Kickstarter is Not a Store

http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/kickstarter-is-not-a-store

by benackles • 14 years ago

428 170 14 years ago

majormajor• 14 years ago

I think the move from product simulations/renderings to solely being able to show what the product can do now is a great change. I've been critical about some of the usages of Kickstarter in the past, but this addresses a big part of my concerns.

I do hope that it doesn't keep products that are in a rough state from being able to be successful, though if somethings really that complex that you need to raise a lot of money to have a marketable prototype, let alone bring it to market, I don't think Kickstarter donations are the way to fund it.

andrewljohnson• 14 years ago

What a measured, interesting, and social response.

As programmers, we often try and fix things with code, but it's cool to see Kickstarter improve their product by thinking about what questions the creators should be asking. I also agree that hardware makers do themselves and other a disservice by showing space age renderings of their products.

stefanobernardi• 14 years ago

This is a very honorable move from Kickstarter, forcing themselves to follow their mission vs immediate revenues.

This is how every company should operate. And this will definitely improve their long-term shape and revenues.

saurik• 14 years ago

It isn't just revenues: having people who think they are buying things (or probably worse: think they are selling things) but aren't really (as there are risks and this is all just contributing money to possible futures) has legal and accounting (eg. sales tax) ramifications that kickstarter was not previously, not seemed to have any signs of in the future, addressing.

waterlesscloud4• 14 years ago

Hmm.

They needed to make some sort of move, but banning simulations and renderings (Really?) seems to be terrible overkill.

If anything, this move makes it much more a store. You can only put up products that exist. There's no funding of development.

Not sure this is a good solution on their part.

EDIT: Fully in support of the "Risks and Challenges" section. Makes it like an investment prospectus.

nettdata• 14 years ago

I agree. I think a good compromise would be to ensure that anything that was a simulation or rendering was very obviously labeled as such, so that there would be absolutely no doubt in the viewer's mind.

guelo2• 14 years ago

The problems is skilled designers are starting to pull off big time scams fooling people for hundreds of thousands of dollars. People see realistic renderings of a hoverboard or whatever and they immediately open their wallets without realizing that their is very little chance that they will be able to pull it off. If people see a skateboard with some glued-on fans they will be much more skeptical.

sharkweek• 14 years ago

I asked this a while back and the answer was pretty much "no" -- but I'm curious if that's changed. Have there recently been any high profile examples of fraud through crowdfunding sites?

jonnathanson2• 14 years ago

Can we actually prove fraud in any of these cases, though? I'm not saying it can't happen, or that it hasn't happened. But we should never attribute to malice what can be more readily attributed to stupidity. I'm more inclined to believe that a bunch of people got in over their heads than that a bunch of people intentionally scammed backers.

I may be wrong. But can someone point to some concrete examples? Fraud is a pretty heavy charge to level against Kickstarter projects, and it's also an indirect accusation that Kickstarter is a hotbed of such activity.

Angostura• 14 years ago

A pragmatic approach would be to enforce the inclusion of a 'This is only a rendered mock-up' -type standard badges on the images.

AJ0072• 14 years ago

Do you have links for Kickstarter projects you think are outright scams?

siganakis2• 14 years ago

There is a world of difference between a physical working prototype and product that you can deliver in commercial quantities.

I guess Kickstarter is aiming to fund physical projects that already have a working prototype and require funding to deliver in large quantities.

It seems fair to me, as the person requesting funding should be required to have put in a fair amount of effort beyond a flashy 3 minute video promising the world. A working prototype seems to be a fair bar.

ghshephard6• 14 years ago

I think that Kickstarter is happiest with the things like ElevationDock - a fully functional prototype, that they just had to figure out how to manufacture in large quantities.

They certainly had their challenges - but would have had no chance without a big group of people ordering up front.

samspot• 14 years ago

I don't think it says anywhere that the prototype has to work. I'm reading this in a way that says I have to show what I've already accomplished. It is ok if the prototype doesn't work yet, and I think it is ok to expect the project creators to do some of the work before they create a kickstarter project.

ghshephard6• 14 years ago

The problem with Renderings/simulations is that people believe that things like: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/limemouse/lifx-the-light... actually exist, when they are just concepts right now.

mcphilip2• 14 years ago

Cynically, I wonder if this policy change was not prompted by Kickstarter's own doubts about the lifx team being able to deliver. After all, this is the same team that couldn't meet demand for their custom cardboard box project.

I wonder if in the future there will be a requirement to limit the number of backers on every project. Logically there seems to be a point where additional money from backers over what was asked for leads to difficulty delivering at all.

For instance, say I could make 10 custom widgets a month at $100 a piece. I might decide to launch a Kickstarter project asking for $1200 to gauge if at least 10 other people are interested in my fancy innovative widget. What happens if I end up raising $12000? My target of 20% profit on each widget is no longer possible unless the backers are willing to wait up to 10 months for me to deliver. The only other option is to invest money into producing widgets in larger volume to meet this initial demand. That investment would only make sense if there were some reasonable expectation that demand would stay at the same level after the Kickstarter project ended.

So back to my original cynicism, maybe Kickstarter sees signs that some very good marketers are having enormous success with Kickstarter projects whilst being in completely over their heads...

Lerc• 14 years ago

I agree that they needed to do something. That something is totally not this. This feels like they want to do whatever is the least amount of work.

Kickstarter is supposed to be a service, for a share of the income they are supposed to facilitate the connection between creators and audience. Rubber stamping an increasingly bureaucratic set of rules is not the way to do this.

A better solution would have been to add the ability for prospective supporters to voice queries and concerns where they could be seen prominently on the page. Right now it seems the creators receive questions and pick the ones they want to answer and place an update answering the questions.

Even better would be to have Kickstarter assess the creators claims on their ability to deliver and assess queries raised by prospective supporters. That would be a real service offering real value, it would also cost real money. Right now Kickstarter's revenue comes from the fact that Kickstarter is popular. The thing that makes creators choose Kickstarter over another platform is almost entirely due to prominence. That cannot be sustained. Eventually it will have to rest on quality of service. The current set of changes do not increase the quality of service.

SoftwareMaven• 14 years ago

Even better would be to have Kickstarter assess the creators claims on their ability to deliver and assess queries raised by prospective supporters.

I can't imagine that will ever happen. If they vetted projects or teams, it would probably put some liability on their shoulders. They are going to do everything they can to prevent that.

Tsagadai• 14 years ago

Something must be done or their (kickstarter's) business may collapse. Banning renderings will probably cut down a bit on expectations not matching delivery, which presently is a problem. Quite a few projects seem to have underestimated the difficulties of quality control and mass production.

However, it is still pretty easy to get a nice milled or extruded aluminium block and call it a prototype so I don't think it will completely eliminate unscrupulous frauds.

AJ0072• 14 years ago

Yeah but that "prototype" may not look nearly as amazing as a flashy 3D animation.

Is what kickstarter asking that unreasonable? (other than their lawyers probably told them do this now or suffer consequences that could mean no more business.) If someone can't produce a physical prototype of an item, do they really deserve hundreds of thousands or a million dollars?

frankdenbow• 14 years ago

Its only for product design and hardware projects, which seems reasonable for physical items.

andrewflnr• 14 years ago

If the problem is that people who see realistic renderings feel that the product already exists, a hand-drawn (but still accurate) rendering would allow people to see that the owner sort of knows what they're doing without getting their hopes up. Maybe the same would apply to detailed plans, or other obviously-not-the-product visual design documentation.

lambda• 14 years ago

> You can only put up products that exist.

That's not true. You can demonstrate prototypes. What you can't do is just whip something up in Blender, do a nice rendering, and then start selling it with with the rewards being "1 widget, 2 widgets, 5 widgets, 10 widgets, 20 widgets", with no indication that you've actually done your homework to say if this is even possible.

They want people to actually have some sort of prototype, something to show for their work, rather than just a slick graphical presentation and reward system that implies that it's far closer to completion than it actually is.

robomartin6• 14 years ago

I think they are right in being careful. It's about time.

I use Solidworks for mechanical design and Modo for photorealistic rendering. I assure you that, with enough skill and effort, one can make photorealistic renderings that, to the uninformed, look like the product is ready to go and that the funding is a mere formality. No, Kickstarter did the right thing here.

That said, I am hoping that they will allow 3D renderings and animations as added illustrations if and ONLY if one shows actual realized versions of the proposed hardware in the project. The reason I say this is that 3D renderings and animations are extremely useful tools for the communication of function and some ideas that might be hard or impossible to convey using actual hardware. A good example is a cross-sectional cut showing moving parts.

mtgx• 14 years ago

I tend to agree with you. They just need to stop the project guys asking for "pre-order" types of donations. Or make them not send the product to the backers for that they're paying.

It should be 100% clear that it's just a donation, whether it's $10, $100 or $1000. But you're not getting any product for that donation, until the product launches, when you can go and buy it.

diminoten• 14 years ago

Use your words instead of a cool Photoshop to describe what you intend on making.

ja2ke• 14 years ago

I think we're just going to see a rise in more "architectural" styled development renderings, over fully polished marketing-style imagery. I welcome that.

fruchtose2• 14 years ago

Personally, I would prefer a hybrid approach--projects cannot show only simulations/rendering. If a project presents these things, it must also present the current state of the ideas being rendered.

You're developing a spacefaring action game? By all means, show me that you want to have planets, stars, and space pirates--but if all you have right now is a spaceship object floating in an environment without a skybox, I want to see that, too.

guelo2• 14 years ago

The rendering ban only applies to hardware products. Video games are not affected.

fruchtose2• 14 years ago

Looks like I skimmed too quickly then.

lifeformed• 14 years ago

Renderings seem useful in helping viewers visualize what the goal is. Maybe instead they should enforce that renders have to have an accompanying text disclaimer? Kind of like medicine commercials and their side effects.

steve8918• 14 years ago

This is a good idea, kudos to them for making this move to help alleviate a lot confusion on behalf of funders.

I think what they need to do is have milestones for their project that can get vetted by Kickstarter. For each milestone they hit, more funds get released to them. This will allow funders to get out if they keep missing their milestones, and the project looks like it's going downhill.

001sky3• 14 years ago

-- This staged financing concept is why they do vc in rounds a, b, c etc.

gojomo2• 14 years ago

I think "Product renderings are prohibited", and to a lesser extent "Product simulations are prohibited", run against the emphasized goal being "a new way for creators and audiences to work together to make things".

When something doesn't yet exist, you have to present speculative representations to communicate (or even rationally discuss!) the vision. That goes double for a wider audience, which may not be as accustomed to letting their imagination range over exotic possibilities.

Such mockups should be clearly labeled, and placed alongside current-best-prototype representations for comparison, and disclaimerized as with the new 'Risks and Challenges' requirement.

But before Kickstarter, more traditional investors and prepurchasers -- and indeed internal organization R&D and product-development processes -- would use and expect such representations for design communication. Why cripple the new model with this encumbrance?

001sky3• 14 years ago

These guys are New York, and it seems like their leagal-eagle's have raised some concerns. This does not smell like bus-dev, or pr, or typical CEO brainstorming at work. so, it would be very fascinating to see what they are seeing internally. we can speculate, but that's not likely going to get us the same look at the situation.

zacharycohn• 14 years ago

I disagree. If huge product failures/not-quite-scams-but-might-as-well-be keep happening, people will loose faith in the Kickstarter brand. This is them protecting themselves, and their community.

ck23• 14 years ago

100% simple solution to this.

DO NOT ALLOW listings to offer the product described as a reward.

Will solve the problem entirely, guaranteed.

evan_• 14 years ago

This is a kickstarter for: An awesome t-shirt with a picture of an Android-based game console we're developing on it.

Rewards: $180 A new Android-based game console.

ck23• 14 years ago

All listings are reviewed by humans before published so this kind of trickery wouldn't work.

LoneWolf• 14 years ago

Agreed, what annoys me more in kickstarter are projects that use it as a way to get preorders. Existing a finished product or not to me seems to go away from funding the project its just a way to buy and sell

alex_c• 14 years ago

This would kill Kickstarter.

ck23• 14 years ago

Either kickstarter is investment or it's a preorders store, it needs to pick one, it cannot be both.

If someone is really behind the concept for a product, they can just buy the product after it's available in an online store.

I could easily see this becoming a legal requirement if it gets visible to legislature.

smoyer2• 14 years ago

For software products, it's pretty hard for them to tell the difference between a simulation/rendering and the real thing. If I show a finished UI, it will appear to be fully functional and polished, but there may not be any back-end at all. I often create a fake persistence layer to allow for faster development of the UI. How would they be able to tell the difference? And it's actually not violating the rules at all right?

siganakis2• 14 years ago

The simulation/rendering rule is only for "Hardware and Product Design Projects", not software.

waterlesscloud4• 14 years ago

Are you sure? Software could conceivably fall under "Product".

smoyer2• 14 years ago

I also think that delivered software is a product. I doubt kickstarter would allow SaaS at all (it would be interesting to see what kind of products get rejected during the submission reviews).

ghshephard6• 14 years ago

I find it fascinating how Kickstarter is starting to adopt some of the same cautions that we see in an S1/Prospectus, "“What are the risks and challenges this project faces, and what qualifies you to overcome them?”"

As a long time burner, it was interesting to me how year after year, the playa adopted many (but not all) of the rules, regulations, restrictions of the outside world. We had a DMV (Department of Mutan Vehicles), Building Regulations (for buildings over a certain height), developed clinics, and ambulance services - etc...

It will be interesting to see, over time, how kickstarter adopts many of the SEC mandated governance over new enterprises going to the market for funding.

Reading through all the regulations though - it feels like 90% (100%?) are in response to this: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/limemouse/lifx-the-light...

I'm sure a LOT of people watched that video, and thought that the LIFX lightbulb exists (or almost exists) in it's current incarnation. Also, there are a lot of people supporting for $500 in the belief that they'll get 10 lightbulbs - I wonder how many of those backers don't realize their is a better than even chance that this project will come to nothing, and they'll get nothing but good feelings for their money?

olalonde• 14 years ago

When Ouya raised over a million dollars within 24 hours a few weeks ago, they specifically wrote: "In just 24 hours, 20,000 people bought an Ouya console"[0]. They should be more careful with their choice of words in the future if they really want to reflect that "Kickstarter is not a store".

[0] http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/ouyas-big-day

mcphilip2• 14 years ago

The change in terminology would seem to imply that Kickstarter is now wising up to the fact that there will inevitably be a high profile failure to deliver in the near future and is now trying to preempt criticism against Kickstarter not laying out clearly enough the risks involved in backing a project.

I welcome this change and think that it will help in the long run.

waterlesscloud4• 14 years ago

There's already been a high profile failure to deliver, and it was a software project. Diaspora.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/196017994/diaspora-the-p...

baddox• 14 years ago

Isn't it the case that kickstarter isn't necessarily a store? Many projects explicitly guarantee that you will receive a certain item, and some are even already manufacturing and selling the items but appear to just be using kickstarter because of its prominence and trendiness.

I'm sure kickstarter isn't liable even for the projects that explicitly promise delivery, so it's still not quite a store in those cases, but I assume that kickstarter doesn't prohibit projects from offering actual preorders.

shadowmint• 14 years ago

No.

I think they've been pretty clear about this.

mparlane• 14 years ago

I find it funny how the Oculus Rift's front image is a rendering, and not because they can't do it. But because they want you to see the final design that they have created.

raldi2• 14 years ago

I don't really get the ban on multiple reward tiers for hardware. Anyone got an example of something that used this to abuse users in the past?

waterlesscloud4• 14 years ago

The Lifx lightbulb is specific in setting multiple products shipped per multiple dollar amount.

raldi2• 14 years ago

So what bad thing did that lead to?

citricsquid• 14 years ago

something I noticed with some of the more "store-like" products (things that only use Kickstarter for money to mass produce and not development) is they have bulk options: $10 for 1, $100 for 15 "for retail distribution".

eg Scanbox: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/limemouse/scanbox-turn-y...

fratis• 14 years ago

This is a sensible list of new rules. This is a quintessential exercise in changing user expectations and behavior. This is great UX, especially in a platform-type environment in which the platform managers aren’t always able to curate the content created by the platform users.

wissler• 14 years ago

No simulations or renderings to show the vision that's being pursued? Beyond stupid. It's insane.

I'd speculate that it's probably a requirement driven by lawyers worried about failed projects conferring some kind of liability onto Kickstarter itself.

ChuckMcM2• 14 years ago

Nicely done, hope it is enough to protect them from the lawyers.

MatthewPhillips2• 14 years ago

Smart move. AirBnB waited until scandal broke out and then tried to put out the fire. We were/are dangerously close to a major scandal happening on Kickstarter.

prezjordan• 14 years ago

What was the major scandal?

Roedou• 14 years ago

A user's home was trashed:

http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/27/the-moment-of-truth-for-air...

mistercow• 14 years ago

That's a start, but I still think that allowing hardware projects to offer arbitrary, open-ended numbers of end-product rewards is a mistake. Suddenly being expected to produce 100 times as many units as you planned is not, as people so often say "a good problem to have". It's just "a problem".

Yes, the general tendency is for marginal cost to decrease as production quantity increases, but that does not mean that it's a smooth curve. Instead, the line is jagged, littered with points where large investments need to be made. For an open-ended product, you get investors, hire extra people, buy equipment, etc. You'll end up taking a short-term loss that will be earned back in the long term. For a close-ended project like Kickstarter allows, you'll have the short-term loss, but no long-term profit.

And that's if you have experience and connections to pull off manufacturing and courting investors. If you're hawking a project on Kickstarter, it's pretty likely that you have neither.

vannevar• 14 years ago

This was becoming a real issue for Kickstarter. Many of the recent high profile 'projects' were companies (particularly game developers/publishers and consumer products manufacturers) effectively taking pre-orders through Kickstarter and using those funds to develop the product. As the channel through which the orders were placed (and the party that that receives the money and takes a cut), I think a good legal argument could be made that Kickstarter is a store, and thus would have to comply with the UCC and other laws (including the various Deceptive Trade Practices acts across the country) applying to retail.

anigbrowl• 14 years ago

The ban on mutliple rewards is interesting. While there have been no tears shed over ~$1000 going to finance the Makey Makey project, there's a mildly awkward silence every time we try to figure out what we're going to do with 30 of them. It's also true that cannibalizing a old keyboard would have delivered the same functionality...

ఠ_ఠ

aorshan• 14 years ago

Though I completely understand where kickstarter is coming from with their decision, I have a bit of a gripe with their choice to prevent projects from showing renderings and requiring actual photos.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the last time I checked the purpose of kickstarter was to help people get their ideas off the ground. Some types of products, especially hardware, can cost a lot of money to produce at a prototype stage. Not everyone has the cash lying around to spend hundreds, if not thousands of dollars to build a functional prototype. So normally what that person would do is put together some renderings and a video and go to kickstarter to raise the funds to expand into prototypes and production. Now what are they to do?

Ultimately I think this decision by kickstarter gives a tremendous advantage to design shops with the budgets to build prototypes, while leaving the little guy behind.

erohead2• 14 years ago

Wow. This is a major move. Pebble (my project) would not be possible now.

weej2• 14 years ago

Agreed. It's hard to get your average consumer and investor excited about a product they cannot visualize.

Kuddos on the Pebble project. It's an amazing product, and I can't wait to see you guys release to market. Cheers!

erohead2• 14 years ago

I understand the problem that the Kickstarter founders are facing, but I don't think this is the right (or even close to the correct) solution. Despite saying "kickstarter is not a store" in the title, their rules basically force project creators to physically show exactly what they're planning to deliver...making it even more of a store.

Thanks! Working 24-7 to get these watches out, blogging here: kickstarter.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-paper-watch-for-iphone-and-android/posts/

mmahemoff• 14 years ago

Congrats on Pebble so far. Sorry, I can't see what would prohibit the project here? Maybe the language would need to be more restrained, but I doubt that would harm the funding too much.

scottschulthess• 14 years ago

I think it would be hard to market a product without being able to show prototypes and mockups and whatnot.

hypersoar• 14 years ago

You think so? My mind went to your project when I saw the OP. I heard second-hand that you guys were showing off a prototype at Google I/O which consisted of the watch casing with a display connected to external (not yet miniaturized) electronics. This seems to fit Kickstarter's new regulations. Would something like this not have been possible before you got funded?

The reason I felt comfortable backing guys is because you guys had already delivered a product to market. A description or early prototype demonstrating what you were trying to make - almost exactly what I had pictured as my ideal smartwatch before you launched - and my wallet would have been open.

ChuckMcM2• 14 years ago

I was thinking the same thing. If you limit rewards to '1' of the product you won't have any $1,000 or $5,000 backers. Hard to get to $1M at $100 a throw.

PeterisP• 14 years ago

Backing a project and pre-ordering a product are two different things - and kickstarter doesn't want to get involved in the second part. If you're mature enough to really start accepting preorders with a guarantee of delivery, then put up your product for sale. If you don't yet have a product to sell - that's what kickstarter is for, but then it is not a sale/preorder with a volume discount, but backing of a venture that might deliver something else, or nothing at all - i.e., you get to be an investor, not a customer.

idanb• 14 years ago

I see this as a very welcome addition to the public stance of Kickstarter with regards to physical products (which it's been relatively quiet about). One of the reasons we chose Kickstarter as a platform to get our product off the ground was the fact that it would allow us flexibility and freedom to get our prototypes to full scale manufacturing, which were already relatively mature in their stage of production (tooling already complete, near final hardware etc).

Lots of things can go wrong at every stage after you have a final production sample. You still need to get the sample certified by a number of governing bodies, set up QC and shipping, and in the case of overseas manufacturing deal with the freight/customs and finally fulfillment of the product.

I'm happy that Kickstarter is taking more of stance on the subject, as we've had to in many cases provide "returns" to people or deal with "customer service" style requests, which we've done in good faith but it really misses the point of launching a product on Kickstarter.

I think this stance will really help back up projects when they need to make an adjustment, or have to deal with something unexpected. Also, it should improve the quality of projects moving forward by making people more skeptical and aware of the time/cost-instability of the manufacturing process. We were lucky to hit a pretty happy medium with regards to initial volume, and unlike some of the blockbuster projects when we have to change things we don't end up on TechCrunch for it, only the Guardian :)

shuri• 14 years ago

It takes a lot of character to look at a lot of money in the eye and say no thanks.

Karunamon• 14 years ago

Really? No renders? So how are you supposed to communicate what you want to build?

Terrible move. Require renders and sims to be clearly labeled as such, but this? FFS.

weej2• 14 years ago

I for one would be more interested in general success rate. I'm not talking return on investment, but more so on how many projects actually come to fruition and deliver at any level.

This is outside the fraudulent activity. It's more out of my sheer, selfish interest in rate of success.

I could see such data publication helping and hurting Kickstarter. It could be inspiring and generate even more interest (aka revenue), but also expose the lack of completion and high failure rate turning off investors.

imrehg• 14 years ago

Well, if people think it's a store, then it might be a store. Sign of a successful platform that it goes in directions that you have not expected. Though it is also a sign of failed communication.

The question is now whether you want to bring the project back onto the originally envisioned path, or figure out how to ride the waves of these unexpected changes?

riledhel• 14 years ago

After reading the news, I keep thinking "aren't they missing something?". Can't they seize this audience that come to the site to buy stuff? Maybe a spin-off from the original kickstarter, specially tailored as a sales platform.

LaGrange• 14 years ago

Maybe they don't want to? They seem to like their knitted scarves, art-house films and interpretative dance about marine life quite a lot. Going for high-profile store-like projects doesn't actually guarantee success (they may get whacked by litigation, or people may become disillusioned) and puts their primary goal at risk.

mstank• 14 years ago

There's also an issue with the media talking about Kickstarter products like they already exist.

In the case of Lifx, article titles like "Australian re-invents the lightbulb" mislead the public and perpetuate the belief that people are purchasing actual products and not merely funding idea that may come into fruition.

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws...

robomartin6• 14 years ago

I welcome these changes. They might seem draconian at first, but I think it could do wonders to protect project supporters.

It could also serve to protect neophyte project originators who have no clue as to what it takes to get a hardware project from a rendering or a garage prototype to a real finished product.

There are a myriad of technologies available today to produce very high quality prototypes that look like the finished product. Forcing project originators to show an actual product rather than a rendering will simply force them to make the time and financial investment to get the project to a far deeper level of completion and really think it all thorough.

If someone will not take the time and spend the money to put together a prototype that is a real representation of what it is they are proposing I don't think they belong on Kickstarter.

I would imagine that it would still be OK to show renderings and animations so long as the actual physical product is shown as well. The reason I think this is important is that this can also show supporters important details that may not be evident or easy to demonstrate with actual products. For example, animations could show internal mechanism and how they work. 3D renderings could show ideas on variants or configurations for backers to discuss and provide feedback for.

I have a couple of projects that have been slated for Kickstarter for months. I've been too busy with work to really get to them. In both cases my approach has been to fully develop the items to the point that they are basically ready to manufacture. The Kickstarter push would simply serve to gage interest and pay for tooling and other NRE's that would make it possible to fabricate the items in reasonable quantities at a decent cost. Of course, I've been in product design and manufacturing for a long, long time so I tend to be very realistic about what it takes to get something done. I've seen projects go on Kickstarter that would not have a chance in hell to be completed at the requested funding level. Not a good thing.

Above all, what this indicates is that Kickstarter is watching and listening, which is excellent.

ajross• 14 years ago

Indeed. The implication here is that, generally, "Hardware and Product Design" projects always fail. But rather than ban them entirely, they are simply preventing anyone from "marketing" them. So you can still do a hardware project, you just have to sell it via the plan and specs only, without sexy adornment. That seems fair.

robomartin6• 14 years ago

I wouldn't go as far as saying that they always fail. I think that there are a lot of people who don't quite understand the bridge that must be crossed from garage prototype to shippable product.

In many ways, they don't know what they don't know. They don't do enough work ahead of time, set their goals too low, don't understand the real business equation behind their project and then find themselves in the proverbial "be careful what you wish for" situation.

After all, getting a million dollars for a project that requires two million is not a good thing, is it?.

sspiff• 14 years ago

So I'll never get my Hexy the Hexapod kit or my Ouya console?

utopkara2• 14 years ago

If the point is to make sure that the backers do not make decisions uninformed, why not take time to add a curated risk score. This way, the projects will be responsible in providing proper evidence about how far they are in production, and you can help us figure out if they are really on track. For instance, a project which can provide a list of parts, is probably further in the process than one which only has CAD sketches; but that doesn't mean that people wouldn't be interested in backing the project in its infancy. It shouldn't be too hard for you to come up with an acceptable process of evaluation, and hire experts to do it. Heck, we pay a cut to KS anyway, why not throw in a better service in return.

larrys• 14 years ago

"I would imagine that it would still be OK to show renderings and animations so long as the actual physical product is shown as well."

From the page, this does not appear to be the case. It's stated very clearly:

"Product renderings are prohibited. Product images must be photos of the prototype as it currently exists."

It should be interesting to see though how people creatively get around this prohibition.

greendestiny• 14 years ago

A diagram isn't a product render. It'll be interesting to see how vigorous the enforcement is for all the grey area in between.

robomartin6• 14 years ago

I'll find out soon enough. I think I might have the time to put up one hardware project on Kickstarter in about a month or so. The actual product will be shown in finished form. I'd like to use Solidworks animation to show some of the clever mechanical design that makes it work. Clearly there is no way to do this with the actual product as it would require aluminum to be transparent. There's also the case of some shots that are simply impossible to achieve any other way (animated cross sections). My guess is that the KS guys probably get this and are simply looking to host more legitimate, for lack of a better word, hardware projects. I can't see anyone who really knows how to execute on hardware projects have any issues with these restrictions.

I'll certainly consult with the KS guys when ready and see what they say.

Roelven• 14 years ago

I agree. The recent episodes with the unlikely LIFX project has probably set fire to Kickstarters' observations. This is good.

gavanwoolery• 14 years ago

I agree, this is a good move on their part. I am working on a hardware project myself, and it has taken me a lot of effort to learn the ins and outs of manufacturing, machining, CAD, and so forth (I am just a software engineer). Ultimately, things almost are always more complex and expensive than you would initially anticipate.

rickdale• 14 years ago

Not going to lie, I backed my first kickstarter project the other day with Boosted Boards. When I decided to back it my thought process was "Oh, get it in May, perfect timing for my brothers birthday"... now I understand, it might never come.

labizaboffle• 14 years ago

Two recent things come to mind, Ouya and the Tesla museum. Both offered items with purchase, but the Ouya items included the Ouya itself. That presents a problem that I didn't realize until now, which is that a store has to do a lot of things relating to paying taxes, etc., when being a store was not the intent of kickstarter, so... I get it. They are not a store.

However, with the Tesla thing and related projects, I think that this gets into a really grey area- and from past experience with helping with a large site that took donations- you have to subtract the items that have value from the donation, so they have to do this if anything is given away, or at least the recipient does if they are a charity/non-profit. Was the Tesla thing a non-profit?

And not allowing 3D renderings of hardware is a bad idea. For example, if you have a valid design for something and need the money to have it fabricated, then the sponsor should be able to see the design. Not being able to do so is lame. Sometimes the design is the hard part. That is a valuable asset. It should be rewarded with money to see it through. Why place someone with no design and someone with a design on equal footing. They aren't. It's not just about fairness, it is about being able to invest in something with a future. No design- no future. Good design- possible future.

binarycrusader• 14 years ago

The kickstarter rules only limit the content on the kickstarter website. I don't see anything that precludes them from showing design concepts on a different website.

So if you want to impress people with your project on the kickstarter website, you'll have to stick to actual content.

melvinmt• 14 years ago

New idea for startup: Kickstarter for New Hardware and Product Design. "Now WITH renders."

zokier• 14 years ago

I wonder why they disallowed selling vapor hardware but still allow equally vapor software? Of course I wouldn't be surprised if vapor software would bring significant portion of kickstarters income, so banning it would harm significantly their bottom line.

esalazar• 14 years ago

In my opinion, Kickstarter is just a futures market for Goods/Services. When they come out and say, "What are the risks and challenges this project faces, and what qualifies you to overcome them?", it just sounds like Futures are dangerous, risky, and you might loose your money.

I don't think you can call them a traditional store, but you can definitely call them a Futures Store.

FooBarWidget2• 14 years ago

I still don't understand how Kickstarter is different from Pledgie, from which has been around for much longer. At first I thought that Kickstarter would hold the funds for the backers and return the funds if the project fails, but that appears not to be the case. How is Kickstarter anything more than a Donate button, a donation counter and a mailing list?

marknutter• 14 years ago

The hold the funds until the funding round is over. If the goal is met, it's a success, otherwise it's a failure and everyone gets their money back. It'd be much harder to determine what exactly constitutes a "failure" of a project.

FooBarWidget2• 14 years ago

What about all those articles that talk about projects that failed to deliver and backers that never got their money back?

cube13• 14 years ago

They don't even charge until the funding round is over, actually.

flyinRyan2• 14 years ago

With Kickstarter, if you get the money you said you needed you actually get it. It sounds like what you're talking about, you'd have to still completely finance the project yourself with the understanding that you get that money if it works out. Completely different (and pointless?) thing.

jmilloy• 14 years ago

As others have said, it seems like KS is preferring projects which, already having functional prototypes, just need the capital to produce a commercially viable product in quantity. But, I think some projects need funding to even be able produce a prototype. To be able to show the mock-up is essential to describe the product potential backers.

I would like to see a separate (new) category for product&design projects at this stage. The projects would explicitly be looking for funding to create the prototype, with no promise to deliver a finished product. If a project is backed and delivers a working prototype, but now needs funding for the next step, they could return to Kickstarter for another round. Backers who want to fund product ideas could do so (likely with smaller pledges), and no one is tricked into a large backing thinking they will get a working product in the mail in three months.

Traditional startups get venture capital in rounds; why not crowd-sourced capital in rounds?

trhtrsh• 14 years ago

> Offering multiple quantities of a reward is prohibited.

The GoldieBlox are in violation of this bizarre rule. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4550707

Why not just say "The developer must declare their planned production run, and not accept excess backers"?

tibbon• 14 years ago

I've been saying this for a while, and I'm glad they are working on clarification. Yes, this will lower some of the astronomical numbers that some projects are seeing- but I'm not sure if hitting 10mm is to anyone's benefit really.

It needs to be understood that there is risk associated with this, no guarantees, and that it isn't a straight up purchase transaction like going to the store or preordering an iPhone.

shloime• 14 years ago

Kickstarter may not be a store, but http://outgrow.me/ is.

techtalsky• 14 years ago

The rule against showing a render seems just a little rough. In some cases I think a render of a product is important and it seems like really crippling a hardware project if they can't show the design of the product. I get why, but that seems like the toughest of the restrictions to me.

Kickstarter is Not a Store

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