its like a baby waldorf something in eurorack form.
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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.
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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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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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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 
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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.
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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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 ! 
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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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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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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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…
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.
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.
There are currently two products open on Kickstarter that may be of interest to people here. Here are links to their threads.
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.
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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Update to what is currently in the works with crowdfunded projects.
Overdue and still in process :
- SB01 Space Bee from Superlative
- Osmose from Expressive E
- Alter Pedal from Folktek, now 3Dio through acquisition. ( Not to be confused with 8Dio, a different company. )
Funded and in development :
- Profree-4 from PikoPiko Factory - Amazing level of update information, almost daily !
- SmplTrek from SONCWARE
Being funded currently :
- The Godfather from Enjoy Electronics
Soon to be offered ( or likely to be ) :
- Midronome ( being restarted )
- NINA from Melbourne Instruments
- Manatee from Fred’s Lab
ADDED : Melbourne Instruments has decided to offer NINA as a direct pre-order.
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Nope. And I was subscribed to their News & Events emails at the time, and got one in January 2014 and one in March 2014, but nothing about a breach.
Maybe that was before legislation requiring companies to inform users when their details are compromised.
About the birdkids offGrid comment on Kickstarter.
And we wish that we could reward every backer for the trust put in us, but that won’t likely happen.
…
We can’t wait to share with you the full story; stay tuned …
No that’s alright, you can stuff it. Perhaps instead of excuses they should deliver some units to people that in good faith offered support. Or at least agree to pay them back their money.
They’re quick to cite the risk to Buyers side of the Kickstarter agreement. They’re skipping the sellers side of the commitment and Kickstarter is quite explicit about that. I’d say those involved on the selling side, should not be allowed to walk away because they’re tired, or tired of it. Even financial hardship does not abrogate their commitment.
Sellers have to understand the risks of offering products on Kickstarter. Poor preparation, will absolutely destroy you. And also understand that the Kickstarter agreement, even as it is, does not free a Seller from the risk of a contract violation lawsuit.
Crowdfunding is in many situations a valuable and efficient means to create new products. Certain of the crowdfunding facilitators need to clean up their act regarding the Seller’s commitment.
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I funded one guy’s kickstarter that made a bunch of excuses, never delivered and threatened supporters with lawsuits when they complained. He started multiple new kickstarters despite admitting he would never deliver. That’s all I need to know about how kickstarter is run.
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This is just about the most crass thing I’ve ever read. What kind of sheltering from real life could possibly cause someone to be so glib?
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This is definitely on any facilitator, should they approve an offering of anyone that has already had a failed crowdfunded project. Period.
There is a process involved with approving a sellers offering. It is not in the facilitator’s interest to destroy the trust of investors by having failed projects.
There are other facilitators that take a large degree of care, and even offer assistance and help to partner with developers, to help assure success.
I think of the Mouser CrowdSupply, who are proud to say they are …
the only crowdfunding platform where every funded product has successfully been made and delivered to backers.
CrowdSupply doesn’t generally do musical projects, but does give a good example for how this sort of program could be done right.
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What does this even mean? Phrasing is not ideal.
Since I’m not financially entangled, I guess i can wait to hear the story…
I’m betting Kickstarter is going ahead with their plan to force people to back projects with worthless crypto tokens so they get less credit card chargebacks. It certainly doesn’t make ME trust Kickstarter any more when they’re not looking to vet projects any better only further distance themselves from liability for failed projects.