It seems that every week we report on Kickstarter events that have failed in extraordinary ways. However, their failure has templates; stories told and retelled. These stereotyped faceplants can be avoided. And of course they are not limited to Kickstarter, but are applicable to all Crowd Funding platforms. Let me list the many failure modes of crowdfunding products. Learning from these metaphors, maybe we can get rid of this desperate cycle.

You haven't heard of these failures, this is the point. These are crowdfunding projects. They enter the abyss and won't get any wings through printed text or exposure. They may have a first-class product, an impressive engineering team, and have a 100% chance of being able to deliver, but the project did not attract people's attention and eventually died. The Coolest Cooler project raised 13 million U.S. dollars, but they failed miserably during their first campaign. This is the second attempt to gain traction.

The solution is to prepare a mailing list of interested people to buy when you start, and share it with everyone they know. Contact blogs and news organizations one month in advance to provide news materials and promotions for specific audiences. The press release was thrown away. There is a good reason why this matter is relevant to their audience. Provide exclusive news on large news websites that are your target market.

Well, you have started, got some blog mentions, got some shares on Facebook, but you are shy about your goals. shooting. Now you need to do some analysis. Why did you fail? If you listen, people will tell you. Maybe the price is too high. Maybe the product is not as attractive as you think. Maybe you just didn't get enough eyeballs, but the interest is there for the eyeballs you get.

Remember, you choose a goal for a reason. This is the minimum that makes the project successful. If you don’t improve your goals, don’t try to make a product anyway, because you already know that you won’t have enough funds or customers to make it work.

Many crowdfunding campaigns are initiated by people who have never developed a product before. This is dangerous because they often incur material costs for their prototypes and assume that they can significantly reduce costs. This is very wrong. Check the Dragon Innovation Standard BOM for more detailed tools to help estimate the actual cost of manufacturing.

This is often underestimated. The wrong way is to calculate the cost of the prototype components, calculate their 1k volume cost, add a few cents to a box and case, and make it your goal. Yes, the cost of components is lower in mass production, but mass-produced products usually have additional components that the prototype does not have, more safety and robustness features, and expensive components that are ignored in the prototype (such as cable assemblies) ). Another thing that is overlooked is the cost of malfunctioning components. You will pay for the failed product in some way. Whether it is injection-molded parts with extremely strict tolerances, causing a large number of parts to be discarded because they do not meet the tolerances, or cheaper electronic components with a higher failure rate. The worst case is that the fully assembled product is delivered to the customer, but it will not work without first testing it. These need to be replaced at your own expense.

This is related to the cost of goods, but more involves labor costs and disposable parts (such as assembly fixtures). Setting up an assembly line is neither cheap nor easy. Every step in the assembly process takes time, which translates into money. This is why it is important to design assembly fixtures to make the process faster and more consistent. Each step should be simple and quick, because you need to hire as cheap labor as possible to achieve it, and you need cheap labor to do it well every time, otherwise they will quickly become expensive. Some people think that going to China right away is the best step. Remember, not only do you have to pay for travel and living there, which may be several months longer than you expect, but you also have to pay people who don’t understand your product or your language to assemble them never Use things, and there is no effect if they do it wrong. It is cheaper on paper, but more expensive when considering hidden costs.

The first two steps are why this step is so important. Design test and assembly fixtures, improve the product so that parts can be purchased (in cooperation with alternate suppliers), thereby increasing assembly efficiency, making the product durable and eliminating common failure modes. These things require time and expertise, and these people make a living on it and are not cheap. In mass production, this is critical, because a 10% failure rate in tens of thousands of devices means dealing with thousands of dissatisfied and very outspoken customers.

After the product design is completed, many countries/regions have many regulations on how to import the product and how it must operate to be legal. If it has a circuit board, it probably needs FCC approval in the US and CE approval in Europe. Such tests can range from thousands to tens of thousands. UL testing is another major (although not necessary) cost of plugging in equipment. Air freight from China can eliminate all profits, but shipping takes one month, so delays must be considered. Import tariffs are usually between 3%-10%, so it will eat up a lot of profits. Then there is tax. Kickstarter funds may be considered income, and many projects may be subject to sales tax. Don't forget the Kickstarter tailoring, or the production and shipping costs of all shirts and stickers you promised (this work does not contribute much to your goal or minimum order).

Everyone wants a piece of the pie, and in most cases, you inevitably have to give them a slice. Planning for it is essential, otherwise you will end up with nothing.

You use the cheapest components possible, your tolerances are careless, your assembly team is unskilled and inconsistent, and in the product manufacturing process, it is really bad. The recipient will feel unhappy because it will break when they breathe wrong. Now at the end of the event, after the product is delivered, you will only receive a bunch of bad reviews, bad reputation, and bad products, and you will not be able to convince people to buy because they can see all the other people who regret it. This is the story of Zano, a small drone that almost never takes off.

You want to be able to sell a few hundred units. You may manufacture and deliver on time in the kitchen within a few weeks, but you have to manufacture and deliver tens of thousands of units. Now, people’s expectations for quality are much higher, and it’s impossible to slowly roll out units on your kitchen table next year. This means spending money on assembling fixtures, manufacturing design, and all other things you didn't plan for when you were a kid. Take a look at an example of Pebble Watch's extreme success causing problems. It is true that they did not go bankrupt, but they were delayed for a long time due to the problem of expanding the scale of production to the required scale.

This happens often. The founder came up with a crazy idea that didn't work, and it gained a lot of traction because it was cool and raised a lot of money, and then the founder released some vague updates a few months ago. Or maybe the public discovered their fraud and stopped the activity or asked Kickstarter to shut it down. This is one of the reasons Kickstarter has developed a policy that requires effective demonstrations of products, but it is still abused, and it is more complex and fools more people.

The trick to not being out is to not be a liar. People should never doubt whether your product (and the concept behind it) is legal. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so if your project violates thermodynamics, you need a lot of convincing evidence and expert support.

Recently there is Triton, scuba, and the other is RITOT projector watch.

You put forward your goal, you made your product, you shipped it, and the customer is happy, now...what? Some companies didn't plan what would happen after their Kickstarter, so unfortunately they eventually closed down.

Selling your products on Kickstarter means selling at huge discounts, so your profits are already low. There is very little money left after the event, so you can't buy more stocks. Then your marketing goes down; you won’t get as much publicity as you did when the campaign was launched, so you have to work ten times harder to get a small portion of the publicity, and you can’t expect sales to maintain its Kickstarter Rate.

Many companies pursue angel or VC funding, but sometimes their success on Kickstarter can be a problem, because mediocre success allows investors to understand the actual size of the market, and this number is usually much smaller than they want. With no inventory, no funds, and little publicity, the company has nowhere to go. Despite years of hard work to design, build, and deliver, it is still in trouble and dying.

Many Kickstarters have already made it work. They use their assets to solve their problems with slight delays or cost issues, after the crowdfunding they grow to be sustainable, and they continue. Experiencing it is definitely not a beautiful picture to paint, it is not suitable for everyone, and it is by no means a guarantee of success. But this is a choice that opens up possibilities for thousands of small businesses, otherwise they would not even be able to produce something on a large scale. It is because of crowdfunding that all these companies are able to push the rock farther and closer to true success.

Author's note: Although Kickstarter is used extensively in this article, not all of these projects are on the Kickstarter platform. Some of them, such as Ritot and Triton, are on Indiegogo.

"It seems that we report failed Kickstarter events every week..."

So, it sounds like HaD needs to start the "This Week's Crowd Source Fails" series...

"You haven't heard of these failures, this is the point..."

Research journals are beginning to see the wisdom of printing the results of failed research projects, telling others the reason for the failure, and possibly revealing the reason for the failure.

This is not criticism, but... It seems that the only crowdfunding campaign we heard on HAD was a failure... It seems that the editors have some kind of... [sigh].... Oppose the crowdfunding agenda. Considering all the good crowdfunding happening there, it just feels a bit biased; receiving disproportionate attention, if you will.

Or successful people who had some relationship with them before the kickstarter campaign started.

It is very likely that in most crowdfunding campaigns, if they succeed, then they are very famous, or not earth-shattering, enough to guarantee the publication of an article, but if they fail, they either serve as a good warning, or There are serious problems that people cannot understand and should be aware of so as not to fall into their trap. (I.e. inferior products or outright fraud.)

And you must also remember that part of the reason why failures are often more common is psychological, and that the negative is more psychologically weighted than the positive. In this way, success may be okay, but the same degree of failure seems to be much more important.

You forgot to fail because of a bad partnership: http://www.peachyprinter.com/ (Highly recommended reading!)

I am glad that we (Mooltipass team) do not fall into any of the above categories. In related news, we will launch Mooltipass Mini through another crowdfunding campaign in about 2 months. The early bird price is about US$40: https://hackaday.io/project/86-mooltipass-offline-password -keeper/ log/33836-prototypes-for-the-mini-beta-testers You can keep in touch through our official group: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/mooltipass

But HaD did report on Peachy's failure a week ago...

I am looking forward to MooltiMini!

Yes, I just think it's good to mention it :) Thank you for your support! We are really looking forward to providing a "normal" priced device with a solid user base and a powerful software platform.

Thank you for bringing it up. That article is actually the reason why I wrote this article. However, when I finished writing it, I realized that all this is a story of rogue and sadness, and I want to end it in a positive way. I think I can mention it at the beginning.

What is going on with these people? Using the Mu Optics thermal imager on IGG, John McGrath did exactly the same thing. He used the money to restore a 105-year-old house he recently bought in Hyde Park, Chicago. Then flip it to get more profit, but still no refunds or products are offered. scum.

Crowdfunding companies should somehow "require" potential customers to read this article or let them themselves "help" them develop a successful launch plan. However, I am not sure if this applies to GoFundMe.

Dragon Innovation has certification services (https://www.dragoninnovation.com/services/certification). They will check everything and if everything goes well, they will give you a Dragon certification mark, which you can use in crowdfunding to show that the project has been reviewed by industry experts.

Do they provide guarantee services or other money-back guarantees to project supporters? If the project fails, I can sue them to recover my money because I believe their logo assures me that the project will succeed? I didn't even see a chart showing the success rate of their certification program on their website.

In other words, they look like a group of stars, and if I were creating my first project, I would immediately sign with them. But what I am looking for as a supporter is financial security, and this is not the service they provide.

At the bottom of the website, they showed a list of "certified" projects that never achieved their goals...

This will suffer from the same problems that plagued the real estate bubble. Where do their expenses come from? This tells you who they are following. It was full of conflicts of interest.

There is only one problem-if you can get huge salary cuts from all funded projects as a fixed cut (it has nothing to do with the actual delivery of anything), there is basically no need to even work (well, the server may have to get it from time to time) A good kick, but you don't need to do anything else), as long as there are a lot of things to do, will you tell af### what is being funded? Well, maybe you are a sturdy person, you will, but most of the crowdfunding companies I have seen have not shown any such concerns. In fact, they seem to be actively discouraging anything that has nothing to do with the financial drive—"Intervene and shut up, work hard—don't shake the boat!" This seems to be a common position. Since they obviously could escape by chance, then everything else would be a miracle. Until someone notices this opportunity and eats all their lunch, of course, assuming it’s not too late to enter this particular game...

And don’t forget the failures caused by corruption and fraud, such as the "Cthulhu + Monopoly = Doom of Atlantic City" board game, (I think) start users to raise funds and run away all investors and eventually the game is rescued by another company Up.

I was a little worried about things I didn't know, so I started a Kickstarter on my simplest project to understand what might go wrong. Some small things did go wrong, but I reached the funding goal, and I will order the circuit boards this week. I expect more problems, but this is the focus of this round.

I'm glad you can keep your feet on the ground, cheer up, and wish you good luck.

A former boss told me that his son made some small devices for Mercedes owners. I'm not sure what they are, but they are basically a switch, box and wire (IIRC). He is on that auction site Sold at a high price. This is not a full-time job, but a supplementary income.

Do you think the small paste extruder 3d printer has a vacancy in the market? It has a diameter of ~12cm/5inch and a height of 6cm/2.5inch, costs about 50 Euros, and can print chocolate, plaster and the like. The power supply is a dual USB cable, which can be connected to the two USB ports of the PC, and can also be connected to the computer and the mobile phone charger. And it will be very slow, very slow

Count me in! But the premise is that it does have a dual extruder stretching target, so I can print chocolate and plaster at the same time.

It will use tea cups, and I will sell extruders (and publish them on thingsverse), so you can upgrade yourself. The main problem is that you may need to upgrade the stepper controller board.

I don't think he is serious about the dual extruder, and can't see the meaning of mixing chocolate and plaster together.

Haha, I focus on the dual extruder part, this printer will be manufactured at a cheap price, so someone needs to buy it to be cracked :)

I think the tea cup will be made of extruded plaster and poured hot chocolate into it. B^)

"Damn liar" f_ck, now I understand...For educational purposes, here is the theoretical part of the "crappyprinter" electronic product BOM: Arduino Nano Clone: ​​http://www.ebay.com/itm/ MINI-USB-Nano -V3-0-ATmega328P-CH340G-5V-16M-Micro-controller-board-Arduino-T1-/181846906547?hash=item2a56eb96b3:g:Ir8AAOSwBahVL6BH US $2.21 Made in China PCB with firmware (NPN transistor and Components) Delay): ~$3 Actuator: 2* X-axis and Z-axis screw stepper: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/B-04E-drive-stepper-motor-screw-a-nut -slider-small-stage-DIY / 32452260069.html SPM = 2114.01010208.3.9.i1awE6 & ws_ab_test = searchweb201556_7, searchweb201602_1_10017_10021_507_10022_10020_10009_10008_10018_fa10019, searchweb201603_7&btsid = 1e24e6 US$2578 2578 Extrusion machine = 1e24e6 US$ 2578-2. Rotation*Step: HTTP: //www.ebay.com/itm/step-motor-reduction-dc-5v-4-phase-28byj-48-valve-gear-stepper-motor-for-ardu-x9-/231915810035 ?hash=item35ff426cf3:g: -qwAAOSw14xXEr7~ 2*US $1.52=US $3.04 Total: US $13.81+10cm PTFE tube (1.2$) + plastic gear bed (2$) + frame (if it is on soft plywood about 5$+ some 3d printing parts) + 3d printing nozzle and Moineau pump extruder and gear driven motor for bed rotation. All this plus our profit and maintaining 23% of our socialist government, so 56.5925 USD/1.23, the cost and our profit must be about 46 USD. Some feedback please :)

You have done what this article complains about. You have added the BOM and there is nothing else. You have stopped assembly, testing, packaging and transportation. I am also skeptical about some BOM pricing-"custom PCB assembly for $3" and "plywood for $5" and "3d printing == free"!

No, you are mistaken. I don’t know how much the 3d printed parts cost. Bom is just to prove that it might be done under 50 Euros, and there is no prototype, and I don’t have most of the parts, I just ask if you think it’s right The product has general interest. If it is worth developing as a commercial project and start it. When I have at least one fully working prototype and realize all the costs involved, I might start it

50 Euro is cheap, even if it's just an extruder.

http://www.instructables.com/id/3D-Chocolate-Printer-made-from-LEGO-1/

It won’t be like that, it will be bowden made of some 3d printed parts (at least in the prototype) and large diameter ptfe, just Google "Moineau pump" to know how it works

The goal of this printer is to be as cheap as possible and easy to crack, so you can forget about 300mm/s or even 100mm/s. You should not expect quality or stoppers or any heating or current return protection on the circuit board or power supply (made of 2 USB cables). Before you start printing, you have to manually place the x and z axis on 0, you may need to disassemble the extruder and clean it after printing, and it is small

Kickstarter products are essentially high-risk start-ups, and there is no review by funding personnel or any sanity checks, because the risk of operating personnel is limited. Therefore, even if it is not worse than startups, they may often fail.

http://www.statisticbrain.com/startup-failure-by-industry/ 1 – 46% – Incompetence 2 – 30% – Unbalanced experience or lack of management experience 3 – 11% – Lack of experience in products or services 5 – 1%-neglect, fraud, disaster

I don’t know why they don’t list #4. #5 is more common in Kickstarter. Not sure if failure to follow up counts as a product-oriented kickstarter failure, or just a business (unplanned) failure.

Given that "predation" (and direct fraud) by executives and insiders has now become the main business model in most industries, I don't believe that "fraud" only leads to 1% failures.

Success today means having a lot of money.

Now, people *can* look around for business opportunities and market gaps, but this sounds difficult, and it may take a while. It will be easier to just ask for funding and then grab it. From a distance, fraud looks like incompetence, so much so that a person must be very obvious (such as Martin Shkreli-blatant) to be pinned (or *actually* incompetent).

Crowdfunding has more relaxed rules. The 0.1-euro IVS (Entrepreneurship Limited) sold by the Danish government is to compete with the British LLP model; *of course* those in the "crowdfunding is one thing" in the airport lounge are free Approximately 1.2 ns after the magazine was broadcast, various fraudsters would conduct crowdfunding. This is like a natural law.

Based on instinct and (too) long-term experience, I will extract 16% from "1" and 14% from "2" to make category "5" a more realistic "31%"-about 5% of which are "Neglect" and "disaster".

Failure after success is a good tolerance, and it is worth repeating. During the crowdfunding campaign, your demand, sales, and hype peak. If you just complete it during that period, then you need a different plan to start immediately after completion.

Failure caused by perfectionism? I supported the CastAR headset about three years ago, and it hasn't arrived yet. I believe the main obstacle is to redesign the original product to make it better during iterative development, once they start talking with component manufacturers, they can use better hardware, so merge them. A new investment was received, so a final redesign was started to make the consumer version as good as possible. The product is now several years late and will expire later this year. It is commendable that Technical Illusions refunds all investors in full, and promises to ship the complete kit to all supporters above a certain level.

Some comments assume that the APOC PRO radiation detector (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/aerosplice/apoc-pro-radiation-detector) failed because of the pursuit of perfection. I do not think so. The results of the official release of the project are enough for me and many people to become a useful product. Since both project leaders Marshall Meng and Matt Chapman no longer comment, this sounds like a fraud, especially when they upload a new video, indicating that they are working on a completely different topic (https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v= 6TOC2MeuzMo). That is sad.

Why do people think they need gimmick sales channels like Kickstarter...?

People may argue about the theoretically provided website: 1. Hosting services: No, people are still often cheated because Kickstarter services are not and cannot be operated by ethical business strategists or even engineers. Fundamentally, even if the product fails, there are financial incentives to make the event successful.

2. Marketing: No, if only 0.000001% of people are interested in your product, then it is unlikely to become a business. Once the initial scarcity illusion of spam marketing disappears, people will no longer care about your fancy paperweight.

3. Education: No, technically inclined people are rarely interested in basic business management skills. The most interesting phenomenon we still witness is the other 6 debt-financed start-ups whose product launches also failed, just as their mental problems would somehow make the failed business model work.

4. Integrity verification: No, the company does not protect anyone except their own cash flow. Anti-socialists often fail to understand the real reasons for their continued failure or success, and their nature does not learn from their mistakes. However, their disease usually makes them irrationally stubborn, and they will resolutely defend that their shit can cure cancer (although it sounds disgusting, it is a literal product). Usually, this kind of behavior that generally cannot resonate with customers prevents these people from seeing obvious mistakes, and they tend to focus on manipulating the public. (E.g. membership club/spam/astroturf/viral marketing)

5. The illusion of agency control: Bingo, an idea that a marketing company can use its own success to make bad product ideas successful in some way. For the poor who can’t calculate variable costs, it’s like Uber—just like Uber drivers.

And Bob, Dragon Innovation’s dislike of customers is negotiating a larger debt financing product that they couldn’t afford in the first place. Contract manufacturers should not be interested in the customer’s business practices. If the company is small, they should avoid such services.

I admit that labor costs may be a real problem, but only if the people you hire are conceited kids who don’t understand how capital grows from the productivity of the business. Outsourcing is often the language of short-term exit strategists, indicating that skilled workers are facing serious problems. Sometimes, I sympathize with Chinese manufacturers who have to deal with misbehaving domestic companies like Apple.

One does not need to use Dragon’s other services to get their certification. My impression is that they saw the need for the certification process and created one. It is true that if there is a truly impartial organization doing this, it will mean more, but I just pointed out to the parent reviewers that others have recognized this need and are doing their best.

I agree with many of your opinions about crowdfunding websites. I have talked to many people, and they think all they need to do is create a basic activity, and money will continue to flow in.

Regarding cost, I suggest that everyone who intends to turn ideas into business should read something about value-added/non-value-added steps in the production chain. The value-added steps are usually in the range of a few percentage points. Therefore, more money is spent on things that customers don't spend money on (such as rework, storage, etc.).

In short: you usually waste a lot of money on things needed for the project, but you don't directly increase the value of the final product.

If they need it, is it a waste of money? This sounds like an old project manager of mine's view on design...

No, this is a silly demo example: someone designed a device (such as a wireless weather station or anything else) that uses a powerful processor and only requires a weaker passive cooling processor. Now a fan must be added for cooling. However, the customer only wants the actual output (in this case temperature, humidity and wind speed are provided). Due to the selected design (or process), you need to add a fan, which is necessary for this design, but it is actually a waste (the customer wants weather data, not the heater unit). The key is to use it out of the box and find a simpler and cheaper solution.

By the way, I work for a technology company; checking non-value-added processes/parts is an industry standard.

It reminds me that MBA would say "manufacturing will not increase the value of products".

Well, I (as an engineer) are also skeptical of some MBA and financial controllers. But I have seen some products remove parts from BoM during the redesign, and the product works better. Regarding my weather station example: the temperature sensor adds value, (some) auxiliary components do not, which could have been avoided if a smarter design was chosen first.

This is an interesting reading, but it's really distracting, and it's hard to take any of it as real, because these examples don't seem to be connected to reality. Coolest Cooler is an example of a complete victory, Pebble is an example of complete failure, and SKARP is a scam? (Be careful with that brush, I heard you will be slandered for it). An overly ambitious gadget may actually be just a bad idea, yes. But how many useful must-have gadgets do you even have? But the malice still needs to be manifested. However, it is not here to defend SKARP, just to point out even those other permutations of more meaningful items as examples. (Although this may raise another question that does not seem to be reported by the mass media, namely how do you define and measure the success of crowdfunding).

Let's put it this way, if SKARP is not malicious fraud, it is stupid fraud (to call it stupid is excessive charity). If so many people can get together to work on such a technologically advanced project, and at the same time completely lack practical knowledge of physics, and this is not a scam (the false/tampered videos they posted indicate this), then we are all done. .

Coolest Cooler may have achieved great success on paper, but there are no meaningful metrics for producing quality products or creating ethical transactions. Its function is equivalent to your 5-year-old brother setting up an ice cream booth, which only provides copy paper pasted on ice cream cones, and then sells them to fools at the price of "real cone ice cream". Barely edible, of course (even more so if you are a goat)...suitable for their intended function, not so much.

The first car did not make the horse obsolete, nor did the first plane replace the ship...not to mention the first prototype. However, I am not here to defend SKARP, especially since crowdfunding is a well-known cause of jihad. However, I will leave this here: http://www.cnet.com/products/skarp-laser-razor/-not only the expert testimony, it is indeed physically possible, but also the actual "work" "prototype. Of course, the final test will be whether they will actually deliver anything, and now they are a few months late, but if nothing more, it could still beat most crowdfunding projects. But the point is, as others are responding now, Coolest Cooler is at least a good example of a scam-you can get a better product for half the price, and most supporters have not seen their product yet. But don’t worry, you can now pay more to be at the top of the waiting queue :)

Coolest Cooler encountered problems due to its failure to purchase key components (especially the mixer motor) for the second time.

This is why most military aircraft are designed to use engines from multiple manufacturers. Although they may be different in details, different engines will fit and have very close to the same performance. This is another blow to the F-35-Congressmen vetoed the second procurement engine on the grounds of expense. But if there is any problem with the ability of the sole supplier to produce the engine, that is it. No engine, no F-35 flying.

It is always expected that any component may have supply issues. Either place the delivery date far enough in the future so that the supplier can manufacture the part, or be ready to order from two (or more) sources.

If it is a custom-designed part, and you have two suppliers contracted to manufacture, please make sure to obtain *production quality* samples for testing. Don't let a company give you a carefully hand-made prototype and claim that it represents the quality of their production, and their actual production may be full of cutting corners and sloppy quality.

SKARP is transparent and obviously a scam. Popular Quiz: How much power does a laser need to burn hair? How much battery does it take to run long enough to shave a normal face (not to mention the legs or the whole body)? How big are the two components together, and can they fit into the so-called working prototype?

These are all valid points. It is important to define what is considered "success". For most of us, success means you get money, you deliver a good product, and you are selling and developing more business. But when you analyze what happened to them, "success" can be divided in a variety of different ways. Nothing is completely successful (such as Pebble-they end in "success", but their huge fundraising and huge The demand for them has caused problems for them. When you ask for 10,000 orders but get 100,000 orders, you will suddenly encounter more different problems, which you have never thought of to solve.)

To give another example, Coolest Cooler is definitely a *fundraising* success. People see it, want to buy it, and save money for it. It raised approximately 13 million U.S. dollars. This is a success! But most of the rest failed. When you break something into pieces and examine them, you need to be specific, because from start to finish, things are rarely the same thing.

I remember seeing a lot of gadgets on TV decades ago, even before TV commercials. (Gasp!) These gadgets are (usually) based on a good idea...such as a screwdriver, a dog-bone socket wrench with 4 wrenches on each end, a self-adjusting vise-like pliers, or a self-adjusting open end wrench. The list is endless, but when you finally get a copy... it's almost worthless because the item is of low quality. For example, the wrench is not "locked" to the desired position/size and will slide. Dozens (hundreds?) of kitchen tools were also sold, and in a similar way failed to meet the hype/expectations. These gadgets are marketing successes, not practical items.

TV shops and so on still exist. In fact, I thought that was the definition of gadgets, but I searched it on Google and it seemed "smart" in the definition somewhere. But 99 dollars is there, "I really don't need it, it's no better than the existing one, but according to the advertisement, this is the best thing since the beard cut, can help me get all the chicks" impulse purchase part. Practicality and doing better are optional. In fact, I would say that if you don’t have a closet or at least one desk drawer full of “gadgets”, you use it once and throw it in a pile because it’s inconvenient, outdated, broken, or you don’t really need it. For it, you need to hand over your geek card immediately.

In addition, the CNET link, their expert contacts, and the physical calculations of HackADay users in the previous article about SKARP show that AAA batteries can provide the power required by SKARP, and the power density must exist. In fact, you can now buy a battery-powered hair removal system for women, which basically bathes a large area with a laser instead of the partial power output of SKARP. The question that still exists is whether the manufacturing cost can be lower than its selling price. Another question is whether even in theory, it will do better than the ordinary old batterless disposable safety razor. Of course, apart from looking and sounding cool.

I don't know why the Coolest cooler is a victory. Yes, they are in production. But in my opinion, it is like a very useless product. I don't know why it needs a blender... The wheels and interior lighting are very smart. Besides, I'm not sure why you risked accepting $13 million in funding. If you fail to cash it, you will never be able to repay this debt. Who (legally) takes the risk in the crowdfunding campaign?

I have supported game development, never played...

I know someone actually owns one of them, and it is indeed the least valuable POS I have ever seen in my life. Its quality is as bad as you can get, for example, it is cheaper than the Chinese cooler you can buy at Wal-Mart, but slightly better than the ordinary old foam cooler. The blender is absolutely worthless, just like you can barely mix tea or lemonade, you don't know what will happen if you add ice. The rest of the items are equally bad, I just feel sorry for the people who bought it. There are reasons for its failure and future failure.

I think we must remember that Kickstarter is just a large "focus group" with spare money. Just because you succeed in the focus group does not mean that your product can be obtained in the general market even if you do everything right. Success. The fool and the money will soon separate. If your Kickstart is a fool, then good luck.

I think investors (venture capital funds, angel investors, etc.) must have something to say about the possible impact of determining the success of a startup. It has two aspects; obviously, investors are incentivized to help founders work hard to protect their investments, whether it's a fund or something you own. In addition, investors will not invest (usually, 20/20 in hindsight) that is sinking or does not have a co-founder.

The first reason why Kickstarters failed... Brian Benchoff did not advertise for them on Hackaday!

When I first saw a crowdfunding website, I thought, "Oh my God, it's like blind people leading blind people into a rabbit hole." In many cases, I was right. But there are also a few examples of great success. As for the degree of fraud: I am surprised how many clearly fraudulent crowdfunding schemes are allowed to exist. In this case, there is clearly a problem with site management.

If high school students really teach some business, many bad things can be avoided. However, business and business elites do not want this, because it is in the best interests of businessmen to keep consumers ignorant. This is your diploma to keep running and become the next generation of ignorant consumers. Yes, Hackaday’s commentators used perfect words out of context, using them in a derogatory way; thank you for the good clues, if you don’t completely reject them, you can doubt the rest of your comments.

The people who introduced them know nothing about simple and simple techniques. Every horror story I've heard about running with money is about abstract descriptions involving people without any technical background. After that, you have some credible people who find that the profit margin is not that big after manufacturing, and then abandon the entire project.

"Selling your product on Kickstarter means selling it at a great discount,"

There is absolutely nothing in Kickstarter that forces you to sell anything at a discount. I recently participated in a board game launcher with more than 1000% of the funds, and they have retail prices for everything.

Wow, typo. Retail price, not retail price.

"When most investment projects fail, more people are surprised. Venture capitalists are still at a loss."

Please be kind and respectful to help make the comment section great. (Comment Policy)

This website uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how to handle your comment data.

By using our website and services, you explicitly agree to the placement of our performance, functionality and advertising cookies. Learn more