Comment by antr | Hacker News Reader

Comment by antr | Hacker News Reader

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After backing two projects (MySaver cables and Elevation Dock), I've given up on Kickstarter:

== MySaver ==

- Project was delayed for over 5 months.

- When I got the product it wasn't the colour I had requested.

- When I contacted the project leader he told me that they didn't have any more products of that colour, so he chose the one he thought convenient.

- False statements: "The MySaver is the only cable protector that we know of and we fully-assemble it on a OEM quality replacement dock connector to USB cable". I can't insist how false this statement is. The cables I received where assembled using some kind of industrial glue gun - by no means "OEM quality" - and they are now falling apart.

- Contacted Kickstarter about this issue and said that "if the project gets fully funded it must be a legit business/product"

== Elevation Dock ==

- Backed in February 2012, still waiting for the product.

- I will be changing my iPhone 3GS to iPhone 5, but guess what? It's a different dock connector. Yes, partly my fault, but its been 8 months since funding closed and 9 months since everybody knew this project was already 100% funded.

== Conclusion ==

Many projects (primarily hardware) are very poorly managed. Project leaders, instead of being rational from a production capacity/constraint point of view, they simply want to "beat all records", and be at the top of the Kickstart funding list. This is just bad entrepreneurship and management skills. These guys are risking production, product quality and customer satisfaction over a "vanity" metric: How much is the maximum I can raise?

I've given up, I'm not backing any more projects, I'm not going to be anyone's guinea pig. I'd rather wait for the products to be available in stores at a higher retail price, where I can see their "quality" finish. I'll judge then.

I have many friends who backed and received their Elevation Docks. It's anything but vaporware. They asked for 75,000 and got 1,464,000. Scaling up that much and that fast is incredibly difficult and can't be done overnight. The system seems fine to me.

Products should really consider capping their number of backers, rather than just saying "as many as people want!" and possibly losing money on every one.

The purpose is to capture as much capital in early sales as possible. Caps would defeat this purpose.

"Caps would defeat this purpose."

What purpose? The purpose of delivering an obsolete product by the time it reaches customers months after?

Capturing as much capital as possible.

I totally disagree, sounds like you work in Wall Street. Your argument defeats the purpose of a minimum total pledged, and is pure internet speculation.

Companies and individuals go to Kickstarter to create great products - that can't be financed in no other way (bank debt, VC capital, etc.).

More capital (pledges) result in more orders, more inventory, higher working capital and a production/logistics nightmare. None of the hardware projects/companies I've seen to date on Kickstarter have the required infrastructure to handle "as much capital as possible" or as many orders as possible.

These businesses come to Kickstarter for the purpose of getting as much capital as possible to seed their projects.

Just because it is not implicitly stated doesn't mean that the business owners do not have that motive. Just because some business owners cannot scale effectively does not change their original motive. Just because you would personally run the businesses or the website different does not change the motive.

I'm not going to waste any more time having a speculative "internet argument" with you on this.

If it's any consolation, the Elevation dock guys planned for the new connector and you will be able to swap a new one in.

I have received my Elevation Dock. Also, the guys over at Elevation Dock have mentioned that once they get the new connector documentation that you will be able to swap out the current board with a new board that contains the new connector.

Having taken the elevation dock apart, it is entirely do-able.

I'm actually pretty happy with my MySaver cable. Granted, I didn't get the wrong color, but it rides around in my purse unprotected and has held up better than either the cable that came with my 3GS (frayed right where the cable meets the connector in under a month; it was a complete piece of crap), or the cheap monoprice cables I originally replaced my cable with (bought a 3-pack, good thing, only one held up past 3 months). I never took the MySaver off it to inspect the build quality of the actual cable, but it seems to be fairly well constructed to me. Better than the OEM one at least.

Now the very first Kickstarter I ever backed... it was to cover the editing and production costs of a documentary that was supposedly already completely filmed, it just needed to be put together. Funded in early Feb 2011 and not a single update on the project or comment from the creator since that day either. Still bummed about that one - I genuinely wanted to see the documentary, and my pledge was supposed to get me a copy of the DVD.

I see Kickstarter as more of a service to get well established businesses to focus on difficult, specialist, low margin projects, particularly computer games. Most of these design-focused hardware projects ring alarm bells in my head.

I just got my elevation dock last week. I've left it in the box until I figure out the iPhone 5 situation. Might just keep it as a paperweight. But I agree with you, it was ridiculously delayed

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