Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Hardware development is hard.
The below was written in respect of openspurcw mobile hardware.
To elaborate on why open-source hardware is hard.
Why open-source software works is:
Widely available repository of code.
Many people able to review it, or sections of it, and understand it.
Ease of submitting tested patches.
Hardware has problems that don't really fit well with this.
The open schematic is the trivially easy part, and not really a problem.
(though in practice, you need a schematic with copious links to design documents, which isn't well solved by open tools).
The number of people who can review it is rather smaller - as you can't
open up a c file, and see a clear error or awkwardness in code that can be edited.
For all but the most basic errors, you are going to have to sit down and
read several hundred pages of hardware documentation about how the chips in question work, in addition to having in-depth knowledge about the circuit design, and costings of likely changes.
Now, you've done this, and generated a patch that you think (for example) lowers the supply current by 1%.
Compile - test.
On a PC, this takes a couple of minutes.
For something of a smartphone class, a one-off PCB may cost several hundred dollars. Then the parts will cost another several hundred dollars in small quantities, as well as being difficult to obtain.
Now, you have to solder the parts onto the board, which is a decidedly nontrivial thing - and if you decide you want someone else to do this, it's probably another several hundred dollars.
So, you're at the thick end of a thousand dollars for a 'compile'.
Now, you boot the device, and it exhibits random hangs.
Neglecting the fact that you are going to need several hundred to several thousand dollars of test equipment, you now have to find
the bug.
Is it:
A) The fact that unlabled 0.5*1mm component C38 is in fact 20% over the designed value, as the assembly company put the wrong one in.
B) C38 has a tiny bridge of solder underneath it that is making intermittent contact.
C) The chipmaker for the main chip hasn't noticed that their chip doesn't quite do what they say it will do, and the datasheet is wrong.
D) You missed a tangential reference on page 384 of the datasheet to proper setup of the RAM chip, and it is pure coincidence that all models up till now have booted.
E) Because you're ordering small quantities, you had to resort to getting the chips from a distributor who diddn't watch their supply chain really carefully, and your main chip has in fact been desoldered from a broken cellphone.
F) Though the design of the circuit is correct, and the board you made matches that design, and all the parts are correct and work properly, the inherent undesired elements introduced by real life physics means it doesn't work.
G) A completely random failure of a part that could occur with even the best design, and best manufacture.
G - may mean that it's worthwhile making two or more of each revision - which of course boosts costs.
Hardware is nasty.
This gets a lot less painful of course for lower end hardware. For very limited circuits, which can be done on simple inexpensive PCBs, and be easily soldered at home - costs of a 'compile' can be in the tens of dollars, or even lower.
Same song, different band.
bah.
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.
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,
For something of a smartphone class, a one-off PCB may cost several hundred dollars. Then the parts will cost another several hundred dollars in small quantities, as well as being difficult to obtain. Now, you have to solder the parts onto the board, which is a decidedly nontrivial thing - and if you decide you want someone else to do this, it's probably another several hundred dollars.
I recently heard of BatchPCB vendor by reading the tutorials on SparkFun's website.
$10 setup fee plus either $2.50 (2 layer) or $4.00 (4 layer) per square inch of PCB board. So a 4.5" by 2.5" PCB would cost between $38 and $55 for the first board, which is a tad less than several hundred dollars. Granted, I do not know much about PCB classifications, so it may not be smartphone class, but I would think DIY open source hardware would not be designed so to an extremely narrow physical layout which could not be done by hand.
I'm not associated with either SparkFun or BatchPCB, I've recently run across them since I started researching how to get a custom PCB for a toy I am designing for my son.
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.
Hardware is nasty.
This.
This is why so many people are into software: because it's cheap and easy and you can get results in an afternoon with a monkey at the keyboard. Software is really, really hard to do well, but incredibly easy to do well enough to make something that more-or-less-sorta-kinda works.
Hardware--both mechanical and electronic--is fantastically difficult by comparison and requires far more nuanced and insightful debugging process. Noise, ground-loops and marginal components can create the most remarkable effects in electronics, differential wear, unanticipated friction and tolerances can do likewise in mechanics.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
I think thats just for the bare board. Costs more to get them to solder everything on.
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*
8 layer minimum fine pitch board, with soldermask, and appropriate platings.
You are not making anything more than a dumb feature phone with 4 layers today.
4 layer boards are readily available in batchpcb type services.
8 layer ones are not.
The several hundred for an assembly was also not pulled out of the air.
If you can assemble them yourself, and get a 99.5% success rate on these difficult to solder fine pitch devices with as many as several hundred balls, you will never make a prototype that works.
You may be able to rework it and get it working, but it vastly complicates things,
Adding xray inspection by skilled people may pretty much be required.
For a cellphone class device, you are likely to need to spend over 10k, in parts and unavoidable services to get a working copy.
Assuming skilled designers that have worked on similar projects will donate large slices of their time for free.
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 ?
Neglecting the fact that you are going to need several hundred to several thousand dollars of test equipment, you now have to find the bug.
If you're designing a cellphone, I'd up that to several hundred thousand dollars of test equiptment
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.
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
The turnaround time for 4-layer boards on BatchPCB (and the other cheap services) are on the order of a couple of months. So basically you design your PCB, get it a couple of months later to find it doesn't work, spend some time diagnosing the problem, submit another order that will arrive in another couple of months... and before long you've spent the better part of a year just waiting for PCBs.
I recently heard of BatchPCB
I'm sure for low end stuff they are fine but they really aren't suitable for a project like this IMO. They don't offer high enough layer counts or fine enough design rules.
A couple of other niggles I notice that aren't fatal but don't exactly inspire confidence.
* their specs fail to list one of the most critical design rules, the minimum annular ring.
* they do not make it clear whether they will actually accept designs that use the (marginally smaller) metric sizes in brackets. This matters a lot because modern components and designs are metric.
Granted, I do not know much about PCB classifications
Obviously
I would think DIY open source hardware would not be designed so to an extremely narrow physical layout which could not be done by hand.
Sure, the problem is there are very few* parts that are both competitive functionally and available in packages that don't require very fine PCBs. Even if there are who is realistically going to want a smartphone that is the size of an old brick phone.
IIRC on the raspberry Pi they were trying to route it on four layers but had to settle for six and they still couldn't bring out most of the IO and that was on a board that had quite a bit of clear space to fan things out.
Start paying for more layers, fine design rules, blind vias etc and it would not at all surprise me to have a prototype board cost a couple of hundred dollars for the PCB and if multiple BGAs are involed for it to cost the same again for assembly.
* Apparently allwinner have recently produced one.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register