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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.
It will work, it just won't always work. Hell, I'm willing to bet the majority of people couldn't manage it. But remove the people who are uninterested in the buisness model, or with poor to no reputations, and you're left with people with a history of develiering who have the freedom to deliver their image, as opposed to that which is likely "dumbed down" for the masses. You're still going to get some failures, but I'm willing to bet at least some of them will deliver a quality product, and a few of them will be complete gems which would be unfeasible or comprimised with a standard publisher.
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.
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
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
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,
for the same reason that we don't have a gift economy
Humans have always had a gift economy, including today. Book tip: "The generous man" by Tor Norretranders.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/142903.The_Generous_Man
it's in my head
Yup that is why Linux is an utter failure and not used anywhere.
Oh wait, Linux is used in more places than Windows and OSX combined.... Wait, a slashdot AC has no clue as to how these things really work? OMG!
If you go to google, you can find tens of thousands of things like this that are a wild success.
Oh and most businesses are built this way, if you think you have collateral when you buy stocks you are completely delusional.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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.
You mean like a financial institution perhaps, yeah they definitely won't try to screw you over. Trust is an issue regardless of the funding channel and the same guidelines apply, rule #1 being: If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.
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 "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...
The issue here is that windows is blatantly in your face on 99% of laptop and desktop computers...
Linux may be running on thousands of other devices, but people don't even know it's there.
From a technology standpoint that's a good thing, you want the equipment to work not be in your face... But from a marketing standpoint it's terrible, there are literally millions of linux users out there who have never heard of linux.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
It will work, it just won't always work.
I agree, and nothing *always* works. There is no sure-fire route to success. Direct investments with iron-clad contracts does not guarantee that you'll get your money's worth.
If you're willing to take the risk of donating some money to a project that you'd really like to see get off the ground, then Kickstarter seems to be a way to do that. It's not a good idea to donate to Kickstarter funds of total strangers without any track-record of completing projects, but there are real professionals who have used Kickstarter to get funding for sensible projects with feasible goals.
If you want to be extremely cautious, only put your money into extremely safe investments. Still, don't assume that it's impossible to get ripped off that way too. There have been plenty of people who have been scammed by reputable investment firms. Hell, the whole world has been scammed by Goldman Sachs.