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Kickstarter Sets Off $7 Million Stampede for a Watch Not Yet Made

nytimes.com

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Re: Kickstarter Sets Off $7 Million Stampede for a Watch Not Yet Made

#3
I'm trying to decide if Kickstarter is the blossoming of a new way to do business, or a bubble fueled by a few hits that came at the same time.

I'm hoping it's the former, as I've got a campaign going to print a comic book that's close to being funded, and I'm hoping to have it around as a viable option to repeat this stunt to fund future books, and ultimately maybe even support myself this way. The limited duration makes stuff MOVE which is great.

Re: Kickstarter Sets Off $7 Million Stampede for a Watch Not Yet Made

#4

I'm trying to decide if Kickstarter is the blossoming of a new way to do business, or a bubble fueled by a few hits that came at the same time. I'm hoping it's the former, as I've got a campaign going to print a comic book that's close to being funded, and I'm hoping to have it around as a viable option to repeat this stunt to fund future books, and ultimately maybe even support myself this way. The limited duration…

It's hard to see kickstarter as the same type of bubble we saw in real estate or web 1.0. That type of bubble is driven by investor group think leading to absurd valuations.

Kickstarter is based on purchases (or donations), not investments. In other words, I don't think people are paying irrational amounts for your comic book because Kickstarter is so hot right now.

Now, if the pebble watch I just bought turns out to be a POS, I'm probably going to be a lot less likely to buy other new untested products on Kickstarter. So, a few high profile flameouts could damper the whole marketplace, but I don't think could lead to value crushing collapse like when a bubble bursts.

Good luck with your comics!

Re: Kickstarter Sets Off $7 Million Stampede for a Watch Not Yet Made

#5

Love this line: “The terms on Kickstarter are more attractive than any bank loan or venture capital amount”

I wonder if this will make angels worry, the same way that angels made VCs worry. And if so, I wonder if we'll be seeing better terms for future founders from the old system investors.

Re: Kickstarter Sets Off $7 Million Stampede for a Watch Not Yet Made

#7
A word of warning for anyone considering funding a software project through KickStarter: they may reject it.

I recently spotted this blog post written by a team trying to fund the development of an iPhone app:

http://famnerd.com/2012/02/update-famnerd-rejected-by-kickst...

Re: Kickstarter Sets Off $7 Million Stampede for a Watch Not Yet Made

#8

Unless I'm missing something, Kickstarter sure seems like the closest thing I've seen to a tool that enables closer-to-perfect price discrimination.

That's an excellent point that I haven't seen anyone else make yet about Kickstarter, and does help to explain a bit of their runaway success. Though it does seem rather obvious that a higher level of transparency and a stronger customer-maker bond would also be useful in capturing a greater amount of the consumer surplus than an average, faceless megacorp would.

Re: Kickstarter Sets Off $7 Million Stampede for a Watch Not Yet Made

#10
post #5

Love this line: “The terms on Kickstarter are more attractive than any bank loan or venture capital amount”

I wonder if this will make angels worry, the same way that angels made VCs worry. And if so, I wonder if we'll be seeing better terms for future founders from the old system investors.

It might but there's a couple of reasons that Angels/VCs need not lose too much sleep. Kickstarter only accepts "projects" that have an end point. To be fair, they're perhaps loose in their application of this, but generally speaking, the project needs a finish point. For example, Pebble will ship the core product, a completed watch.

When it comes to software/web apps, there's a less definitive end point. Games seem to get through ok, because they reach a pretty clear release point. "Projects" like Instagram would likely not have made it through as a Kickstarter project, because they're designed to be iterated on. Getting to the "first release" is not generally what Kickstarter accepts... unless you're Diaspora... or anything open source.

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