Kickstarter

I have backed three projects on Kickstarter in the past year, but will not do so again. The first project was well organized and progress was well communicated. For both the second and the third the creators had no business sense or understanding of expectation management.

You pay well upfront for the opportunity to be one of the first to receive the product. Well, if you are not in the United States that can be a real problem. I received one of the products last week after shipping was promised in September 2016. Actual shipping was at the end of November and the cheapest route was taken. Almost three months to ship a small package. The software is full of bugs and the creators are now asking for additional pledge to put in a feature that should have been included from the start.

The other project has been ongoing for quite some time too and I received notice today that it was finally shipping. Estimated shipping was November 2016 and the notice is that it will be shipped this week. Will not hold on to see how long it takes to arrive. This backer sent out updates, but again used those updates to solicit for other projects when they had not delivered on their first.

Mostly, the problem is non-response on the Kickstarter site or a very delayed response. The backers just do not seem to understand how important maintaining good communications is with the backers.

Also, Kickstarter serves as a flow through only. If the project is significantly delayed and you want a refund, that will not happen. Kickstarter plays no part in this aspect of customer service.

Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice shame on you Kickstarter.

A scam site for raising money from innocent people. This is my experience. They have an F rating from BBB

Never had any backed product show up. Company does nothing to support the customers. Avoid and wait for general sale.

That device is useless, complicated to use and has no creative criteria. There are better, more practical devices.

Kickstarter would get more cred from me if they would refund us their 3 or whatever they made on projects that are faf (fake as F&$*)

I can not believe what I found out today. If you do not the goal that you set, Kickstarter will send the mone back to people and then tell you oh well to bad you deal is done. And now all that time is gone, and have you ever tryed to get a email or phone number for them, and lets even take this one more stem here. Once your deal is posted, about a week or two b4 your listing is done, You will get an email from someone blowing smoke up you well you get it. And they can help you, and think for a day and they will get back to you, but pay attention they are asking if you spend money they will help you get things done on this, By law they can't ask for money but if you state you are doing this cuz you do not have money well they just got the work you are looking for free help and it will not come from them, because you will not get email from them again, and if you mail thm they still do not get back to you. I know I had this happen 4 times and got $00.00 cus I did not pay... My Job was Hooked On Sport Fishing

Most projects are scams, and they will keep your money and will not deliver
It is fraud, kickstarter do not reply to customers at all

Have an idea that you think will out do what already exist... like Facebook?

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/*******/diaspora-the-personally-controlled-do-it-all-distr Creators of Diaspora thought of a place where they could get what they had gotten from Facebook, but without the privacy issues.

Ever wonder where did the trade school go?

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/OurGoods/trade-school-0 According to the creators of Our Goods: Anyone can offer to teach a class. Students sign up for classes by agreeing to meet the teacher's barter needs. We ran Trade School for 35 days and we want to open again!

Kickstarter is place where many hands can make the load light. Share a creative project in art, film, food, writing, music, community, technology... and more. You throw out your idea in written format as well as video and set a goal. If your goal is not matched by the due date (you set) then no money exchanges hands between you and your many backers.

This allows people to test the waters for what people are interested in. It also keeps you from having to front money should you only reach part of your goal and then those that back you expect a $20,000 to blossom from $5,000 backing.

It is an innovative site that could jumpstart many (or kickstart har har) into areas of life they can't get to by conventional means (maybe this will be conventional one day...).

Check it out. You might have an idea or you might find an idea you'd be willing to support. Either way this is a place for the creative to flourish and show that the rich and the mighty don't hold all the cards when the unknowns get together to propel one of their own to the stars.

At what point does Kickstarter call a project a loss ( scam) for 2 years now. A simple project ( MARBOLOUS) has been work almost 2 years and seem to be no further along.

Kickstarter is an interesting idea. But that is where it stops. The idea has yet to come into a practical reality. I currently have a kickstarter project running. The literature refers to a 'kickstarter community.' that you can attract for $10-$25 rewards. However, there is no kickstarter community. The project must bring its own backers! What is the point of having Kickstarter if you already have backers?

Based on the success stories posted, I conclude that this is a good place for established small businesses to offer new products to an existing customer base. They can 'pre-order' projects at a discounted price. Examples: a shoe company offers customers a new style shoe at a discount if they 'pre-order them'. A recording artist offers a new album to existing fans at a discounted rate if they 'pre-order'. Kickstarter just takes the risk out of 'pre-ordering' by telling would-be customers that if they can't raise enough money to complete their new product, then they are not obligated to fulfill the orders. No one gets mad, that's all.

The second problem is that even if Kickstarter had an interested, altruistic community interested in funding new projects, the website is set up for favoritism and corruption. The entire set up displays only what are called 'popular' projects and 'recommended' projects- about six in all! The search capabilities are so favorably prejudiced toward these projects that people would be completely unaware that more projects even existed.

I'm posting this review because I don't want anyone else to waste a solid month of hard work preparing like I did. I had read earlier complaints but didn't heed them. I hope you heed this one. New artists without a lot of moneyed customers ready to pay up early need not apply at Kickstarter.com

Has lots of interesting creative projects. Some of those are too futuristic to me but most of them are worth your attention.

I have two unit brought and over a month delay now and no response from Doogee
Or kick starter 1st and last time both a joke beware

You must try it once as it is a very good restaurant. Service is excellent and atmosphere as well. Staff was very polite and humble.

Great site, lots of potential, lots of risks but if you wait it out and you pledge smartly, you won't regret it

Has loads of interesting projects but be very careful on sending money somewhere - a good thorough research is my advice.

SUCK - DON'T WAST YOUR ON TIME ON KICKSTARTER IF YOU DON'T HAVE A BIG HUGH FOLLOWING ALREADY.

What I means is, if you think your just going to place your Idea on KS and think people are going to back you (that a big mistake), if you think KS is going to promote you (that a big mistake), so way do you think you need KS - YOU DON'T!

KS wants 3% of your founding but does nothing for it, you do all the work 100%, you would be better off just making a website and having your fan base or your following just go there to invest.

You will see like i did, once you place your ad on KS you we be overwhelmed with Spamming emails asking for money, money, money, money, not wanting to invest but asking for money, money, money, money, telling you that they can help found your project up to 80% from anywhere from $99.99 to $1500. Then some of them wont 7% of the top of your founding, scammer all of them trying to suck your money out of your pocket.

I got about 70 email all from different companies, saying the same exact thing on their website, say the same exact thing in their emails, Charging high rate's for placing paid ads a google and Facebook in your behalf, NOTE: just do it your self if your going to spend the money you don't need them at all.

Just like the promotion companies did when the SEO bull $#*! hot ( be at the top of google) bra bra bra bla take it from me I run a full business on the Internet and I have heard and see it all.

I hope this help!

Fun site, I have good times betting on random projects however I must admit that a lot of them are BS.

We are in progress with our Kickstarter Project - our example: http://kck.st/vL281h

We have learned much about spreading the word on the internet for a project. The goal of the project has kept us focused and that has helped our project greatly.

However, we must agree that you need to bring your own backers - don't rely on Kickstarter to do that for you. The projects they choose for promotions is almost always on the eclectic side of the brain. Which is cool, but if you are a rather straight forward product it won't help you much. We also managed to add tracking to our project so we know for a fact where our traffic is coming from and at what levels. We averaged 80 views per day on the Kickstarter page, which is not outstanding by any means. Only about 10 - 20 of those visits click on the video.

Our typical traffic level at http://www.Qubits.com is 100 views per day so many of the Kickstarter views were referrals from ourselves. 87% of the backers were friends - while the rest were from Kickstarter and Twitter.

Note: The front page of Kickstarter averages 40,000 unique viewers PER DAY. Yes getting picked ( CURATED) for a highlight on that page is a boon to anyone. However your chances of getting onto it are slim. They receive hundreds of new project submissions per day.

Focus on your project, your customer or fan base, come up with a plan how to gather your own funding, post a project and perhaps receive the extra touch of the Kickstarter community. The boost your project receives from Kickstarter will hopefully offset the Kickstarter & Amazon 10% - 15% fee

It might be just the right fit for you. If you fail, regroup and try again. If you succeed you have even a greater chance with your second project since you will have an established connection with satisfied customers.

We've raised $1.2 million (and counting) over two projects this way (Zombicide and Sedition Wars). We've also tried running our own pre-orders and barely scratched $30k, so for an apples to apples comparison, Kickstarter is excellent.

Kickstarter is an incredible huge machete in your little Swiss Army Knife of marketing tools. If you've got enough strength to pick up the knife and know how to use it, it beats the dinky little 3" one any day. If you don't know how to use it, it won't do anything for you; in that the other reviewers are right, Kickstarter will amplify your existing audience exponentially, but won't do much if you don't already have one.

If you're raising money for a product, rather than a project, then Kickstarter is an excellent place to do it. Viewed as a pre-ordering system, 5% is an extremely low commission on a sale, since you'll need to pick up the tab for credit card processing anyway. Compare this to other marketplaces like eBay and Amazon that have a large reach, the fees here are usually close to 15% excluding credit card fees. Or, compare to affiliate programs which you can run through providers like Commision Junction or on your own sites, if you offer anything less than 10% no one is going to want promote your product.

Compared to Indiegogo, Kickstarter has a significant advantage in funding potential; with huge pluses in both perceived credibility/safety and audience. Non-US companies have realized this and are intentionally opening representative offices in the US in order to use Kickstarter (Carmageddon Reincarnation is a recent high profile example in the video games sector).

I'm not sure how long this phenomenon will last but while the audience is enthusiastic that's the platform we'll be using in the short term (before the JOBS Act).

I backed the Kickstarter AirCard campaign in July 2023; they gave me a promised ship date of late August. When I contacted Rolling Square on August 25,2023 for an expected ship date, David at Rolling Square Customer service replied, "we are actively working towards providing a more specific shipping date." That was a red flag for me so I canceled the transaction and David acknowledged in writing my cancellation and said he would get a refund issued in "a few days."

I waited. No refund. So I disputed the Mastercard charge with my bank to get my money refunded.

On September 8th, David wrote, "due to the dispute that was opened for your pledge, we are unable to process a refund directly at this time. However, we have taken the necessary steps by contacting Kickstarter to request a full refund of your pledge amount on your behalf."

Not only didn't Rolling Square or Kickstarter refund the money they agreed to in writing back in August, they only replied to the credit card dispute I initiated by stating that it was an authorized charged. Of course, Kickstarter said nothing to about the fact that I canceled the sale on August 25th when they couldn't give me a ship date or that they promised me a refund in just a few days. Way to honor your word and stonewall your customer service.

After my bank received a response from Kickstarter they allowed me to send them all the emails I had from David at Rolling Square who acknowledged in writing that I canceled the sale on August 25th also promising me a full refund.

It took months to get a refund for an order that Kickstarter acknowledged I cancelled before shipment. And my refund only happened because I charged the order to my credit card and I proved to my bank the facts of my dispute. What a hassle!

Obviously I won't trust Kickstarter or Rolling Square to honor their commitments so I will never do business with either again.

I got scammed two time in a row! I think the whole Kickstarter Plattform full of scammers an rarley you got for what you have pledged!

Recently, about a year ago, like many aspiring filmmakers, I went onto Kickstarter to help fund one of my film projects. But unlike the other hopefuls, I chose not to campaign for my project. Needless to say, I failed to receive any funding. I was by no ways shocked at the results; I expected those results. I wanted to prove a point. I went on Kickstarter once more, this time it was for a safety product I had created to save abandoned children. Once again, I refused to campaign myself. And, once again, I failed to receive any funding. And now I will reveal why I refused to campaign for myself--I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO!
Let's take a look at this objectively. Kickstarter's concept asks it's consumers to place their projects on their site. They then offer a slew of suggestions on how to go about campaigning to raise funds for your product. And when, on that magical day, you reach your financial goal, you are given the funds to launch your project minus their COMMISSION, and minus Amazon's commission. If you fail to reach your EXACT financial objective, you get NOTHING.
Think about this for a minute. You are asked to come up with a product, tweak the product, campaign to raise funds for YOUR product, and in the end Kickstarter and Amazon get a cut of what you have earned. What's the point in that? Our nation is inundated with MIDDLEMEN; Kickstarter fits that mold to a T. They're nothing more than pimps. They make money off your hard work. What's the point of these websites like Kickstarter if they do absolutely nothing to help you with the collecting of the funds, but draw their financial share provided by your hard work?
And yes, I also placed my safety product on Indiegogo, and as you may have guessed, the results, or lack of, were identical.
Let's stop supporting these PIMPS OF THE INTERNET.

If the company goes belly up, you lose your money! And Kickstarter won't help you.