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If you’re reading this blog, you will have heard of the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter. Kickstarter has become synonymous with crowdfunding and has become a verb. There are several crowd funding platforms out there including Indiegogo and China’s Demo Day but none seem to have caught the public imagination in the same way Kickstarter seems to have.
Major companies like Sony have trialed offerings of products on crowdfunding platforms as a way of accessing market size and viability for new products. Bands from Public Enemy to unknown artists have financed their album recordings and production in a similar way
Kickstarter failure rate
I’ve personally subscribed to projects with very mixed results with Kickstarter projects that I have funded. My experience of my first couple of projects were very positive. My most recent experiences have been one of disappointment to the point that I no longer use it. They failed. There was production problems, the timelines over ran. And at least one of them looked as if they took the money and ran when the project seemed more difficult than they originally assessed it to be.
Therefore it was interesting to hear Kickstarter used in a different context, that reflects my experience with the platform.
I like the Techmoan YouTube channel as a good deal of its content introduces retro technology, many of which is is equipment or media formats that I hadn’t come across previously.
The channel host Mat used Kickstarter not as a brand, but as a verb to imply that a product was somehow inferior and lacking in quality. It has become synonymous with an amateurish effort. Just because technology and globalisation have democratised access to manufacturing; doesn’t necessarily mean better quality products. That can’t be good for the brand.
This is on top of crowdfunding’s high degree of funding failures, product failures and increasing numbers of alleged fraud.