Kickstarter sucks at pre-orders (or: Why we pivoted)

Kickstarter sucks at preorders because (a) people use them for preorders and (b) they don't embrace the fact people use them for preorders. Why does it matter what they say in a blog post? Swish is reacting to how they see some people _use_ Kickstarter.

And what's wrong about having a place to discover cool things you can pre-order? I pre-ordered a Pocket Monkey on Swish a few months ago. It came this week and it's awesome.

When you list on Swish, you don't get the money until you deliver the product. Much like dealing with Target or Wal-Mart. If it never shows up, shoppers automatically get refunds after 1 year. This also really changes the incentives for creators... only list if you're sure it'll succeed.

Some creators need the money up front, but most don't. (Creating the prototype was comparably expensive, and they found a way.) Once you have the Purchase Order, it's a lot easier to get VC funding, a bank loan, or use friends/family/savings. If your project is very successful, you can deliver in batches and we will release your money accordingly.

One of the weird things about Kickstarter is that every product needs to explain why they need the money, even the ones that don't.