Ubuntu Edge funding level over time

http://movebits.net/2013/07/23/ubuntu-edge-funding-level/

by rcaught • 13 years ago

151 101 13 years ago

movebits4• 13 years ago

added more data; chart starting time; up until 1:30 p.m. today

JDShu• 13 years ago

I have a similar script running and observed the same thing. Yesterday I thought that they were well on track towards making the goal, but it seems that the one day only deal heavily skewed pledges towards the first day compared to the average crowdfunded project:

http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/trends-in-pricing-and-durati...

Based on the %time vs %backing chart, the second day usually secures around the same amount of funding as the first day. However in the case of the Ubuntu Edge, it received above average percentage backing on the first day, but has already hit the trough.

twoodfin• 13 years ago

The $600 vs. $830 funding levels seem like a really bad move. It gave their most enthusiastic supporters a chance to give them less money, which is the opposite of what you'd typically want. And for the next month, everyone who visits the project will feel like they're getting screwed out of $230 by not having been one of the early funders.

seferphier5• 13 years ago

i feel that 600 is a good deal but 830 is way to steep.

JaggedJax• 13 years ago

You're right about the first part, but they've removed the $600 level from the page since it's over, so people coming for the first time won't be able to compare it like that. $830 is still steep for a phone though, even a nice one.

Robin_Message• 13 years ago

Yeah, a $700-800 phone and a $800-1000 limited edition founders pack (phone plus some recognition) would have made more sense and been revenue neutral.

I looked at it, was interested but not sure. Now the $600 is sold out, I feel lees likely to buy one, even though that is partly irrational (I should just evaluate whether it is worth $830 to me, not be upset I missed out on the cheaper one).

josh26002• 13 years ago

Personally, I don't think Ubuntu actually wants the $32M.

Remember, Mark specifically says that most manufacturers won't take you seriously unless you order 100,000 units. At $600 per phone, that's only 53k units (the volumes look worse at $830 per phone). They can't actually manufacture the phone as described for $32M.

So, this is, IMHO, a publicity stunt intended to get carriers interested in Ubuntu phone, and it probably was quite successful.

smacktoward• 13 years ago

But since the $600 level was only available for one day, it served as a push to get those enthusiastic supporters to get into the pool right away instead of wavering back and forth for the next month.

If your goal for something like this is PR, you want a big first-day number you can give press to try and gin up a second round of stories about the campaign. So it can be worth it to potentially lose a little on those sales if by doing so you can get more of them into that first-day figure.

cs702• 13 years ago

SUGGESTION: please show the rate at which the total is growing, e.g., in dollars/minute, and compare that to the rate necessary to reach the fundraising goal. Otherwise, it's hard to see whether the total is growing at a sufficiently fast rate just by looking at that chart.

For example, as I write this, the campaign must raise an additional $28.5 million over the next 30 days, equal to under $40,000/hour or around $660/minute. So right now it would be helpful to see if the total is growing by at least $660/minute.

icegreentea• 13 years ago

Labelling the x-axis would also be kind of useful. And what does the note in the legend mean? "first day @ 12p.m. curve flatlines after $600 - deal ends"?

Aaronneyer• 13 years ago

The chart starts at 12pm on the first day, because thats when the author started grabbing information..

If you look on the curve, you can see that at $3.2 million, the curve kind of flat lines, or at least levels out a bit. This is when they ran out of the 5,000 phones they were offering at $600.

Stratoscope• 13 years ago

There was a $600 perk available for the first 24 hours. It went up to $830 for the same phone after that.

revelation• 13 years ago

I don't think thats how crowdfounding works. Usually, you have a big push at the beginning and the end, and in between it almost flatlines.

doe88• 13 years ago

It was really a bad move to have created the $800 level without adding anything to the $600 package. Even adding only a small thing would certainly have improved the funding. Another factor is that in lot of minds $600 is the price point for high ends smartphones, pricing above is really really risked.

neltnerb• 13 years ago

Yeah, this was basically my thinking. I'd love to support a high end phone with an OS not intended to collect every iota of my personal data and use it for advertising. However, while $600 is a price I'd pay to have it now, $600 for the given specifications in a year is too risky.

But at the very least they've got some price validation. Seems like reasonably robust data for a highly visible campaign at both $600 and $820 price points that should give at least moderately good data on the price-demand curve.

martron• 13 years ago

They just announced a new perk, 2 phones for $1400 ($700/phone). I was wondering how they were going to offer future discounts without pissing off those that have already pledged $800. This is a kind of neat approach since you'd probably need a friend to buy-in with you which should also enhance the viral plan.

I'm a little surprised this came so quickly on the second day but I guess the earlier it gets to a high value the better it is for visibility.

They see the same metrics that we do and can use it as a gauge on variable pricing to maximize the potential buy-in.

lipanski• 13 years ago

35 minutes ago they updated the perk list with the "double edge": two ubuntu edge devices for $1400. Stil a better bargain than one piece at $830. I do think that when you're going for this kind of money on a crowdfunding website you kind of know what you're doing. The update also states that they'll be having plenty of other updates during the next weeks.

No matter how it ends, this is going to be a really interesting experiment for the marketing guys at Canonical and for crowdfunding in general.

nalsh• 13 years ago

They have to continue to do things like this if they want to stay in the public consciousness for the next month. Should be interesting to watch.

ximeng2• 13 years ago

They've added a new "Double Edge" level - two phones for 1400 - after removing the 600. Amazon has an unlocked iPhone 16GB for 691.

seferphier5• 13 years ago

interesting that they removed the $600 price point. i find that kind of practice deceiving.

thezilch2• 13 years ago

So, can we expect the funding to fail? Do we have similar charts for other like fundings?

Personally, even the $600 watermark is too high. Perhaps I and my colleagues are not the right market, but either

* we've been fooled by prices on Google's Nexus devices

* the extra power doesn't justify the cost or isn't necessary for our needs

* we might as well get Lenovos -- half our guys have a history of dropping their phones or otherwise damaging their phone

At the end of the day, I connect to numerous remote hosts to get work done, which negates the purpose if I just need a shell and terminal multiplex and browser to run on my localhost. I'm not going to want to run my RDB, search DB, KV store, cache store, messaging bus, etc from that phone. The specs are nice, for a phone, but it's not a workstation.

jmathai• 13 years ago

So, can we expect the funding to fail?

I don't think so. This target for this crowdfunding project is an order of magnitude larger than the infamous Pebble watch.

I'm not sure we can apply the same rules. On one hand I think it will be even harder to reach the goal. But on the other hand I think the sheer audacity and scope might have some unexpected benefits.

Nonetheless, I'd say in the end we'll consider it a successful fundraising campaign. Even if the goal isn't met and the phone never gets created what's happened so far proves that there's an opportunity for Ubuntu to find a niche that's underserved with their vision of convergence.

baran1• 13 years ago

The podcast to this blog entry http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/05/15/184208123/were-mak... goes through what the funding graph for their kickstarter project looks like. TLDR; level in the middle, spikes at the end.

velodrome4• 13 years ago

I calculated the average rate after current dropoff. The funding will fail and the total will be roughly around $20 million dollars. Still, that is quite a bit of money and at least some sort of validation.

They should have kept it at $600 and increased the total needed for the project.

Some quick calculations:

($3476017 - $3180762) / 12 hours = $24605 / hour

$3180762 + $24605 / hour * (30 days * 24 hours / day) = $20,896,062

skriticos2• 13 years ago

You do realize that this makes every statistician cringe? Your sample size for calculation is too small to base any kind of reliable projections on it making this a pure guess.

AnIrishDuck• 13 years ago

By my calculations from this first month, we can reasonably conclude that the subject will give birth to nine babies in eight months.

velodrome4• 13 years ago

Of course. There is so little data to work with many assumptions. This is why I said it was a quick calculation.

If you can do better, please share :P Unfortunately, I just don't have the time.

Besides, the only conclusion that can be drawn at this time is that this is going to be a one of the largest kickstarter-style funding efforts ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8Ezwg5LKd4

toble• 13 years ago

I don't think it can be that easily predicted. It all depends on Canonical's press efforts. There will also be a surge at the end of the project.

dpcx• 13 years ago

My numbers suggest they're getting over $96K/hour having them hit their 32M dollar goal on August 4, 2013 at just shy of 9pm.

$/Sec 26.7404

32M on 8/4/2013 21:40:03

gamerDude2• 13 years ago

This calculation also looks to begin at midnight. I don't think we can assume an even spending pattern throughout the day. You will have to take into account multiple days and weekends to test to see if there is a change in buying behavior by hour or day before you can make these assumptions.

And then there are press events most likely planned that could accelerate the buying. Or another event that could slow buying.

Goosey• 13 years ago

"They should have kept it at $600 and increased the total needed for the project." - The reason the curve levels off isn't (entirely) because the cost is $200 more. It's because the 'limited time' offer caused a lot of people to buy it FAST, people who may have not bought at all. Personally I did not purchase, but I was very close to almost entirely because of the "limited time" appeal that $600 offer had. If it was a permanent $600 price point I wouldn't have even considered it.

mehwoot• 13 years ago

In the last 5 hours when I looked (roughly 4pm - 9pm in the eastern U.S.), they had raised $59,000. That's about $290,000 a day they are currently running at. They are going to need a very big push at the end if they stay at that rate for most of the month (since they need about $1 million a day).

jussij• 13 years ago

They should have kept it at $600 and increased the total needed for the project.

I suspect the profit margin on the $600 price was too small, hence the small number offered.

pulakm2• 13 years ago

It would be pretty interesting to see what the funding progress chart was for other large crowdfunded projects (Pebble, Double Fine, etc) for comparison. If we assume that the rate of funding will not increase beyond the current rate, the project will not meet the goal. I don't know how valid that assumption is, though -- intuitively it makes sense, but it is possible that other projects have challenged that assumption. Especially possible if they managed to get a further round of press midway through the campaign.

makepanic• 13 years ago

There is a website that shows you stats of kickstarter projects.

Double Fine: http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/66710809/double-fine-advent...

Pebble: http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-paper-wa...

OUYA: http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-vid...

ne0phyte• 13 years ago

Why didn't you google? There's a site that keeps track of kickstarter projects:http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-vid...

pulakm2• 13 years ago

Sorry about that - I tried Googling but was unsuccessful!

azernik• 13 years ago

People have posted a bunch of stats; the stories project starters on Kickstarter have posted tend to indicate that there's a surge of funding when a project is new, and another surge when the deadline is about to run out (people who were procrastinating start to feel time pressure). Not sure if there's a good law for predicting the sizes of these two surges, or how much the addition of new reward levels can add additional bumps in the middle.

mongol3• 13 years ago

A difference is that Pebble was funded very early on and just continued growing. There was not a need for a last push, instead they put a cap on in the end.

pavs• 13 years ago

Most of you guys are missing the point, this is not your premium device of an existing manufacturer, so its moot to compare prices with nexus 4, s4, or any other premium device.

This is similar (but definitely not same) to the idea of supporting tesla by buying their very expensive models when they first came out. Those people who paid premium price for their car, because they were supportive to the idea of Tesla's vision of clean electric cars. Because of these early adopters, tesla today exists as a company and has a product.

While Ubuntu Edge is not as revolutionary as Tesla, it has some unique ideas, made by a company that is loved by most of Open Source and Linux community. By buying an comparably expensive device, you are supporting open source platform and giving chance for another serious option besides the present duopoly.

Whether you agree with this vision or not is a different story, whether you think one open source option (Android) is enough is another story. But if you are comparing Edge with current mainstream device with price and feature, then this device is clearly not meant for you, but if you are supporting this device with your money because of philosophical reasons, then this device is for you, and you are the type people Ubuntu is asking for support.

wodenokoto• 13 years ago

840 usd for an off-contract high-end smartphone isn't unreasonable. A 64gb iPhone 5 off-contract is more expensive, and that's half the space.

So yes, you can compare it to current devices, and it sounds like it is beating them.

scholia4• 13 years ago

Yes, but the iPhone 5 is sold at Apple's rapacious profit margins, and it has a _much_ lower spec than the Edge.

Edge has to be relatively expensive because costs are amortized over 40,000 units rather than 40,000,000.

georgemcbay• 13 years ago

With the edge you have to also factor in the one year wait after putting your money down, which kills the value proposition for me. Who knows what other cool phones might be out before then? Moto X, something entirely unrevealed, etc. A year is a long, long time to wait.

DannyBee2• 13 years ago

"made by a company that is loved by most of Open Source and Linux community."

After what i've seen, god I hope this changes.

I can't really say too much more, sadly, but I imagine over time people will get a taste of how Canonical really operates

(Note: I'm sure the engineers are wonderful, and I suspect they have no idea what the business/etc side is doing)

The most I can say is that their public "we love open source face" is not exactly the one they always show in private.

chimeracoder• 13 years ago

Is there anything specific you can point to that would explain what you mean here?

Or are you referring to thing such as the Mir, Unity, etc. controveries?

thezilch2• 13 years ago

  > not meant for you [...] is for you

Judging by the article's numbers, the market is vanishingly small. There are many ways I imagine the community would support Ubuntu / Canonical. Designing and manufacturing hardware is not that.

sho_hn3• 13 years ago

made by a company that is loved by most of Open Source and Linux community.

I believe this to be a false statement. A lot of the open source and Linux community is in fact quite unhappy with Canonical, over things like their shoddy governance of projects they partnered with others on, unreasonable and sudden copyright assignment requirements and contracts, propagandistic and dishonestly comparative PR practices and willfully bringing about tech stack fragmentation. Irregardless of whether they manage to provide value to their users: A fair and reliable member of the greater community they have most certainly not been.

oblique632• 13 years ago

Irregardless of whether they manage to provide value to their users: A fair and reliable member of the greater community they have most certainly not been.

Yeah, I think it's good to explicitly separate the idea of the linux developer community from the linux user community. Because as you mentioned, end users do seem to like the value ubuntu brings to them. And I agree that 'bringing users value' is totally orthogonal to the company being a "good" one (case in point: apple).

That being said, how is what Canonical's done in any way not an improvement from the likes of the status quo (i.e. google/microsoft/apple)? From what I see, Canonical might not be totally ideal, but certainly a step up from apple/microsoft, so why all the strong opposition? I know we all love radical idealistic revolutions, but in reality, most change happens over the course of several baby steps, and Ubuntu seems like the best baby step we have the option to embrace right now, so it's frustrating to see the linux community self-sabotage itself over things that are smaller than the greater cause of 'open-ness'.

However, I and many other content ubuntu users are not linux devs, so it's possible that the arguments against Canonical just haven't been articulated in a way that would make the consequences of their actions seem substantially significant from the user's perspective. I mean, I understand the risk of fragmentation and all that, but do I think that trumps the importance of furthering OSS? No...

SCdF• 13 years ago

Agreed. In case you're not across their various.. decisions, this podcast has a good summary of their most recent one, Mir: http://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/39982/mir-problems-las-s2... (you really don't need the video)

Basically they're building their own X replacement even though there is one in the works (Wayland) that they admit fits their needs (or could if they worked on Wayland), simply so they can have control over it. They also admit that they aren't going to bother to make it work for anyone but them, nor are they going to worry about a stable API for it (because in their minds it's only used internally, they don't care about external people who are trying to build compliance with it).

Zigurd• 13 years ago

While Ubuntu Edge is not as revolutionary as Tesla

WAIT WAIT!!! Stop right there. Name one phone other than iPhone that is as revolutionary as the Tesla.

The whole entire problem is that Ubuntu for phones derives no benefit from having this hardware, and this hardware is unlikely to be revolutionary.

I'm not "comparing Edge with current mainstream device with price and feature" I'm saying it is just exactly like any other moderately high-end phone, except it will be a little thicker and heavier because Canonical can't afford cutting edge packaging technology. Probably not as good as what Samsung will have on the market next year. Same chips. Same screen. So... why?

oscilloscope• 13 years ago

The Edge is designed to be used as a desktop as well.

It also has a true Linux terminal and runs Ubuntu.

Quite different than other phones.

antimora• 13 years ago

I don't understand why the numbers do not add up to $3,518,954. This is what I've got so far 20×1347+373×830+13×1400=$354,730.

Was there a baseline to begin with?

ximeng2• 13 years ago

They sold something like 5044 at 600 and then removed it from the page. Also 3 at 10000.

calebegg3• 13 years ago

I believe you can donate on indiegogo without selecting a reward.

drcoopster• 13 years ago

I was close to going for the $600 price point, but ultimately even that is too much (for me) for what is essentially preproduction-quality hardware of dubious utility (to me).

mpg33• 13 years ago

Whoa, seemed to level right off for some reason.

movebits4• 13 years ago

uptick in funding after posting to hn (was posted at noon) - surely not significant... still...

  funding     rate of time
              change
  
  $3,417,771  0.00170 10:00:01
  $3,423,612  0.00170 10:15:01
  $3,430,588  0.00203 10:30:02
  $3,443,738  0.00383 10:45:01
  $3,449,423  0.00165 11:00:01
  $3,455,749  0.00183 11:15:02
  $3,466,419  0.00308 11:30:01
  $3,474,076  0.00220 11:45:02
  
  noon posting today ~ slight uptick
  in rate of change of funding level (see slight
  change end of graph)
  
  $3,476,017  0.00055 12:00:01
  $3,483,942  0.00227 12:15:01
  $3,494,038  0.00289 12:30:02
  $3,512,621  0.00531 12:45:01
  $3,517,943  0.00151 13:00:01
  $3,525,984  0.00228 13:15:02
  $3,531,110  0.00145 13:30:01
  $3,545,968  0.00420 13:45:01
  $3,550,419  0.00125 14:00:02

itstriz• 13 years ago

I threw together a quick version of this in Python and for Kickstarter projects instead of IndieGoGo in case it's useful to anyone. https://github.com/itstriz/kickstart_tracker

mongol3• 13 years ago

If this showed up on Dragon's Den, Mark would get kicked out head first. He has a vision, but how will he get there? The path ahead needs much better details. Right now he is selling a dream, but for $ 32 million he better explain how to get there. For example: on what estimates does he base the expected deliver date? What are the tasks ahead, and how far along is he already? It is impossible to judge what risk is associated with this project when there are so many unknowns.

He sells this to us the same way that wallets and pens are sold on Kickstarter. If he can get 32 million with no more than this, I am impressed.

PS: The project might be very realistic, but how can we know? For example, Pebble missed some certification that screwed German backers since customs stopped the watches. There are a million small things that can go wrong - how well prepared is Ubuntu to deal with those?

Buzaga• 13 years ago

having one of these and use it as a phone/development-machine/transformer would be seriously awesome, no?

niels_olson• 13 years ago

$10k growth every 15 minutes 1 day after pre-launch? I'd take that. Of course, the project has been working hard for 10 years too.

general_failure• 13 years ago

It's unlikely Edge will get 30m USD. And I am usually never wrong when it comes to predictions.

miga• 13 years ago

So what are estimates of total funding in 30 days?

seferphier5• 13 years ago

They need to devise a new kickstarter reward scheme. (understandably, this would create more logistical problems)

$20 - access to discussions.

$40 - private beta to ubuntu convergence

$50 - ubuntu edge t shirt, private beta to ubuntu convergence

$60 - ubuntu phone dock, private beta to ubuntu convergence

$90 - ubuntu dock, t shirt and private beta to ubuntu convergence

$650 - early bird: ubuntu edge (add $30 for dock)

$700 - ubuntu edge

$750 - early bird: ubuntu edge + 1gb extra ram / extra storage

$800 - ubuntu edge + 2gb extra ram / extra storage

$850 - early bird: ubuntu edge + 1gb extra ram / extra storage

$900 - ubuntu edge + 2gb extra ram / extra storage

$1200 - ubuntu edge + 2gb extra ram / extra storage plus custom limited edition orange casing + t shirt

$20,000 - air ticket to london for a private tour around the office where we will share the making of ubuntu edge and receive your ubuntu edge first

akandiah• 13 years ago

Due to many requests, they have added more funding levels.

movebits4• 13 years ago

24/7/2013 - updated graph and data after $625.- deal @7 a.m. was posted

Ubuntu Edge funding level over time

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