This is how it should be. Most of the kickstarter projects get funded after doing lot of promotions and leveraging founders's own social network. Kickstarter taking % cut of the fund is completely unnecessary in many situations. They do provide some kind of project validation which is important in high-risk projects.
Show HN: We open sourced Lockitron's crowdfunding app
31–40 of 77 posts
Re: Show HN: We open sourced Lockitron's crowdfunding app
#32Nice job guys! This is pretty awesome stuff.
Re: Show HN: We open sourced Lockitron's crowdfunding app
#33Looks like Kickstarter is going to end up being known as the company that (kick)started a phenomenon but didn't own it. They should have become a marketplace for projects, not an arbiter of what gets a shot and what doesn't.
true talk. Their failure to do that and trying to be a gate keeper and dictating what gets a shot might be their bane.
Re: Show HN: We open sourced Lockitron's crowdfunding app
#34Looks like Kickstarter is going to end up being known as the company that (kick)started a phenomenon but didn't own it. They should have become a marketplace for projects, not an arbiter of what gets a shot and what doesn't.
I think they thought this through. They probably realized they couldn't own all of crowd funding. Wouldn't it be weird seeing a "Fund my new convenience store" on kickstarter. Instead they do own creative projects, which is brilliant because that's where innovation happens.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1877926324/plenty-a-groc...
It's not the only one...
Kickstarter's new policy is about them not wanting to act as an online store, not about taking away the "fund my new convenience store" vs creative projects. Its more about them not wanting to be used by anyone (creative projects included) as if they are there to basically be a selling platform. At least thats how I viewed it.
Re: Show HN: We open sourced Lockitron's crowdfunding app
#35Looks like Kickstarter is going to end up being known as the company that (kick)started a phenomenon but didn't own it. They should have become a marketplace for projects, not an arbiter of what gets a shot and what doesn't.
Interestingly they don't seem to want to own the whole phenomenon. Which could be a good thing for what they want to achieve. They want to focus on creative projects over being a platform to fund anything or a store with little accountability.
The attention and revenues they would generate from having bigger and more successful products (revenue size wise) would benefit the smaller creative projects IMHO.
Re: Show HN: We open sourced Lockitron's crowdfunding app
#36Thanks for sharing this with the community!
Re: Show HN: We open sourced Lockitron's crowdfunding app
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think they thought this through. They probably realized they couldn't own all of crowd funding. Wouldn't it be weird seeing a "Fund my new convenience store" on kickstarter. Instead they do own creative projects, which is brilliant because that's where innovation happens.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1877926324/plenty-a-groc... It's not the only one... Kickstarter's new policy is about them not wanting to act as an online store, not about taking away the "fund my new convenience store" vs creative projects. Its more about them not wanting to be used by anyone (creative projects included) as if they are there to basically be a selling platform. At least thats how I viewed it.
You're right about the new policy.
A Better example would have been.. http://gofundme.com/
Noble projects but the company isn't as successful with general crowdfunding vs kickstarters creative market.
Re: Show HN: We open sourced Lockitron's crowdfunding app
#38This could start a trend towards moving away from Kickstarter. So far, the more famous projects that have pursued funding from a similar model without using Kickstarter itself (e.g. Lockitron, App.net) have done so out of necessity – they weren't allowed to use the Kickstarter platform. But if people keep succeeding without being hosted on Kickstarter itself, that 5% fee might look more and more unattractive to peopl…
As someone with no particular experience other than backing a few Kickstarter projects, app.net, and Star Citizen, I like the uniform visual layout, structure (regular updates by email, money is always refunded if the project isn't funded), and regulation (no possibly misleading renderings of hardware) of Kickstarter: it increases my confidence in something inherently full of uncertainty. But I don't know how much of that is real benefit and how much is merely emotional. At least Kickstarter would have prevented robertsspaceindustries.com from falling over from load yesterday was harmful, and it wouldn't have allowed them to have "refund if not funded" unchecked by default...
Re: Show HN: We open sourced Lockitron's crowdfunding app
#39A couple months ago, I had added "kickstarter widget for start-up websites" to my list of ideas that I never do, but think are cool. This is a really wonderful open-source contribution, so hat tip! We also ordered a Lockitron for our office already. We have keypads on our house, and we love them, and imagine Lokcitron will be even more love.
I still believe there is room for a proper platform to manage crowdfunding for hardware - maybe with a distributed option as well.
Maybe Amazon would be in the best position to do it.
Re: Show HN: We open sourced Lockitron's crowdfunding app
#40A couple months ago, I had added "kickstarter widget for start-up websites" to my list of ideas that I never do, but think are cool. This is a really wonderful open-source contribution, so hat tip! We also ordered a Lockitron for our office already. We have keypads on our house, and we love them, and imagine Lokcitron will be even more love.
I still believe there is room for a proper platform to manage crowdfunding for hardware - maybe with a distributed option as well.
I agree - integrated design coordination, manufacturing and fulfillment is just waiting to happen.. and explode.