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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.
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,
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.
Exactly. I donated through Kickstarter to Musopen which was also prominently featured here on slashdot because they were already a registered non-profit and had done quite a bit of work to produce and distribute free music before, not to mention they had a semi-tangible goal. Good thing too, because this was in September 2010 and they didn't get to recording until this January with the Prague Symphony Orchestra - it's now in editing and still not released yet. I'd not give money to any random dude who said he'd do the same and I wouldn't trust them to deliver almost two years down the road.
Of course you still don't have a real guarantee, I don't have a contract, I can't get a refund. But you have to consider the value proposition, for example if a person has worked long and hard on an open source project and asks for Kickstarter funding to work full time on some features. If he goes AWOL then that project is scorched earth, he can't use it as reference anywhere because it'll be full of stories about how he took the money and ran. Same with anyone pursuing any kind of career who'd use it in their portfolio. But people with no proven commitment wanting money up front? No way.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Hear hear. From Kickstarter's own FAQ (oddly, no-one's quoted this yet):
Who is responsible for fulfilling the promises of a project?
It is the responsibility of the project creator to fulfill the promises of their project. Kickstarter reviews projects to ensure they do not violate the Project Guidelines, however Kickstarter does not investigate a creator's ability to complete their project.
Creators are encouraged to share links to any websites that show work related to the project, or past projects. It's up to them to make the case for their project and their ability to complete it. Because projects are usually funded by the friends, fans, and communities around its creator, there are powerful social forces that keep creators accountable.
The web is an excellent resource for learning about someone’s prior experience. If someone has no demonstrable prior history of doing something like their project, or is unwilling to share information, backers should consider that when weighing a pledge. If something sounds too good to be true, it very well may be.
So there you have it - caveat emptor. If you throw money at a stranger, based on a promise, it's down to you. Most of the Kickstarter projects I've seen have been 'hey fans, you love our website, help us make a book' kind of things, which would certainly bite the owner in the ass if they let you down.
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Have you ever watched Dragon's Den? (Shark Tank, I believe the US version is called). In essence, small business owners approach venture capitalists asking them to fund the business in exchange for a percentage. The VCs generally don't mince their words - if an idea or a business owner is totally uninvestable, they'll certainly be told.
It's been going some years yet probably 40% of the people who go on there still have their priorities completely backwards. "Indie game studio hires a famous voiceover artist before first ensuring they have a vaguely playable game" (as the GP alluded) is an absolutely classic example of this.
Another 40% haven't got their priorities backwards - but they've got an idea that for whatever reason is unlikely to make any VC a fortune. It's simply too niche.
I don't see Kickstarter as being terribly different, except the VCs are the general public and so you have to make your own judgement call as to whether it's a worthwhile investment. The niche business in particular could do quite well with the Kickstarter model.
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.