he "Studied Engineering at Purdue University". But, what degree does he have? A B.A. in Engineering? I never heard of such a thing. There are B.A's in Comp Sci, but I doubt in Engineering.
It's pretty simple. If you can find out who they are, send a tip to the IRS.
If they used the money to develop the product, they can claim the appropriate deductions on their tax forms.
If they did not use the money to develop the product, they must report that money as taxable income.
As a bonus, the IRS pays a portion of the amount collected to people that tip them off about tax cheats.
A lawyer thinks you have a reason to sue. Amazing.
What a lawyer thinks is more or less irrelevant until a judge gavels the issue.
I'd call it ClassActionLawsuitStarter.
You thought kickstarter was bad? You will REALLY enjoy the JOBS Act which formalizes into law all the bad things of Kickstarter and MORE.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-19882_3-57409949-250/jobs-act-5-things-to-look-forward-to-and-5-to-dread/
Finally, after years of repression, scammers can come out of the shadows and legally screw you over. With the intrusive government off the back of scammers they can now be realized as the job creators they are and drive our economic engine forward!
Sigh.
Try GloSpex. The project was cancelled and no reason was given, to the project creator or donors.
You got jewed and/or gyped out of your money. Cut your losses.
Someone posted that they used Kickstarter to publish a book. I funded that sort of project to get a color copy of a web-comic. It's not due to go to press until later this year but I don't feel my $25 are ill-spent if I never see the actual book. The creator is taking some very good material, great art, and making a kickass comic for a specific audience (GLBT SciFi fans). What's on the web was well worth encouraging this guy to keep going, so funding an actual publish project or tipping him to do more doesn't seem like a scam to me. A youtube based musician wants to tour (getting out of his well-equipt basement) and funded his current east coast tour with Kickstarter. I didn't fund that but I would have funded a CD press if only to encourage him to keep recording stuff. He's quite good. So, it some sense to fund something like the original topic's VR glasses it doesn't make sense. To fund the next phase of manufacturing for cool stuff like 'Sugru', maybe. Small stuff that feels like stuffing $5-20 into a guitar case or tip jar, I think this works fine. If it encourages people to get stuff done rather than asking their parents for money to do something, I'm all for it. I don't think there are microloans here in the US like I hear mentioned in Europe on NPR.
For what it's worth, that lawyer is building a case for himself (he's a backer of the project), isn't looking to start a class action lawsuit, has made it very clear that he's not every other backer's lawyer, and has asked others in the state where he's registered - Arizona - to write him only if they're interested. This is not an ambulance chaser. :D
Which you would have known, had you googled
It seems like a project is a bit behind schedule and the company has not been giving a whole lot of updates on their progress.
So there's been some bumps along the way for them. The screechy, shrill tone of some of the backers is WAY out of tune with the fact that they put up a mere $150. You'd think they've got $150,000 on the line for their tone. Geeez... so it's a start up behind schedule. Sorry they're not having you over to fix it for them. Many of the noisiest backers are making dozens of posts about their $150. Is their time worth that little? Stop pestering them and go make some more money, when the product is ready I'm sure the company will come through. It's like listening to the little kid in the back seat "Are we there yet?" every two minutes.
Given that there was a substantial update yesterday, and the one prior to that was just a few weeks ago.
Do whatever you want with your money. Don't tell me what to do with mine.
I think of Kickstarter as a donation engine. I don't give to projects with an expectation of ever receiving anything. That's why I'm usually down in the cheap seats. Having said that, I haven't backed any games, movies or anything like that. I tend to back art projects and inventions, and I don't mind if I never see any rewards from them. Thinking of a Kickstarter project as an investment is the wrong way to do it.
It depends on what was promised and what are the conditions for considering that the project is successfully funded (in which they are they obliged to follow through on their promise).
I just filed a small claims case in the state of Texas for a Kickstarter project that was successfully funded by they failed to deliver on all that was promised and I haven't heard from the project team in over two-and-a-half months.
So it depends.
There seems to be a lot of confusion here about what Kickstarter is.
Kickstarter is not about charity.
Kickstart is not about investment.
What Kickstart is about is getting projects off the ground to the point of producing a product that is generally the reward.
Backers make a pledge and in turn return a reward. Generally that reward consists of the product produced by the project. Sometimes the lower tiers of the rewards are simply a Thank You or swag goodies such as a T-shirt. The mid tiers tend to be the actual product and then the higher tiers are sometimes honorary things in addition to the product. So, the backer is spending money to get a product. It's a market place.
But Kickstarter is about a market place for creating the system of making the product. This is different than Amazon or eBay where it is a market place for an already existing product.
I'll give you an example:
Our family raises pastured pigs and sells our all naturally raised pork on our weekly delivery route year round. Right now we have to drive seven hours every week to take our pigs to a distant slaughterhouse and bring back the meat so we can make deliveries to stores, restaurants and individuals.
It would be more humane for the animals, use less fuel, save time, cost us less and give our customers better quality if we could do the meat processing on-farm. What a great idea! So, we're building an on-farm USDA inspected slaughterhouse, butcher shop and smokehouse. The first step is the butcher shop (meat cutting & sausage making).
We're about 90% done with the construction and when the weather warms up enough this spring (we're in the north country and it is still snowing here) we will begin construction again so that we can open our butcher shop this summer.
We've funded our project with our own savings, cash flow from the farm, loans customer & friends, loans from local merchants and CSA Pre-Buys that will be delivered when we start processing on-farm.
We are doing a Kickstarting the Butcher Shop at Sugar Mountain Farm project in order to raise some additional funds. Go see it here as an example of a product based Kickstarter project:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sugarmtnfarm/building-a-butcher-shop-on-sugarmountainfarm
This is not a charity - we are providing product in exchange for backer's dollars.
This is not an investment - we're not selling ownership or stock in our farm.
This is not a loan - there is not interest or payback of the funds.
This is a purchase of product.
In the lowest tiers we say thank you.
In the low tiers you get some cool Goodies which range from T-shirts to other things from our farm.
In the middle tiers it gets into sample packages of meat from our farm ranging from three pounds to 20 lbs shipped to your home.
In the higher tiers there are subscriptions where you can get the meat shipped to you many times a year for up to a decade.
We're offering product in the future, once our facility is up and running with the necessary USDA license so we can ship interstate, in exchange for payment now - the pledge made by backers.
So how do you know we won't just take the money and run as you're worried about with that other project. Well, first I will simply tell you that we are trustworthy and we will do the right thing. Not enough, well, start reading our project, look at the video, see all the work we have already put into this project, see the hundreds of pigs out in the fields, read the testimonials by our existing customers on their letter head and listen to them talk in the video, look at our web site that dates back to 2005, study my web presence. You look at all of that and decide if you feel comfortable. Then you decide what you would like to buy and pledge the amount you are comfortable. It's that simple. The higher a pledge you're going to make the more I would e
Most small businesses fail and most Kickstarter projects deliver. I'd say their average is excellent in the real world. It's the lack of exposure to the business world for the average person that is at issue. You are assuming you prepaid for a product when you in a sense invested in a potential business. Your investment might return the quoted items but it might return nothing. It's why Double Fine was able to raise so much because they are established and there's a very high probability they will deliver. Most of the wackier ones don't receive funding.
nope, off-topic. Just because you're whoring for kickstarter money, doesn't relate to the topic of how to enforce that kickstarter projects don't turn into scams.
If the article were about fraud or scams at major institutions and you posted, "I have an account at bank X", that is off-topic.
OK, what can we find out about ZionEyes? The site tells us who the CEO is Carlos Becerra. He's an attorney. He's licensed to practice in California. He's been licensed for a little more than a year, and went to Hastings, UC's law school.
Their business location is a hacker space/business incubator in Seattle. Tiny, but not unreasonable.
I'm not seeing major red flags. This may have ended up as a flop, but it doesn't look like an outright scam.
Sure, but the project creator doesn't guarantee his project will be successful. So failure to provide the offered rewards wouldn't breach the contract. However, if you could show fraud, that would -- for example, if he never intended to actually pursue the project. It's pretty clear that it's the backers that are taking the financial risk associated with the project.
Just don't give away money that you can't afford to lose, and aren't willing to consider as gone.
You dont get it.
Getting ripped off in microfunding is funny, it isn't an egotistical thing, it is suppose to work like that. Kiva claims 98.89% Repayment rate over 217,129,550 repaid lones.
Take a random example:
http://www.kiva.org/lend/402948
ÂRykiyamo is married and is a loving mother of five children. She is very hardworking and always tries to be a successful woman. She has been buying and reselling children's toys, perfumes, souvenirs, women's undergarments and scarves for more than five years. She has a rich experience in this business. Besides this business she provides a service in bridal gown rentals. Rukiyamo wants to take out a loan to buy merchandise with the goal to increase the variety of her inventory.
3 days left, 25 bucks to go out of 3000, 100 loan sharks... or wait...
I could think of less sensible things to do with money.
Looking at the kickstarter page there are regular updates, so clearly that is not the case.
You didn't buy a product, you funded a project. One that seems to be regularly progressing. You've gotten what you paid for whether they successfully ship anything or not.
Speaking as someone who's been involved in a commercial project of similar type and scope, I can tell you that the delays they're experiencing aren't out of line. Sometimes a supplier will just say, "ok, we'll get back to you in six to twelve weeks on that", and there's no more you can do. When you're preparing a big production run you make damn sure everything is accounted for, no matter how long that takes, because there's no getting the funds back if something's been overlooked. Sometimes a part you were depending on simply becomes unavailable and you have to go back and design around that.
If there's a problem with the Kickstarter model in this, it's in having delivery dates. Perhaps they should soften that, and educate their users that those are projections, and they should expect variance in three digit percentages.
"...it is obvious that the project has not met its expected deadline of 'Winter 2011,'..."
This can be rectified once my Kickstarter Time Machine project kicks off.
For the most part I am happy with Kickstarter. I've backed over 140 project and many of them have been delayed for whatever reason. I can accept the delays based on additional research needed and complexity issues. But don't be giving me BS excuses why your project failed. One of project creators from a project I backed stated that he was going through foreclosure and that he dissolved his business and was unable to provide incentives. He noted when things got better that he would provide the incentives. Over a year goes by and no word, so I start doing more research. I found out that guy was not foreclosed on and that he was still in business. I posted relevant links for the other backers. These links came from Redfin, county assessor property records, and the Secretary of state showing that his business was in good standing.
The project creator was floored and accused me stalking him. He reported the post to Kickstarter who promptly removed the post. When I inquired to Kickstater on why they removed the links that were pertinent to the project, after all it was the project creator that said he was foreclosued on and went out of business, I got the following response:
"You can feel free to voice your opinions about the creator's situation, and even feel free to mention what you discovered based on your search. But to post links to personal information about the creator crosses a line. I think that if you inform your fellow backers about what you discovered and how you found it, you're still getting the same message across without posting links to that information. The other backers can then choose to seek out that same information if they wish on their own."
One month goes by with no updates and just yesterday I went ahead and posted another comment and this time I did not use links. Instead I explained how I was able to find information that what the project creator was stating was bogus. And guess what? The project creator was able to have Kickstarter comment removed as well.
I find it very disturbing that Kickstarter is not allowing for project transparency by deleting posts showing how the project creator is being disingenuous and and not upfront with his backers. And why Kickstarter is conspiring to protect him is beyond me.
Kickstarter is a totally different deal, outside the scope of that law. But that doesn't stop liberals from whining bitterly at every chance about anything that springs to mind even if it's unrelated...
As for the thing you are ACTUALLY complaining about. The rule change was a good one, allowing a wider range of investment in the only companies that really produce jobs in significant numbers - small businesses.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Obviously, Kickstarter managed to operate without such a mechanism, but I think it's definitely needed if the crowdfunding concept is going to grow.
Why?
There are going to be some failures, but there have been a number of multi-million dollar Kickstarter projects. It seems like growth is going just fine.
What Kickstarter does NOT need is bullshit limits and rules that are nearly impossible to measure and enforce across a huge range of projects.
When I contribute to a Kickstarter project I do so knowing I may never see that money again. That happened in at least one case, I was out $100. So what? Have you never made a bad purchase before at a real store either?
I see no limits to growth using the current model they have and no way to apply stricter rules without killing the company outright.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
But all it will take is a string of high-profile failures (like the Zion-Eyes one) for people to start to perceive Kickstarter as essentially a haven for scam artists.
That is where we differ. I think a string of such failures is likely; but I don't think it will affect use of Kickstarter. Each project is an independent trial as it were, each one evaluated by the public on the merits. It would take a far greater failure rate than that for people to decide Kickstarter itself was unusable.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley