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Tindie says forget Kickstarter

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1–10 of 25 posts

Re: Tindie says forget Kickstarter

#2
Hey HN,

Just saw this was picking up steam so if you have any questions, happy to answer them! Some might remember me from my posts a few years ago when I quit my job to learn how to code. Happy to answer any of those questions as well...

Emile

Founder of Tindie

Re: Tindie says forget Kickstarter

#3
I've been a member of the maker community for several years now - buying purple PCBs, selling kits, going to Maker Faire's, etc.

I have a lot of friends, myself included, who started selling their items on Ebay, PayPal's button, or some variant of Magento. Nearly all of them have moved their shops to Tindie. When I was at PyCon, I happened to run into people I knew (independently!) at their booth.

I'm still not sure exactly how they'll reach profitability (they only take 5%) and I'd love to see better tools for sellers (a la shipping.) But I really like what these folks are doing!

Re: Tindie says forget Kickstarter

#4
post #3

I've been a member of the maker community for several years now - buying purple PCBs, selling kits, going to Maker Faire's, etc. I have a lot of friends, myself included, who started selling their items on Ebay, PayPal's button, or some variant of Magento. Nearly all of them have moved their shops to Tindie. When I was at PyCon, I happened to run into people I knew (independently!) at their booth. I'm still not sure…

thanks @memset!

Re: Tindie says forget Kickstarter

#5

Hey HN, Just saw this was picking up steam so if you have any questions, happy to answer them! Some might remember me from my posts a few years ago when I quit my job to learn how to code. Happy to answer any of those questions as well... Emile Founder of Tindie

My dad and I have ordered all sorts of cool stuff off of Tindie, from Launchpad Boosterpacks to RGB LED matrices. I just wanted to say thanks for this cool service you've provided to sellers and buyers alike!

Re: Tindie says forget Kickstarter

#6
post #5

Hey HN, Just saw this was picking up steam so if you have any questions, happy to answer them! Some might remember me from my posts a few years ago when I quit my job to learn how to code. Happy to answer any of those questions as well... Emile Founder of Tindie

My dad and I have ordered all sorts of cool stuff off of Tindie, from Launchpad Boosterpacks to RGB LED matrices. I just wanted to say thanks for this cool service you've provided to sellers and buyers alike!

Sure thing! Glad we could help!

Re: Tindie says forget Kickstarter

#7
Sounds like it is for already created products, so is for a different audience than kickstarter. Although, honestly, if I were a maker I'd just pick the one with more traffic and customize or V2 to qualify for kickstarter if I had to since it gets a lot more eyeballs and eyeballs are where the money is.

Re: Tindie says forget Kickstarter

#8
post #7

Sounds like it is for already created products, so is for a different audience than kickstarter. Although, honestly, if I were a maker I'd just pick the one with more traffic and customize or V2 to qualify for kickstarter if I had to since it gets a lot more eyeballs and eyeballs are where the money is.

Oh, I don't know. I don't think I'm alone in enjoying making things and sharing them when feasible... but am not that interested in running a real business doing it.

I realize that I'll never make enough income to replace a normal job building this sort of stuff, so a way to make small runs of useful things and actually get them to people who are interested sounds pretty appealing.

As is, I just post stuff I'm making on blog.saikoled.com, but when I have some time I'll definitely look at putting up useful gadgets on something like this. I just don't have the interest to quit working on my real company, get enough investment/funding to make a serious product, and deal with the stress of pitching it to people on kickstarter =P

Re: Tindie says forget Kickstarter

#9
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad and I have ordered all sorts of cool stuff off of Tindie, from Launchpad Boosterpacks to RGB LED matrices. I just wanted to say thanks for this cool service you've provided to sellers and buyers alike!

Sure thing! Glad we could help!

How was your experience teaching yourself how to code?

Re: Tindie says forget Kickstarter

#10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure thing! Glad we could help!

How was your experience teaching yourself how to code?

Saved up, took a year off, and just went at it. Having friends that knew Python definitely helped when Stackoverflow couldn't help. Usually that was because I was asking the question/thinking of the problem wrong.
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