Crowdfunding — The Good, the Bad & the Ugly

The Lounge General Discussion
#54

All excellent points !

You bring something else up that applies to all electronic development projects, and to people investing in them.

When you plan a project with a schedule, you have to do your best to anticipate what the market will be, not what it is. The market window is always moving, and a delay may just close your opportunity. That’s a very common story.

The same issues apply to you as an investor or backer. You are not buying a product now, but in the future. And then there are two factors in play. Not only does the market change, but so does your needs as a buyer.

Now predicting the future is … well, risky. Hard to anticipate what a Behringer or a Sequential or a Black Corporation is going to do in the future. But that said it’s not unreasonable to foresee competition arriving for this particular product. This is a product that was well defined a long time ago.

In a similar category to this is the Superlative SB01, which also has been a long time in coming. That product also goes into a crowded well defined market niche. But Superlative did at least engineer in some unique enhancements. But their time to market is killing them, and their backers too.

AN ASIDE: If i was building the kit, the complete version of this product might just arrive before i was done. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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#55

Have they talked about things causing delays much? I always imagine when something has a built in battery it ends up being much more work than people initially expect. Especially once you realize you need to ship the thing internationally. Obviously covid has slowed many things down.

Two things that were preorder style and not kickstarter, M8 which looks to be quite close to shipping and Space Case TE-2 which seems to be plugging along but is years behind the initial release schedule, but also seems like a really crazy project to take on.

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SB-1 Space Bee
#56

Was the isla 2400 Kickstarter style ?
I mostly bring it into this conversation as it was a little late ,but the machines shipped seem to be delivering on their promise. Overall I’d say it was a success ( I don’t own one , this is just my observation)
Of course had I ordered one I’d probably be moaning that it still hasn’t arrived yet but the shipping / delivery definitely seems Covid / ship delays .

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#57

Happy the EMPick/Wond II project is still going, it’s been a bit of a dev cycle.

#58

The TE-2 thread on Mod Wiggler is a bit of an adventure, and after all the excitement, tempers now seem to be fraying. Here’s a post from earlier this week:

This was billed as “order the product” like 4 years ago, but even then the details were beyond shaky, and at this point is several levels worse than an intentional, regimented crowd funding campaign. In fact traditional crowdfunding sites would have banned this producer for blowing through delivery dates, poor comms, selling other tangential products when the original item isn’t even properly prototyped, etc. There is no ETA, and there isn’t even like a checklist or roadmap to getting the orders fulfilled… unless that’s “only on the buyer’s email” (which maybe it is, I don’t know). I know he posted some clips of “a device” making sounds, but there is still not even a fully functioning prototype, right? And you guys are talking about it shipping in a couple months lol.

https://modwiggler.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3595256#p3595256

Having said that some of the instagram posts of it in action are quite exciting https://www.instagram.com/p/COJYjklhXg8/

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#59

Meanwhile, the Dirtywave M8 is shipping at ~100 units per week (after some minor and announced delays) and everyone’s loving it:

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#60

There is a three oscillator analog hybrid mono synth in 60 hp Eurorack project now up for funding until December 14th. The Artisan Nucleus.

This looks to be in the good category, with the engineering largely done, the funding for scaling up production, where development gets expensive. Also left to do is some sound design, which is legitimately done later. This company has sold hardware on a small scale before, and some of this new design pulls from previously done hardware.

The KS version of this is $770 USD, which is legitimately expensive, for what this is. I expect the likelihood of them hitting their target ship date in Spring of 2022 as good.

Kickstarter

Another positive side to this, if they get funded, is that the core of this mono product will be used someday to make at least two polyphonic product — a 4 voice desktop unit, and a 6 to 8 voice keyboard unit.

Elektronauts Thread

ADDED : The Nucleus did not get funded.

#61

its like a baby waldorf something in eurorack form.

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#62

There is a post over in the birdkids OffGrid thread from Mike Beim one of the principles of that company, and leader of that development.

It’s an inside view of developing a new product, and the process of funding through KickStarter. In particular also is the effects the pandemic has had on manufacturing, and business development.

We don’t often get an inside view of the processes and risks of new product development, unless you’ve been in the business, and done it yourself. Crowdfunding has opened parts of that, bringing others into the process as funders in a partially opening of the process.

When things go well, everyone is happy, and you might almost think that that is the way things are always. But it’s not. Things go badly, despite the hard work and dedication, experience and collective intelligence of all those involved. These sorts of things are hard to do, and there are real risks, risks that are nearly impossible to anticipate, even by the best.

Mike Beim’s post gives some view into the inside of that process.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=

The post also mentions the third party marketing and advertising done to promote, a KickStarter campaign, and drive it to success and increase the amounts of money raised. I don’t know much about this end of the crowdfunding business, but it makes sense that over the years that sort of 3rd party assistance would develop. Part of that is good, in that it makes fund raising more efficient, but it also increases the risk for others to game the system.

Anyone else have any thoughts on this ?

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#63

I’ve pulled this over to the Crowdfunding Thread, because my response is about what is OK and permissible to say regarding any crowdfunded project and not specific to the OffGrid product from birdkids.

Perhaps “and I really don’t like seeing any negativity” is just a manner of speech. If you mean negativity as lying to damage another then i would agree. But open truthful commentary to me is completely fair game.

To me once a company enters the commercial realm, and especially in the situation where someone has accepted another person’s money up-front, on the basis of a loose pledge to deliver a product in a certain timeframe, then truthful open comment about the delivery of that product is completely legitimate. Whether you like it or not.

In any marketplace, crowdfunding included, there needs to be rules and expectations — the very glue of commerce — that all participants follow, for that system to work, and thrive. It’s a freely struck agreement between two parties, and open comment by either side must be allowed.

One unwritten part of the “agreement”, is the idea of priority. The creator is offering priority access to a good in the future, in exchange for an up-front payment. This applies to pre-orders from a retailer, as well as the crowdfunding seller, as well as the commodity markets. Fortunately this part of the agreement is followed most of the time, despite it sometimes advantaging one side or the other in the agreement down the line, “in the future”.

What is it that is being offered for “up-front” money, beyond the altruistic reasons, when later on anyone can skip to the head of the line to buy a product ?

There are practical reasons when “priority” cannot be followed, but this needs to be an exception. Fortunately these sorts of exceptions are very uncommon, but when they do occur, like in this case, it is entirely legitimate to comment upon.

Now there are some specifics of the Kickstarter process, in particular their “comment space” which sits at the border of a place for free comment. I’ve concluded, that the “Kickstarter comment space” is not a good place to make free open comment, that it “belongs” in some sense to the seller.

But any comment made in a free and open forum like Elektronauts, given that it is truthful, is fair.

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#64

Yes I agree with “I’ve concluded, that the “Kickstarter comment space” is not a good place to make free open comment, that it “belongs” in some sense to the seller.” But one thing I feel with KickStarter (and other crowdfunding sites) is that it is NOT a consumer or a commercial agreement between the creator and a person, certainly not a pre-order but a pledge. I’m sure it’s a bit blurry and I tried to read KickStarter T&C’s but it’s not that clear. Anyways I did find this (which is a bit old so maybe not relevant anymore) … Crowdfunding and the Consumer - All Consuming Interests … but yes I agree any comment on an open forum is fair enough :slight_smile:

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#65

At least in the US it still counts as a contract, and has been enforced in court. That is also a very fringe exception though.

I’ve made comment about the Kickstarter Terms of Use Agreement before in another thread, specifically about that “seller” unilaterally refunding a “buyers” money, and as it was in that case, to curtail negative comments from that buyer.

TheTerms of Use Agreement at Kickstarter is a challenge to understand, and at points in my opinion, should be made better, but still worth understanding if you are investing a significant amount of money. Other crowdfunding sites are more balanced between buyer and seller, imo.

#66

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-08/kickstarter-blockchain-will-combine-crowdfunding-with-crypto

I hope everyone moves away from Kickstarter by this point. Seems they’re moving to taking even less responsibility for projects and fraud.

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#67

That Bloomberg article was a fun read. A couple of takes i have from it.

The article indicates consideration is being given by Kickstarter to the money going to blockchain organizations known as distributed autonomous organizations, or DAOs.

There is considerable irony, that one of those competing DAOs was created to buy ( a copy of ) the US Constitution, and that it failed ! :crazy_face:

The article also stated that “Kickstarter signaled to its venture capitalists that it wasn’t the sort of hyper-growth startup they thought it was.”

To me there is a considerable difference between the smaller projects that i think of when i think of crowdfunding, and these high rollers that are out to buy the US Constitution.

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#68

The difference is that the project is the product and thus it actively optimizes for grift, but there would be no chargebacks possible for the rubes/marks once they’ve had the onramp into crypto.

That Kickstarter is optimizing for fraud at this point reflects far worse on their traditional business.

Patreon seems to be doing much better at maintainable growth, as far as similar companies go.

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#69

Trouble seems to be brewing on Indiegogo around Folktek’s promised effects pedals. Had been tempted to dip in and buy, as they looked interesting, if a bit silly. But looking in a year after the project closed and all you can see is unhappy people shouting, I’m glad I decided not. Folktek claiming (perhaps understandably) issues around chip availability, etc. But does raise the question of the wisdom of launching something like this mid pandemic if they didn’t have the parts to hand, particularly as it looks like a product that was always going to be somewhat of a boutique/short run.

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#70

If you’ve supported anything on Kickstarter 2014 or before, did you get a notification they had a major data breech? I didn’t, but still get spam from such projects…

https://haveibeenpwned.com

Kickstarter: In February 2014, the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter announced they’d suffered a data breach. The breach contained almost 5.2 million unique email addresses, usernames and salted SHA1 hashes of passwords.

#71

I’ve only backed one project and I’m very glad I did. Complete transparency throughout the process. There were delays but totally justified and they were upfront about it all. Yes it feels like I am a beta tester now - mostly because I literally am installing beta firmware and sending feedback - but I’m fine with that honestly. Even with the base firmware it was an excellent product and it’s just getting better. It’s exciting to keep up with little changes and see the product evolve.

Would I back something again? Yes. But I’d make sure I checked out what people on Elektronauts were saying about it before I parted with the cash.

#72

There are currently two products open on Kickstarter that may be of interest to people here. Here are links to their threads.

Midronome

Sonicware SmplTrek

ADDED : The Midronome funding was stopped because they decided it was better to take more time to make some improvements and get things right. Sounds like a prudent but difficult decision. Expect them to make another offering in a few months.

#73

Ooof. I was also very tempted to go in for one of these. In the end, I decided not to and I have no regrets. This only solidifies that my instinct was right.

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