I've dabbled in kickstarters over the years, but my main exposure to them is through the podcast "Your Kickstarter Sucks". It's quite entertaining.
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
#42Consumer 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…
crowdsupply is almost entirely just making pcbs, which are literally the most straightforward thing in the world to get manufactured
The point is that crowdsupply vets projects that they are at a stage where a lot of it is actually just finishing design and manufacturing, or at least have a clear path there, instead of letting people imagine "we will have a PCB and software running on it, how hard can that be" and kickstart that. (because most electronics products are "straightforward to get manufactured" at some level, getting there and not overcomplicating it so it isn't anymore is the problem)
Re: The Cole-Bar Hammer, a 7-year old Kickstarter that is still going
#43Kickstarter campaigns are basically the modern day infomercials.
It’s all about having the perfect pitch video and impressive tram bios, getting shallow pro-forma coverage in all the tech blogs, and then name-dropping them all in order to bolster your image (along with the obligatory credulous pull quotes). Make sure your social media team keeps putting out updates, and don’t forget to add some ridiculous stretch goals for when you go viral.
Never mind that your team has never actually shipped a working product at scale before, and never mind that fulfilling all your reward tier posters and T-shirts will take nearly as time as delivering your actual product.
At least when you bought something off TV you’d actually get something. Sure, you’d have to wait 6-8 weeks for it to arrive, but that’s practically Amazon Prime compared to Kickstarter.
Re: The Cole-Bar Hammer, a 7-year old Kickstarter that is still going
#44I 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
I've play Star Citizen more then any other game in the last 5 years, well maybe on par with Skyrim. If you haven't seen it in a while the original scope of the game ( spaceship based sim ) is quite complete and polished. If all you want to do is hop in a ship, fight some pirates, do some pvp, missions or cargo hauling for credits to upgrade your ship or buy a new one its all there. Its a blast to play with a friend as most ships are multi-crew.
Re: The Cole-Bar Hammer, a 7-year old Kickstarter that is still going
#45This one is 5 years and never got delivered. I vowed to never do another KS type site ever again after this one.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1284726646/the-lampster...
Funny story though, I bought them as gifts for the 4 founders of our company. CEO went nuts after a year and the 3 of us eventually left. Company is still in business, is much hated on the internet and I hope one day he will get a nice delivery of 4 lamps and wonder where they came from.
Re: The Cole-Bar Hammer, a 7-year old Kickstarter that is still going
#46Anecdata: of the 36 projects (not including projects that failed to get backing) I have backed in the past 8 years: - 4 were outright scams (only 1 was caught and cancelled by KS) - 32 delivered, practically all were very delayed, sometimes by years. - Of the 32, most were as promised, but some turned out useless - At least half I regretted buying One thing that was very apparent (here as IRL) is that software projec…
My findings largely reflect this, but I have to admit that I stopped after about 10 projects. Now I will no longer do a KS, regardless of the product, or the founder, or the price. I'll just wait, pay full price later if it's worth it, and save myself the frustration and multiple "regrettable delay" notes.
Yes this. It took me too long to realize that the “discount” was rarely worth the risk and opportunity cost.
KS is really bad, but there are many other crowd sourcing efforts that are worth backing which wouldn’t be available otherwise. I have backed ~ 4 different FPGA dev board campaigns (not on KS).
EDIT: for example https://groupgets.com/campaigns/868-butterstick
Re: The Cole-Bar Hammer, a 7-year old Kickstarter that is still going
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
I've play Star Citizen more then any other game in the last 5 years, well maybe on par with Skyrim. If you haven't seen it in a while the original scope of the game ( spaceship based sim ) is quite complete and polished. If all you want to do is hop in a ship, fight some pirates, do some pvp, missions or cargo hauling for credits to upgrade your ship or buy a new one its all there. Its a blast to play with a friend a…
If you can run it. I have friends who spent hundreds on ships back in the day, but haven't upgraded their PCs in the meantime. They can no longer run it, as the specs have creeped up along with the features.
Re: The Cole-Bar Hammer, a 7-year old Kickstarter that is still going
#48Is that long? I backed a spinoff of Sierra's old Space Quest almost 9 years ago: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spaceventure/two-guys-s....
Still waiting patiently :)
Re: The Cole-Bar Hammer, a 7-year old Kickstarter that is still going
#49Anecdata: of the 36 projects (not including projects that failed to get backing) I have backed in the past 8 years: - 4 were outright scams (only 1 was caught and cancelled by KS) - 32 delivered, practically all were very delayed, sometimes by years. - Of the 32, most were as promised, but some turned out useless - At least half I regretted buying One thing that was very apparent (here as IRL) is that software projec…
I used to be super into my cooking knives, but after a decade of using everything from rubber handled target chef knives to 300+$ japanese art-work knives, I've learned that it's better to buy a 40 dollar chef knife every 3 years than a 200$ one every... 3 years.
Re: The Cole-Bar Hammer, a 7-year old Kickstarter that is still going
#50I 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…
How are they stringing them along? The Kickstarter can no longer receive funds. Do scammers typically provide updates for 7+ years after they stopped receiving money?