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The Cole-Bar Hammer, a 7-year old Kickstarter that is still going

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Re: The Cole-Bar Hammer, a 7-year old Kickstarter that is still going

#11

Post by DanBC »

jasongill wrote: post #6

I think the "still going after 7 years" means "still hasn't been released after 7 years". It was supposed to be for sale in 2014 and still hasn't shipped yet (from what I can find in Google). The creators have been stringing along their backers for the better part of a decade. As far as utility, it seems like more of a gimmick than something that would get regular use. I can't think of a time when I've been working o…

But also, hammers for framing or demolition already exist and are very good.

Martinez M1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8AOrkfR1WM

A bunch of different hammers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DabECxs3WhU

Re: The Cole-Bar Hammer, a 7-year old Kickstarter that is still going

#12

Post by camillomiller »

anonAndOn wrote: post #7
jasongill wrote: post #6

I think the "still going after 7 years" means "still hasn't been released after 7 years". It was supposed to be for sale in 2014 and still hasn't shipped yet (from what I can find in Google). The creators have been stringing along their backers for the better part of a decade. As far as utility, it seems like more of a gimmick than something that would get regular use. I can't think of a time when I've been working o…

Maybe they'll make it out of titanium and go after the ultralight tool enthusiast market? It'll never get used, but damn it's light!

I was writing a comment asking what's the point of a lighter hammer, then I realized that a lighter hammer you can swing faster is actually exponentially more effective than a heavier hammer. KE = 1/2mv^2 babe! Physics, bi*ch! :)

Re: The Cole-Bar Hammer, a 7-year old Kickstarter that is still going

#13

Post by auxym »

anonAndOn wrote: post #7
jasongill wrote: post #6

I think the "still going after 7 years" means "still hasn't been released after 7 years". It was supposed to be for sale in 2014 and still hasn't shipped yet (from what I can find in Google). The creators have been stringing along their backers for the better part of a decade. As far as utility, it seems like more of a gimmick than something that would get regular use. I can't think of a time when I've been working o…

Maybe they'll make it out of titanium and go after the ultralight tool enthusiast market? It'll never get used, but damn it's light!

One of the features of a hammer is its weight. If you want a lighter hammer you can just buy a smaller one. But people buy 1 lb hammers specifically because they weigh 1 lb.

Re: The Cole-Bar Hammer, a 7-year old Kickstarter that is still going

#14

Post by noncoml »

ohazi wrote: post #10

Consumer crowdfunding websites like kickstarter and indiegogo have largely failed to live up to their early hype. Campaigns now fall into two categories: designer vaporware from people you've never heard of, and established companies that don't need crowdfunding but are using it anyway for marketing purposes. On the other hand... niche crowdfunding websites like Crowd Supply seem to be doing better than ever. There a…

> More modest goals

More modest than building a hammer? As they say in their promotion page, we have been building hammers for tens of thousands of years now...

Re: The Cole-Bar Hammer, a 7-year old Kickstarter that is still going

#15

Post by scrollaway »

ohazi wrote: post #10

Consumer crowdfunding websites like kickstarter and indiegogo have largely failed to live up to their early hype. Campaigns now fall into two categories: designer vaporware from people you've never heard of, and established companies that don't need crowdfunding but are using it anyway for marketing purposes. On the other hand... niche crowdfunding websites like Crowd Supply seem to be doing better than ever. There a…

Yeah. I'm wondering if there's somewhere that actively tracks this stuff, especially the popular ones.

The park & diamond helmet for example (https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/park-diamond-foldable-bik...) raised over 2.5MM EUR and I lost track of how late it is but they've easily sent 10-15 updates saying "sorry, we didn't get it in time for [MONTH], but we'll be ready in [MONTH+2], promise!". They gave me a refund when I asked for one, at least, and since then I've only seen more of the same.

Hard to tell if it's a scam or utter incompetence.

Re: The Cole-Bar Hammer, a 7-year old Kickstarter that is still going

#16

Post by D13Fd »

AlexandrB wrote: post #9
jasongill wrote: post #6

I think the "still going after 7 years" means "still hasn't been released after 7 years". It was supposed to be for sale in 2014 and still hasn't shipped yet (from what I can find in Google). The creators have been stringing along their backers for the better part of a decade. As far as utility, it seems like more of a gimmick than something that would get regular use. I can't think of a time when I've been working o…

I think the king of stringing along backers is still Star Citizen who - 8+ years after the original Kickstarter[1] - are still taking crowdfunding money with no finished product in sight. [1] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen

Agreed. I think it’s unlikely that they will ever have a finished product. They’ll probably coast until the magical money spigot runs out, then fold quickly.

Re: The Cole-Bar Hammer, a 7-year old Kickstarter that is still going

#17

Post by dragontamer »

ohazi wrote: post #10

Consumer crowdfunding websites like kickstarter and indiegogo have largely failed to live up to their early hype. Campaigns now fall into two categories: designer vaporware from people you've never heard of, and established companies that don't need crowdfunding but are using it anyway for marketing purposes. On the other hand... niche crowdfunding websites like Crowd Supply seem to be doing better than ever. There a…

> and established companies that don't need crowdfunding but are using it anyway for marketing purposes.

There are also groups who are using crowdfunding to check-and-see if a video game (or whatever) has enough fans to be worth greenlighting.

See Mighty No 9, or Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night.

If a Kickstarter campaign is successful, then the investors dive in with the rest of the money to greenlight the project. If it fails, then they kill the project right there and then.

Mighty No 9 and Bloodstained have their share of issues, but I think the methodology has been proven to work. "Proving worth to investors" is a real step in the process.

Re: The Cole-Bar Hammer, a 7-year old Kickstarter that is still going

#18

Post by egypturnash »

ohazi wrote: post #10

Consumer crowdfunding websites like kickstarter and indiegogo have largely failed to live up to their early hype. Campaigns now fall into two categories: designer vaporware from people you've never heard of, and established companies that don't need crowdfunding but are using it anyway for marketing purposes. On the other hand... niche crowdfunding websites like Crowd Supply seem to be doing better than ever. There a…

Crowdfunding still works great for independent comics. "Hey I drew this thing and now I want to use KS/IG as a way to manage pre-orders" is a proven, solid part of an artist's revenue stream.

My general rule of thumb is to avoid hardware campaigns, and to be exceedingly dubious about any campaigns that are asking for enough money for a creator to live on while they make a thing unless they have a long track record of delivering.

And any campaign that meets a lot of stretch goals should probably be expected to take at least twice as long to deliver, if not more; sometimes I think it would be really worthwhile for Kickstarter to build active support for stretch goals into their platform, that trigger changes in the delivery date promised on the page when met, because "add four more levels and two playable characters to the scope of this video game" sure is gonna take some more time to build.

Re: The Cole-Bar Hammer, a 7-year old Kickstarter that is still going

#19

Post by mc32 »

ohazi wrote: post #10

Consumer crowdfunding websites like kickstarter and indiegogo have largely failed to live up to their early hype. Campaigns now fall into two categories: designer vaporware from people you've never heard of, and established companies that don't need crowdfunding but are using it anyway for marketing purposes. On the other hand... niche crowdfunding websites like Crowd Supply seem to be doing better than ever. There a…

The one use I see in the news is people who suffer some economic loss _and_ have some news notoriety set up a campaigns in an attempt to earn sympathy donations (not saying it's wrong to do, but rather it’s very few people under hardship shared by many who leverage their news status and get more donations than someone who was not in the news).

Re: The Cole-Bar Hammer, a 7-year old Kickstarter that is still going

#20

Post by detaro »

ohazi wrote: post #10

Consumer crowdfunding websites like kickstarter and indiegogo have largely failed to live up to their early hype. Campaigns now fall into two categories: designer vaporware from people you've never heard of, and established companies that don't need crowdfunding but are using it anyway for marketing purposes. On the other hand... niche crowdfunding websites like Crowd Supply seem to be doing better than ever. There a…

Lots of successful kickstarters are artists, musicians, ... that can't prefund a production run, but have a product that's a clear scope of how this kind of thing is made (book, artprints, ...) and a large chunk of the work already done. That is still not 100% risk free, but an overall success outside your two categories.
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