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Show HN: We open sourced Lockitron's crowdfunding app

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Re: Show HN: We open sourced Lockitron's crowdfunding app

#41

Post by akennberg »

rkaplan wrote: post #28

This 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…

I am currently running a Kickstarter campaign and I must say that this is far from being a trend. The run away success campaigns have a track record and a following, which is leveraged to create the initial PR push. Without hitting 20% funding very early on the project has very little chance of succeeding (kickstarter stats).

A lot of our pledging happened from traffic coming directly from Kickstarter. My guess here is that people that come to Kickstarter have an intent to back and they become shoppers. User lands on one cool project, gets excited, browses, which leads to other projects being discovered and potentially backed as well.

At the end of the day, it's a funnel and your project has to be discovered in order for some users to convert to backers. It's also about connecting your project with the right audience. By cutting out Kickstarter you cut out a large portion of users that are more likely to convert, reducing chance of initial social sharing, crazy trends that create press stories, etc. This is why I don't think this is a trend.

Re: Show HN: We open sourced Lockitron's crowdfunding app

#42

Post by nhangen »

rkaplan wrote: post #28

This 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…

We're testing this now with our IgnitionDeck product. I'm not here to self-promote, but wanted to say that I do believe your assertion to be correct, at least in part.

I think eventually, people will raise money on as many sites as they can, similar to offering multiple payment methods.

Re: Show HN: We open sourced Lockitron's crowdfunding app

#43

Post by nhangen »

comex wrote: post #38
rkaplan wrote: post #28

This 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…

As an insider, I'd be interested in talking to you more about that. Check my profile for contact info.

Re: Show HN: We open sourced Lockitron's crowdfunding app

#44

Post by ccamrobertson »

akennberg wrote: post #41
rkaplan wrote: post #28

This 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…

I am currently running a Kickstarter campaign and I must say that this is far from being a trend. The run away success campaigns have a track record and a following, which is leveraged to create the initial PR push. Without hitting 20% funding very early on the project has very little chance of succeeding (kickstarter stats). A lot of our pledging happened from traffic coming directly from Kickstarter. My guess here…

I agree - I believe that hardware products that are accepted to Kickstarter should still leverage its inherent momentum. Based on reports from project creators, I have heard anywhere from 30-50% of traffic comes sources internal to Kickstarter.

Re: Show HN: We open sourced Lockitron's crowdfunding app

#46

Post by eichin »

ryanlchan wrote: post #23

I'm curious to see what happens to Amazon FPS if these product based crowd-funding apps take off. We may be in for a bit of a Paypal style crackdown debacle. I actually spoke with the Kickstarter guys back in 2009 when I was considering branching off their idea specifically for product based ideas, thinking that it could be "Amazon for stuff that doesn't exist yet". We all agreed that the idea should happen, but Kick…

I'm surprised that the idea that anyone other than the backers are going to lose money keeps coming up; it's always looked pretty clear to me (even though I've gotten rewards delivered from around 30 out of 45 projects, mostly hardware, and the remaining ones are still pretty visible and active - past success doesn't feel like a guarantee on anyone's part, it's just pretty cool.) It's helped that I'm pretty well-qualified to judge these projects, though the only ones that looked unlikely to actually deliver have been really obvious (the "projector" that was supposed to be something mini-maglite sized that plugged into an iPhone headphone jack comes to mind) so it's not like it's actually taken all that much effort :-)

It also seems like the small-donation structure should make it difficult for any individual to have cause for action; I see some of KickStarter's recent changes as not wanting to even get into that fight, but that's because even winning would be expensive (and as has been suggested elsewhere in the thread, they're actually in it for the indie films.)

Or do you mean just the popularity risk, if enough projects don't deliver?

Re: Show HN: We open sourced Lockitron's crowdfunding app

#49

Post by tonylampada »

noonespecial wrote: post #21

Outstanding. I was going to try to contact you privately and beg for advice on how to run something similar. My hats so far off to you guys, it's on the floor in front of me. Can't wait for my Lockitron to arrive.

Awesome idea. You should consider adopting http://freedomsponsors.org and http://gittip.com as crowdfunding platforms for that - it just makes sense, recursively so. :-)

Re: Show HN: We open sourced Lockitron's crowdfunding app

#50

Post by jfornear »

ryanlchan wrote: post #23

I'm curious to see what happens to Amazon FPS if these product based crowd-funding apps take off. We may be in for a bit of a Paypal style crackdown debacle. I actually spoke with the Kickstarter guys back in 2009 when I was considering branching off their idea specifically for product based ideas, thinking that it could be "Amazon for stuff that doesn't exist yet". We all agreed that the idea should happen, but Kick…

It seems to be understood that crowdfunding only guarantees an attempt at realizing an idea. Backlash will only be warranted when crowdfunding is used for anything other than an honest attempt. I think reasonable people agree that money can't buy success, so failure is and will continue to be an accepted outcome.
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