> "...with the quick turn of events, we are emotionally overwhelmed"
I didn't preorder and have no skin in this.
But, it really irritates me when companies share their feels after screwing people over. I dont care that you're super sad! We're not compadres, and I'm not going to sympathize on a personal level when your professional failure cost me.
Same with touchy-feely status updates when hosted services go down and paying customers are losing money. Github used to do that back in the day. Extended outages and their status log was smiley and cutesy as if we're buddies through all this. We are not.
Agree on the point of cutesy bullshit marketing/PR fluff when your team or service fails to deliver. I'm really tired of the infantilization of communication. I think this is a West Coast thing. It seems to have originated there but it doesn't translate outside of SF.
And yet, here we are, talking about a service that has become known around the world... maybe it does work outside of San Francisco, it's just some people it doesn't agree with?
It clearly wasn't their demise either. My point being that people - including myself - form very strong opinions about what "works" and "doesn't work", while failing to acknowledge the bigger picture.
Companies with this kind of global presence have a better way to measure marketing impact than reading through random Hacker News comments. For what's worth, I think the concept for Snapchat is stupid and I can't see a single use for it, and yet... they managed to get to an IPO.
Ha, yeah. As a customer, I expect you to place a realistic upper bound on your ability to deliver. Like, Nintendo's SNES Classics sold out in about 100ms. But they didn't promise an infinite quantity and THEN start asking digikey and mouser what their stocks of SuperFX chips looked like.
So you want to use a part in a design. Maybe...I dunno...check how much stock you can purchase in a short period of time with little notice? If say, your core processor is on a 14-week lead time at every factory that makes them, maybe you'd want to do a limited run to start with?
It doesn't sound like this company made it that far, though. Did they even have a final product? I can't quite tell from the article, but it sounds like 'no.'
I would love a communications email from a company that went like this.
"Hi! We're making this change. Please email or call us <here> or <here> if you have any questions, concerns or feedback."
In this case:
"Hello. We thank our Kickstarer backers for being with us since day one. Unfortunately, we have run out of capital and will be shutting down by <date>. Those of you that pre-ordered can expect to get refunded within <period>. Please email or call us <here> or <here> with any questions, comments or concerns."
Simple English. Short, simple and easy to communicate with the company further for those that need to.
That said, there must be a reason why PR specialists craft these lengthy, emotional messages to their customers.
The troubling thing is people ordered the headphones on the website too, not just on kickstarter. I'm sure taking an order on your website and not sending anything is some kind of fraud. It's not like kickstarter where you are funding the company and the company promises to make it up to you.
That's really the thing to read into here. Too many people will blow this off and say "yep dumb kickstarters" but bottom line, they took people's money for purchases and didn't deliver on them. These purchasers should all be covered via chargebacks on their credit cards though.
Also, those that ordered with debit cards are more or less out of luck depending on their bank. Some will do an investigation for you and credit you the purchase amount while they do it; others aren't so lucky.
A merchant only allowed to settle transactions within I believe 24 hours of fulfillment (for physical products this means shipment) - prior to that it's an authorization only, which basically reserves the money on the card ("pending transaction") but doesn't show up on the customer's statement. Unless they violated this rule, no one direct ordering from their website should have actually been charged.
Kickstarter is entirely different, because you are purchasing a "promise" and not a shipping product, so technically the order is fulfilled once the campaign closes successfully.
Yes, and if it's fraud then it's also malpractice by the directors and the company structure doesn't protect the them from being sued personally for the missing funds. Someone should really start an action against the directors.
The review video that "killed the company" was great. The entire time, I was bracing for the moment when the founder would offer a kickback for a good review, expecting a number above at least $2500.
$500.
He offered this guy 500 bucks for a false review of a product that they both knew was absolute shit. What a joke!
Good lord, the bit about the company failing to remove the [insert video here] section of their website featuring Codi's review... the whole video is worth watching, he starts out trying to keep it straight business but the tale turns more kafkaesque by the minute. Brutal.
I'm still a little confused why the story posted the other day fell off the front page so quickly, there was some good discussion and a link to a youtube meta-review that gave a pretty interesting view in to the last few days of the company:
I really can't imagine that these types of scams are the norm, and not the exception. I've backed 33 campaigns, and I've never been burned (yet). Two turned out to be pretty shitty executions, though - not sure if I should count that, since I did still receive my rewards.
The key is to ask yourself some common sense questions like:
* Is this product possible in our current reality?
* Does the business exist only for the purposes of this campaign?
* Can the product realistically be made with the money raised so far?
The first is obviously a deal breaker, and the second can be a red flag. The third might be hard to gauge, but is probably the best filter. For example, raising $6MM to make 6 million milled titanium wallets obviously isn't going to work, even though it's a lot of money. OTOH, $6MM for pretty much any kind of software product is going to scale fine as long as it's not an ongoing service.
Note that that third point also means you basically can't back any electronics hardware project unless the answer to the question "Will this company make this product anyway, regardless of this Kickstarter?" is an unequivocal 'yes', since hardware development is so damn hard.
I think I would put it as hardware development is different. And it's the differences that burn folks used to software.
However, even as an experienced "hardware" designer, the BANE of my existence is anything having the word "mechanical" associated with it.
I'm so good, I can design electronics that anticipates the failure modes (For example: Want good soldermark coverage? Never use the default green ink.). I can get 100 fully populated boards in about 7 days for about $5K. If I go to China, I can get about 1000 in 3 weeks for the same price.
Cases? Clips to hold a component? Packaging? If SLA isn't good enough (and it's rare that it is), God help you, you are about to need it.
Dealing with mechanical engineering feels like stepping back into 1953. And not even that good. Back in 1953, lots of people knew how to operate milling machines, lathes, etc. so you could get a small number of parts made for a small amount of money fairly quickly from somebody out of their garage.
Nowadays? Anything that touches mechanicals is chunks of $5K NRE and 6-8 weeks.
I'm an electrical engineer by background but have had to learn TIG welding, CNC machining, injection mold design, and a whole host of other plastic and metal manufacturing techniques simply because I can't afford to be shelling out $10K up front every time I want to prototype something.
I'm really hoping that SLS will evolve now that the patents have all expired. I would pay real money for a machine that lets me torch mechanical engineers and machine shops/injection molders.
(Side note: I have had the pleasure of working with a few very good machine shops and injection molders. They are wonderful, but they tend to be quite expensive. It is almost a tautology: a good shop is at 100% production capacity and a shop not at 100% capacity is, by definition, not a good shop. The fact that such shops are at 100% capacity means that they don't want to waste production time on a client who wants a maximum of 1000 units.)
I'm an ME, and still had to learn TIG / MIG welding (long before studying ME), machining (both CNC and not), injection mold design (smallworks.com), CAD (wasn't taught back in the day).
Oh, and software engineering, 'cause that's what I ended up doing.
I am now very distrustful of kickstarter for physical products. With inexperienced creators, there are too many things that can go wrong.
I backed a PID-Controlled Espresso machine. It seemed like a very good idea but the project creators were clearly out of their depth.
They finally sold their company to decent espresso and the backers saw nothing of the finished product (or any real counterpart).
If I remember correctly they offered a small discount on decent espresso machines but I don't think many backers falled for that.
Other than that, I backed many projects, mostly software.
Some were among the best games (or even media experience) I have ever seen, so I am happy to have been able to help make them a reality. Some were just ok or even failed but that was always a risk and never scummy.
My fiancee ordered two physical products from Kickstarters. Both actually arrived, albeit extremely late. She's a huge fan of one but didn't like the other.
That said, I stay away from Kickstarter like the plague and wait for that stuff to drop on Amazon.
I only got burned on one, which was the NinjaSphere. Unfortunately it was one of the most expensive ones I backed because I went for the developer kit ($500+). Though I did actually receive the developer kit.. became next to useless very quickly.
Other than that I seem to have chosen my kickstarters pretty well and very happy with most of them.
Not necessarily a scam, but Sixense raised money for a tracking device, which they then used to develop MakeVR instead. Now they make profits of selling MakeVR, backers get nothing.
"Sixense is still be best known for stringing along Kickstarter supporters of its STEM controllers, a project which raised more than $600k and has yet to ship to backers more than three years after its targeted ship date. Failed Kickstarter projects aren’t all that rare but Sixense has continued to post updates discussing supposed improvements or production issues while backers beg for refunds. All of this has been done while continuing to transition its efforts into software projects like MakeVR."
I backed a kickstarter for $20 that I'm pretty positive did exactly that. Communication I had with the project seemed to indicate that they used the money to pay for a move. In retrospect, looking at this Kickstarter, it has got all the warning signs of a project that won't deliver, but then again, it's $20. Luckily it's the only project out of several dozen where I've gotten burned. Still, it's a wonder that Kickstarter lets this crap go on on their platform.
A lot of app developers do that on mobile... "Man, this app sucks and doesn't do what it should. Oh well, it's only $0.99"
That's why I am a proponent of easy refunds and/or trial periods on apps. Like: if I uninstall this from my phone within 7 days I don't get charged.
As a seasoned KickStarter backer I do a lot of due diligence. and haven't lost money yet But the average project I have backed is $300 so I'd be very pissed if I did.... not like losing $20.
"You have to know, anything crowdfunded is very high risk. I'm not sure why people even do it if the reward is maybe a product at a discount."
I've done it because of a product that seems to actually fit my needs or because it is neat. The one i'm waiting on right now is a 3D printer with laser engraving and carving abilities. If it does a little of what it says it does, it'll be well worth it. Worth it enough to risk the money. At this point, even if I don't get the product, I've had months of ideas pouring into my artsy head and will probably find other ways to do similar things, so I've already benefited.
And sure it is a risk, just by nature. I know I could lose the money, so I don't use money I need to live. It is the same rule I use for gambling, either at the rare casino visit or when playing lottery (the hope tax). The odds are better with this, though, and honestly my spouse and I would spend just as much going to a casino and blowing our money there. Not getting the stuff isn't happy, but in the end isn't a big deal.
If that sort of risk doesn't sit comfortably with you, then it is going to seem silly.
> You have to know, anything crowdfunded is very high risk.
People who ordered from Kanoa's site directly didn't "crowdfund" anything, they "pre-ordered" the headphones. They weren't gambling on Kickstarter. So what risk are you talking about? It has nothing to do with risk, it is fraud.
> I'm amazed some unscrupulous company has't abused it to take money with no intention of ever delivering a product.
there are plenty of million dollar fraudulent projects on Kickstarter, they don't care, they have only their reputation to loose.
With more cases like this popping up, it seems the safer route is: Back product on Kickstarter and set reminders for 2 weeks before chargeback deadline for credit card used. If product is undelivered by that date, then cancel order with maker AND initiate chargeback too, to be on safe side.
Chargeback deadline appears to be 120 days. For many kickstarters, this isn't enough time to get a product out.
For me, I've never considered Kickstarter to be a pre-ordering platform. More of a platform for helping things get made, that otherwise would be developed.
They might be unhappy but a higher frequency of chargebacks (and possibly bank/card issuer responses) may be the kick they need to re-evaluate and overhaul their current system of maker accountability.
Chargebacks seem like one of the worst ways to deal with it. If you're that afraid of losing money this type of transaction probably isn't for you.
What seems to be the biggest failure with most of these companies is setting the expectations right. It also seems like a subset have good intentions, but lack the experience and/or ability to execute. And an even a smaller subset are actual fraud.
Edit: I would think that if it's proven fraud then some other form of legal action should be taken. It'd be interesting to see if that should be on Kickstarter or not. Perhaps they should step in on such cases to protect their customers.
Sorry for the people who lost their money. I've backed quite a few KS projects as well, but have stopped doing that mostly now. Just because there seems to be bit more of these sketchy projects and from all the projects I've backed I can say that I am "only" properly satisfied with half of them.
Of all the Kickstarters I've done been only been "scammed" once. That was some mobile game that never got the Android version they promised. Or actually they did release it as a free pay-to-win game years later, but had already counted it as a loss.
Have had couple of very disappointing hardware projects, but at least I got the product. Oh and there are still couple of games in "production" that should have been released years ago.
The video mentions how the headphone can't transmit through the body.
The Kanao does seem to have a very weak connection, but isn't transmitting through the body an issue with most headphones ?
With my metallic case phone and jaybird plugs, I often have a better sound if I switch front pockets in order to have the phone on the same side as the plug's bluetooth receiver.
Transmitting electromagnetic waves through a body is just hard and to be honest makes me a bit uneasy.
They had feedback in there earphones. How can you have feedback in your earphones? All thos DTFs, all thos dedicated signal processors, they are all just useless junk?
light.co was mentioned on the corresponding reddit thread. I'm getting afraid I'm going to be burnt by laforge's shima glasses. They are 'super open' with updates showing disassembled hardware components but despite promising press reviews and shipments in Q1, I haven't seen a single hands-on demo or press review or evidence that even their proof of concept exists.
I didn't preorder and have no skin in this.
But, it really irritates me when companies share their feels after screwing people over. I dont care that you're super sad! We're not compadres, and I'm not going to sympathize on a personal level when your professional failure cost me.
Same with touchy-feely status updates when hosted services go down and paying customers are losing money. Github used to do that back in the day. Extended outages and their status log was smiley and cutesy as if we're buddies through all this. We are not.