I’ve backed a few, perhaps most of us have. What are your thoughts ? What has been your experiences ?
This can be Kickstarter, or Indiegogo, or an independent offer. Let’s try to limit it to music gear—unless your story is that good !
You can talk about the psychology of it, or the risk, a GREAT deal, the benefit it’s given the little guy to do something special, the chance for larger ventures to cash in, the project that lasted forever, a favorite product, getting addicted to the process, or whatever.
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Stretch Goal — A rancorous argument.
Never saw anything I wanted badly enough to put out cash so far in advance. If something ended up being good I can (probably) always get it later.
I don’t tend to buy and sell as quickly as some people. Also, frankly, as bad as customer service is w some gear companies I feel like if you stick with you’ll eventually get satisfaction. These tiny garage start ups could totally disappear over night
I’ve backed a few. First one was bit frustrating because it said production was ready to go and the investment was to fund the first production run. After the kickstarter ended it there was a lot of prototypes being developed and obviously not ready to go into production. The money quickly dried up and seemed to be loads spent on jetting to events and playing the social media influencer game getting celebs to pose and tweet with the product.
2 years later I got mine but most are still waiting on theirs though covid is an understandable reason for the delay
It was an eye opener that projected results are just that, projected and not guaranteed
Have backed another as i do like the idea of helping to bring interesting products to market.
I hate crowdfunding. I´d never fund anything and I´d never ask people to “kickstart” my projects. You either believe in your product and take the financial risk or not. That does not mean that I don´t like small developers, I buy a lot of music from one-man labels or games from small developers.
I’ve never backed any music gear related projects but last autumn I backed Catalyst Games’ new Battletech expansion on Kickstarter. It was supposed to be released in march 2020, it still isn’t out. It’s a special year of course and all the backers have been very understanding but this really doesn’t encourage me to back other crowdfunding projects anytime soon.
I also recently bought an Isla Instruments Kordbot as someone was selling one secondhand here in Finland. I symphatise Brad and Isla with all my heart but at the same time, after reading all the horror stories, I’m truly happy that I didn’t back the project. It’s a beatiful piece of kit and I love mine to bits but I would’ve been devastated with all the setbacks and delays. Then again owning a Kordbot makes me even happier than owning a piece of gear that can be shop bought. It’s exclusivity certainly raises it’s appeal.
It’s a two edged sword. There’s a lot of great innovation that the big synth companies would never come up with but at the same time I’d like to stay safe and buy the stuff when it’s available. The whole paying in advance -thing doesn’t suit me well.
I’ve backed a couple of friends albums - I knew they were going to make them and got a few additional goodies.
Tech-wise I backed modal skulpt- disappointing build quality at any price but I like the sound. I didn’t back their next one and it’s kinda put me off them as a manufacturer. So good and bad.
Currently on Orba and nanoloop - both hit by Corona but the latter also with design changes. I’m happy to wait on both. Not expensive but interesting. Again good and bad.
Plenty of others looked tempting but I’m not a higher-stakes gambler , weren’t my bag. Bad, for my money, at least.
I can’t stand the ‘best pencil sharpener in the world’ for the umpteenth time - same with all those headphones and rucksack projects that litter those sites. The ugly.
I didn’t back the pebble watch when they first brought it to market, but bought a later revision at retail and loved it. Would have loved the next iteration but crowdfunding its production seemed like an odd choice if the company was in good shape…the good turned ugly.
I backed the stand alone nanoloop on kick starter and been waiting over a year for it. Supposedly they are now being assembled so that’s exciting. Totally not worried because I know Oliver Wittchow is a trustworthy person.
There’ve been a few that caught my fancy- and they’ve typically delivered.
But things didn’t sync up to where I actually put forth money towards it. I try to be zen and not buy new things(try). Or I just don’t have the spending money.
I’ve only contributed to one crowd funding thing and that was for OctaEdit 2.0 because it’s Rusty. Why wouldn’t I want to help a fellow Elektronaut that’s trying to help me?
Yeah I backed the nanoloop project, the price tearing and stuff all made sense. I think a lot of kickstarter stuff can feel a bit gross once it gets into crazy multi tiered pricing with bonuses that you would never know if you actually want unless you already had spent time with the product. Quantity limited early bird specials on digital goods. Celebrities or more famous musicians as selling points. Stuff like that very quickly feels like they are trying to take advantage of consumers and likely they didn’t need kickstarter as a platform at all, other than it is a decent way to extract money from people at no risk, perhaps getting people into a frenzy over timed special deals and getting some people bite on the product out of fear of missing out even if ultimately with more thought the person would realize the product wouldn’t be for them.
I’ve backed a few things. Most were within 6-9 months of the expectation. One was a “return” company, and delivered on schedule (I bought one of the Minaal brand bags after the 2.0. They had experience, parts, distribution, and manufacturing already set. Wasn’t their first rodeo.)
No regrets, really. I’m a decent judge of “has their shit together.” Also, I tend to get things because I’m interested in possibilities rather than “need.” So, missed deadlines, as long as communication is good, is fine. If I have an immediate need, I find a solution that’s currently available.
I have bought a few things from kickstarter. Never had an issue. But I have only bought from companies that already have their shit together and are basically using Kickstarter to get preorders on the entire run of what ever it they are making.
In my case, miniatures for tabletop games.
I backed 3 things on Kickstarter, all of them were late, and 2 of them changed in design slightly after backing, 1 of them I am still waiting for, nanoloop. I think I’m done with crowdfunding now, I prefer to wait until production starts then decide, like I did(n’t) with Blokas midi hub. (still undecided, but I did consider backing)
Two things I did not back but ended up buying were Pyramid and Carbon sequencers, like the Pyramid but Carbon was unfinished/open source at the time so I returned it, not sure how it developed after that, I think they did a U-turn and decided to update it.
I also contributed to OE for pretty much same reasons as Ryan.
As a Kickstarter-er: go into it with the idea that you are “KICKSTARTING” your company. and you are not doing it to make money. that comes after you’ve established your brand. And be sure, SURE, that you you plan out your deliverables with the right amount of padding for unforeseeable events.
AND be prepared that it is entirely possible you get more orders than you planned for, and DO NOT get caught up in popularity if your item blows up. set a deliverable constraint. you need to be ORGANIZED or you will run into troubles. make sure all your supplies or what ever you need is available to make all you promise.
As a Backer: I’ve only ever backed one. it was great. they were a little late, but they over booked , but the item was awesome. got an awesome blanket for camping. Rumple. QUALITY
my girl however is batting about 50%. some items were great. some did not werk. and there was no recourse as they vaporized with their failure. and some still haven’t arrived years later. I would suggest only backing actual companies that are doing kickstarters…they seem like they are doing costumer interest evaluation via Kickstarter. great cheap way of feeling out the market. OR only backing someone what has had a successful Kickstarter before.
other than that, I feel like its a roll of the dice.
I myself, even tho my backing was great, and the Kickstarter my girl did for her sculptures went better than planned…I will NEVER get involved again.
ill wait for a item that got kickstarted successfully then buy the retail version. its worth the extra bucks to know you get something that werks…and that you’ll get anything at all.
I backed a friends KS to produce a “High quality” plastic 35mm film camera, with rangefinder focusing. Plans were to add a 6x6. Basically, higher quality Holga cameras. I was only in it to support him and his family.
Within a few days he was flooded with hate mail over the “harmful film chemicals” killing baby dolphins and other ridiculous crap. There was a lot of support, and massive amounts of positive chatter from the Lo-fi/hipster community, but the hate and abuse snow balled and these people were recruiting crusty Greenies en mass to the point where he spent more time dealing with that. After a few months he was exhausted and his wife got sick of the explosion of door knocking charity collecting conservationists that just happened to always drive the point that they need to Kick Start the environment.
Total clusterflux! They returned all the funds and called it a day.
I’ve kickstarted a number of things from trustworthy people with the attitude that I’m expecting that they will finish the product or whatever it is that they’re working on, but I always look at the timeline as meaningless and I expect to receive it when it’s done, not at that date. That’s exactly what I came into nanoloop with, so I’m still feeling great about the project. The Liven8bit Warps from Sonicware is moving along like a freight train and will clearly ship, the weekly updates and videos have been awesome, so that was a great fit for KS.
I’ve only kick-started one thing thus far: the Eyesy from Critter and Guitari, which I’m currently waiting on. Covid has understandably delayed them a bit, but I think mine should arrive really soon…!
I had no worries backing them - they’re obviously a decent company with a reputation.
