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Kickstarter Introduces New Hardware and Product Design Project Guidelines
OakDragon writes "Kickstarter has introduced some more stringent guidelines and requirements specifically for the Hardware and Product Design categories. These new requirements are laid out in a blog post called 'Kickstarter Is Not a Store.' Simulations will now be prohibited. Video cannot show a proposed product, action, etc. — only a real product and what it does at the time. Product renderings and other simulated illustrations also will not be sufficient — the project creator will have to have photographs of a real prototype."
I'll bet most of these changes came out of the failures which is "Orbit":http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/832784035/orbit-a-swiveling-smartphone-suction-mount
Nearly a year after getting their funding, their product is nowhere in sight, promises made were not kept, the funders are upset, the project owners are MIA and all of it gives Kickstarter a black eye.
Posting as AC because I'm a funder, but not related to the project or Kickstarter in any other way.
"Product renderings and other simulated illustrations also will not be sufficient"
So, say "bye bye" to any useful home-grown ASIC project? (An open design GPU, perhaps?) Or am I expected to build a microCVD unit right next to my microbrewery in the basement?
Ezekiel 23:20
Offering multiple quantities of a reward is prohibited.
So people would have to create multiple accounts if they want multiple quantities??
Today we added a new section to the project page called "Risks and Challenges".
That's a great idea! There should be some understanding that the creators may or may not succeed even if they honestly try.
So basically, what this new rule says is that if you don't already have a working prototype, don't bother to use Kickstarter. Otherwise, you'll have nothing visual that you would be allowed to show, and nobody will take an interest in your project. The whole purpose of mock-ups and other things is to help people quickly see the potential of your idea. Without that, the amount of effort required to sort the wheat from the chaff is excessive, and most people won't bother to donate to anything.
Make no mistake, it can certainly get awkward if people show mock-ups that can do twenty things and end up with a final design that can only do three, or that otherwise fails to live up to the expectations set by the mock-ups, but I don't see how that's any different from a textual description of what you hope to accomplish. So all this rule change does is ensure that Kickstarter is only useful for projects near the end of their product design lifecycle. And if you're that far along, you really don't need something like Kickstarter to reach the end.
So what is the purpose of Kickstarter again? Because I can't see any useful purpose for the site anymore. At this point, the entire model is broken beyond repair.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Are you sure? Why on earth would Kickstarter implement such a policy if no one has done this yet?
So its not a store, but you're also not allowed to show products that dont exist yet? Not sure what the point is then. If you have the product finished, why do you need kick-starter?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Since Kickstarter won't let you raise funds to create a product, I'm starting kickstarterstarter.com to allow people to crowdfund being able to get onto Kickstarter.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
The Ouya wasn't scheduled to ship until March 2013 so, assuming you didn't post this next year, there's still time for them to be late.
I realise Kickstarter has a business to run, and they need to retain a certain reputation. The risks and challenges is a good idea.
I can't help thinking that the prohibition on simulations is a little too protective. It's useful to give some sort of idea of what a product might do, and as long as it's clear that it's a simulation I think backers should be able to accept that there's a risk here.
Looks like Kickstarter is trying to combat the idea which seems pretty popular around here - that crowdfunding is a bubble waiting to burst. Clearly, not everyone understands that the point of Kickstarter is to help fund a project's effort - rather than buying goods. The goods only come if the product succeeds. They would clearly be better in the short term to ENCOURAGE the misunderstanding - because people like to feel comfortable that their donations will get something in return. But instead, the improved guidelines trade sustainability for short term profits.
I think this sounds like a really good fine tuning of their policy, to deal with real world risks.
Not sure if this is going to hurt or help my soon to be crowdfunding attempt... because I'm not sure how this affects software? Clearly - the new Risks and Challenges section is well needed, though.
Comprehensive solutions via a competition of ideas like no other.
Luke Leighton's been having trouble getting KickStarter to allow a kickstarter campaign for EOMA-68 CPU cards, as he posted here, so maybe this will at least make the requirements clear instead of going round and round with emails.
Few hardware projects seem to go well - the creators seem to always overestimate their abilities and underestimate development time!
Yes I get the idea, but KS is to fund development of stuff, and if you are going with KS you probably do not have a fully functional product (and simulations will be needed to show off what you want to create). As long as you make sure you make obvious that it is a simulation, and not actual footage, it can only be beneficial to the developer.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Seems like Kickstarter is trying to kill two issues with one stone and fumbling with the execution here. This does nothing to prevent Kickstarters like the recent Fangamer retrowear "project" (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fangamer/fangamer-retrowear), which essentially abuse Kickstarter as a source of advertisement. In this case, advertisement for apparel that was mostly already in existence (if out of stock) on their own site.
So since simulations/renders can sometimes look too much like the real thing to tell apart, they are now banned. So if you cannot tell them apart, how will you enforce this rule?
Since this will only hurt people who care about rules, this will just make the fake scam projects look better in relation to the real projects.
And if scammers were already able to make renders that could fool people, well they will just continue to do so.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
The U.S. patent office should take some notes on this.
If i'm understanding this correctly, this would mean a game developer would have to have a working copy of the game to use kickstarter to acquire funds, or would a working demo be applicable? I ask this because I've seen a number of projects that were little more than storyboards.
As one of the comments in the blog post notes, this looks like a change mostly to get negative press off KickStarter's back.
And yes, projects like Orbit or in fact many iDevice projects that are failing, or have failed - including the Hanfree project (Creator filed for Chapter 7 - quite a development as this is after a Backer sued him) - are an influence there.
But so are the NPR coverage. The Polygon article (with such bombshells as (paraphrasing) "Even if it is a fraudulent project - who's going to sue over a trivial amount of money?" - even though KickStarter takes a percentage of that fraudulently acquired fund). Their own recent 'Accountability' blog post, and so forth and so on.
Here's the thing, though. On that blog post, and this new one, they've gotten almost nothing but flack.
Prohibiting product renders - rather than requiring they be labeled as such - hinders many projects.
Prohibiting multiples pledge levels - rather than requiring a set limit - hinders many projects.
Prohibiting selling items based on what you plan for it to be able to do - rather than requiring them to only advertise with current features and allow further features to be added in e.g. updates - hinders may projects.
Moreover, all of these changes actually make KickStarter more of a store. The verbiage is such that you pretty much have to show a finished product and the only reason to try and CrowdFund is for mass production. That's practically the definition of pre-sales.
The most striking change, though, is the part where Creators in those categories now have to explain what risks there are and what challenges they face.
This is orthogonal to the 'accountability' blog post in which it was clarified that a Creator must either A. deliver or B. offer refunds.
That means there are no risks other than that of the Creator's to bear.
It's all good and well that KickStarter is trying to get Backers to think that they're really just donating - and Backers are welcome to think this and write off any money pledged that ends up going nowhere - but legally they have set Creators up to comply with, essentially, contract law.
I understand what KickStarter is trying to seem to do - protect Creators against themselves a little (make sure you have a viable product and production process thought out before you seek funding) and against Backers (by trying to ease them off demanding refunds), and Backers from dishonest Creators or indeed their own gullibility - but I feel like this is not the way to do it.
I wish KickStarter could decide - especially in legal terms - what it wants to be for these categories; a pre-sale platform, or a donation platform. It can't rely on the goodwill of Backers and Creators to be both.
Is our society really so caught up in itself that we can't just admit we got scammed for a few bucks on a bet and walk away? Now Kickstarter has to do some CYA limbo so they don't get sued because they "enabled" scammers?
If you can't handle the risk, you don't deserve the payoff, and you shouldn't stick out your nose in the first place. Stay home.
Same song, different band.
bah.
Well, if he posted it next year, it wouldn't be FIRST POST!, then would it?
You might not be able to scam people on Kickstarter.
But you can get a bogus patent without POC or a product and sue everybody who actually build stuff.
Oh the irony!
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Obviously you're not aware of the Eyez scam.
The first update after they were successfully funded was a picture of the design crew enjoying a Caribbean vacation. They took $344,000 in the scam.
Free unix account: freeshell.org
This is wrong headed. The 'product' in all the other categories is non-existant yet 'creators' get to present 'simulations' of it be it a trailer, a drawing or a description.
Oh, and Kickstarter is a store. It is a store of ideas, of potential, of the future, where people who believe can back projects they want to be a part of, those they want to succeed, those they would like the product from. Kickstarter says so themselves, that the rewards should ideally be the product produced by the project.
I'd like to see some time limits on delivery too. Like:
10 Backers Pledge $X .5*$X .5*$X is refunded to backers .5*$X
20 You get
25 If you can deliver, goto 60
30 You fail to deliver after Y time
40
50 goto END
60 You deliver
70 You get the other
END
I'm fine with the fact that you're taking a risk to fund a thing, but with a lot of products, you're giving money because you want a widget (you're familiar with stores right?).
Kickstarter says they aren't a store, that's OK, but since they aren't (and legally can't be) a real investment portal (where you buy a share in the future of a company), they should try and provide some minimal protection to backers (which is also an incentive to creators to actually set reasonable timetables and deliver a product).
I suspect most kickstarter's have good intentions, but it wouldn't be that hard to scam users with a pretty looking widget that never shows up.
Some more focused/guided/directed discussion on your capabilities to deliver would be nice (do you have any experience getting something manufactured?). I guess they're sort of covering that in the risk assesment. If a project is asking for a ton of money, and kickstarter thinks it looks legit, maybe they could actually send a human on site, provide their assessment, do an interview, etc. Any real VC would do that, but micro-funders giving 20 bucks aren't/can't.
One of the projects I funded (and got great stuff from) is a kind of structural aluminum extrusions. Another project has injection molded plastic parts. The point of the KickStarters in both cases was to raise money to make molds. It seems like these new rules prohibit things like: "Here is 3D print of the thing that we want to injection mold." Or in the case of aluminum extrusions, then what are they supposed to show? It seems like a rendering of that is just fine.
The *real* problem is projects started by people that have no idea how to program manage a project, have no manufacturing experience, and have no shipment and fulfillment experience. They get in over their heads and crash. When I pledge to a project, I try to ascertain if the person has ability to pull it off. I really don't care if you can't yet show me the thing you want to build. I'm much more interested in things you have built/shipped in the past.
There is a big difference between building 1 or 2 of something for yourself and a friend, versus building 500 of something and then shipping it all to customers. I agree Kickstarter needs a cluelessness filter. I don't think what they propose is quite it yet.
...a blog entry titled, "Kickstarter is not a venture capital broker."
OK, I guess people probably figure that out before they put their money down, But you do hear people talking about their "investment" in KS projects. Since you don't get to share in any profits, it's definitely not an investment. Really, it's more like charity, with rewards. Sort of like public broadcasting.
I have to say I'm not comfortable with tech startups relying on charity. Yeah, it's cool that companies like Pebble can get the startup money they need at a time when traditional credit is hard to get. But jeez, they're a business — passing the hat for their startup costs just doesn't feel right.
Kickstarter started out as a way to fund artistic projects — economically useless stuff that's theoretically of cultural value. I might stretch that a little to marginally economic ventures (if some director I admire were to use KS to raise money for a low-budget movie, I'd give, and I wouldn't even want free tickets) . But digging in my pocket to help fund the next iPhone? Nuh uh,
I just received an email stating that he finally started to receive product. fortunately, I wasn't relying on using it for this camping season. It also looks like a textbook case as to what sorts of problems you can have when you are a small company and you try to outsource your production to china.
Doesn't this kind of defeat the whole purpose of kickstarter to begin with? If I, or in this case, the designer, programmer, inventor, engineer...etc. had money to build the first fully functional product, we really wouldn't need kickstarter now would we?
I think mandatory progress updates should be made if you have a kickstarter project going. I believe that simulations or design work references can be acceptable as long as some early development version of your product is underway and can be shown to the people before they invest, with as I mention mandatory progress updates. I mean, things do change as a development cycle continues and people contribute ideas that might be incorporated into whatever project it is.
It would be cool if anything produced through kickstarter can only be patented for say... 5 years max then it MUST be made fully open source, code, hardware design schematics.. all of it. And they cannot be extended at all, patent goes to the public domain when the time is up. It's a reasonable amount of time if a product is successful to get financial success and not lock others out of the market, like is so ridiculously being done right now in the Mobile/Wireless industries.. Also if a project is successful in getting the necessary backing by kickstarter, and fails to finish development or decides to refuse to sell to anyone (trying to sell out for millions to a company for instance) Then it's an automatic forfeit and goes public domain same as if it had expired it's patent. That way at least investors or donators can be assured that even if the product or device ...whatever they were trying to back never reaches fruition, that at least perhaps some beneficial coding or designs can be gleaned from it for others to finish or improve on.... Basically you don't have to worry about getting a big goose egg 0 in the end for donating/investing. Whatever happens, everyone will at least gain something from it.
Isn't kickstarter one large scam itself?
I thought the whole point of Kickstarter was to help people raise money for ideas they can't afford to produce themselves. In fact, I distinctly remember there being some big stink about people trying to fund products they already had in production.
Now Kickstarter is saying you have to be able to produce a prototype before you can even try to raise money? Am I missing something here, or what?
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
If you can't use some existing open source engine to throw together a quick prototype with a few base art assets, then it's just a fucking idea. Countering this point I've heard folks complain that they need money to get the art assets -- Well then you're not a game developer if you don't even have the capability to produce a few assets and get some code running in an engine. No one knows it it'll even be fun -- Hell, even some colored squares moving around is better than some of the pie in the sky bullshit I've seen -- Yes, even DoubleFine are guilty of coming to the table with next to nothing but a reputation. I only drop bucks on projects that have made some progress.
Effectively you can no longer use it to fund development. If you have to already have unit #1 produced, it's just a way to fund production. Ergo, it's a store oriented toward pre-sales.
Sounds like video game projects will now have to show a prototype, and not just a teaser trailer of pre-rendered models. I think this is probably an overall good thing, as prototypes show at least the team has overcome some of the initial gameplay challenges, as games which sound amazing on paper usually have difficult roadblocks to conquer.
Why not ?
I agree that hardware is hard. But radio hams have been building hardware, and sharing designs, for longer than software has existed. A large part of their success is about the mindset. A professional RF engineer will demand a certain set of instruments to make their job possible. A ham will either find a way to make the tests with cheaper equipment, or find a way to build the instrument first (see, for example, the various homebrew network analyser projects). Partly this means relaxing design specs to make a project more likely to work. Partly it means recognising that building one of something is different to building 10,000 - if your project takes time spent at the bench tweaking individual components, well, that's part of the game.
If you come from a professional background, open source hardware looks impossible. But if you add a little more ingenuity, and pick your projects carefully, it's entirely possible and can produce some very impressive projects.
Won't this rule make it into even more of a store rather than the opposite?
Instead of funding development, you would basically be funding production of an almost finished product.
Posted also on the Kickstarter comment section:
Kickstarter project creator here: I'm the guy behind OpenBeam (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ttstam/openbeam-an-open-source-miniature-construction-sys).
And in case anyone's wondering - we shipped the majority of our rewards a *month* before the original promised date. That probably puts me in the top 5 percentile of projects...
Let's take a look at the new rules one by one:
“What are the risks and challenges this project faces, and what qualifies you to overcome them?”
- Okay, this is perfectly valid. I am surprised KS haven't done this earlier, because there are quite a few clueless guys (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/277210494/paint-be-gone) - *(http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/277210494/call-key) and http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/277210494/key-pad-case) out on here who seems be doing the "throw s*** at the wall and see what sticks" model of development.
"Product simulations are prohibited. Projects cannot simulate events to demonstrate what a product might do in the future. Products can only be shown performing actions that they’re able to perform in their current state of development."
"Product renderings are prohibited. Product images must be photos of the prototype as it currently exists.
Products should be presented as they are. Over-promising leads to higher expectations for backers. The best rule of thumb: under-promise and over-deliver."
Okay, so KS want a working prototype. I get that; that's pretty straightforward. But it doesn't stop someone from *faking* a prototype on camera. This however, won't stop a project like iCase (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1791911961/i-case-iphone-4s-and-iphone-4-bumper-case) from being a train wreck, as the protoytype would likely have been SLA, painted, and the problem wouldn't have been apparent until the metal parts were CNC machined and fitted and found to short out the iPhone's anntenna.
The OpenBeam project would have passed these requirements; we had a physical prototype for shooting the video, as part of a good product development practice.
"Offering multiple quantities of a reward is prohibited. Hardware and Product Design projects can only offer rewards in single quantities or a sensible set (some items only make sense as a pair or as a kit of several items, for instance). The development of new products can be especially complex for creators and offering multiple quantities feels premature, and can imply that products are shrink-wrapped and ready to ship."
And how would KS define "Multiple copies" of a reward? This I have a problem with. When you're in production, you are trying to get the manufacturing volume up to bring the costs down. If I were launching OpenBeam now, would I be limited to selling one stick of aluminum and one of each bracket to my backers (who wouldn't be able to do anything useful then with this?) If I packaged it up as a "kit", like I had on my KS, would I have gotten around these restrictions? Who decides whether multiple copies of the same item is required for the item to work (ie, construction toy kit), and when it becomes a way to side step your rules? How much "individual judgement" is there to allow the listing of a project, and do you consider the project creator's background (ie, having successfully delivered on a previous project) when you allow them to post? With the amount of controversy about what gets allowed (*cough* Tangibot (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mattstrong/the-tangibot-3d-printer-the-affordable-makerbot-re)*cough*) and what doesn't on Kickstarter already, this rule is probably going to make your selection process more Apple App-store like (arbitrary with no recourse for the project creator if you are not selected).
(Edited to add: The real problem, that KS probably don't want to admit, is that none of their hipster workers have a sufficient engineering / science / technology bac