It seems weird that crowdfunding / Kickstarter is foreign to people in this community, of all places.
Kickstarter is known for being a place where products thrive but also where creators have gone broke, had issues happen, gone belly-up, and more.
No, you're not an investor. No, you're not entitled to anything beyond what the creater of the kickstarter has placed in the project.
Just like anything else, you vote with your wallet on the project/product. What's strange to me is how entitled some people have acted regarding this particular project. "Before I contribute $100, I want to know a detailed breakdown of your plastic molding costs to make sure you aren't paying yourself with my money!!!!!!"
Huh?
It's a strange mindset. A kickstarter is similar, but not the same, as a group buy. If a group buy is ran, do you ask where each dollar goes? Do you ask why GMK Olivia is $160 (or whatever) and demand a detailed breakdown of the costs? Whos to say it's not $100 cost (for this particular set, for whatever reason), and the runner is pocketing $60 per set? And if they were, would you care?
At the end of the day, you are paying a price for a product. It's an exchange of goods and/or services. You put money down, you expect a product in return. Same as a GB.
You don't think it's worth it? You don't buy it. You think a Mercedes isn't worth it, you don't buy it. Someone else does, so they do. Value isn't always intrinsic.
I feel like people see $500k and their eyes bug out. "Whoa, half a million? This guy must be getting rich off this! Hey, that's not fair! Give me a breakdown of your costs because I don't want you to run away with half a million!!!!!!"
Let's take a keycap group buy, with an (admittedly high) MOQ. A MOQ of 500 keycaps, with payment at $160 each, means $80,000. If each keycap group buy had a slider slowly inching towards $80,000, I bet more people would be freaking out about it, wanting more details, a breakdown, etc. It's a weird psychological thing.
Point is, chill out people. Vote with your wallet. You want the caps? You want a chance for keycaps to ACTUALLY be a reasonable cost again? You want a new profile to succeed? You want some innovation instead of GMK churning the same crap out over and over with different pantone swabs? This is your chance.
Or, if you're nervous, wait. Wait and see what happens. Wait and hope that it hits the goal and that you can buy "traditionally" from Evan's storefront in a year. The core concept of a kickstarter is to help inventors get their ideas to reality without relying on traditional loans. So, don't be dense and say "get a loan" or "why should I support this?"
Like, come on. You can't possibly be this dense. Or maybe you can, idk. I'm surprised how some people get dressed in the mornings, so who knows.
It's all so weird.
There are two things you are completely choosing to ignore. The first is that on the kickstarter, it is NOT clear that the buy is all about funding equipment used to generate profit later (i legitimately am curious if there is a cheaper way to do this using an established manufacturer like pretty much any other kickstarter would do). The second is the increased liability involved because of it. Since this is not a GB and not using an established keycap vendor, there is NO guarantee at all, that ANY of these keycaps are ever produced. It's not as if kickstarters have some amazing track record where nothing missed fulfillment. Kickstarters fail ALL THE TIME.
If Evan sets up and finds out it actually costs $800k to produce the sets as described, the entire kickstarter could simply fail, every purchaser gets nothing and evan gets a nice new injection molding machine. I AM NOT saying this is likely only that it is possible and while you might think that warrants extra discussion, I certainly do. That said, based on the numbers Evan listed, I am a bit concerned that 500k isn't actually enough. I'm curious what sort of plan there is in place for THAT scenario?
I also personally think it's at least worth considering, is this the BEST profile/vendor to try this with? Evan does a good job and his boards seem nice enough, but you can't really argue that the minivan represents one of the tiniest of niche's in the community.
The things I'd like to know are what are Evan's plans for letting OTHER PEOPLE run sets:
- Will it just be a submit design and evan sells it type thing?
- Will people be running GB like SP/GMK?
- Will anyone be able to run sets?
- If so will people have to worry about being blacklisted from running sets for ANY other reason aside from non-payment?
- You mention that the molds do keys in sets, what if we want to run DIFFERENT sets?
- What are the sets being used? (what keys are grouped together)
- What is a standard kit?
- Is the tooling being built with a focus first on minivans and then everything else? Or is TKL/60% still a first class citizen?
- What is the target cost for a retail set?
Also, PLEASE stop telling people who disagree with you to chill out. No one is upset, and I don't really see anyone complaining that there should be no new profiles or lower prices. People are asking legitimate questions. I understand you want this project to succeed, but I'm not really sure what you are advocating for.
You do understand that many people are asking questions BECAUSE they are considering buying but are not comfortable with the current amount of information. You might not agree with that, but what do you propose they do if there is no more information provided? Do you want all those people to simply not support because asking questions is just too annoying? Is that REALLY what's best for the KS? Do you want those people to do something they are not comfortable with and support the buy just to appease you? Why do you get to decide when questions are and are not reasonable?
The simplest way I can see explaining this, with any normal GB you are spending money to buy keycaps, so a runner takes your money and uses it to directly purchase said keycaps, then you just wait for them to fulfill the order. With this you are spending money so that Evan can start a business, get the equipment to TRY and make keycaps, get space to store/use the equipment, get raw materials, do calibration/testing/validation, hire employees, train employees, etc. Yes, in a good outcome, the result SHOULD be the same, but there are no guarantees of that, and there are SUBSTANTIALLY more places where **** can go wrong. You shouldn't ignore this just cause the prices are good, they are good for a reason.
A good article to read:
https://www.fastcompany.com/3004024/why-your-kickstarter-project-late &
https://medium.com/three-pipe-vc/how-a-half-million-dollar-kickstarter-project-can-crash-and-burn-5482d7d33ee1Dragon Innovation’s Miller says he often gets panicked calls from Kickstarter project creators who can’t feasibly complete their projects. Their creators did not understand the manufacturing costs when they set their goal. Their timeline is unreasonable, or their design isn’t actually manufacturable.
“They’ve also spent the money, and Amazon and Kickstarter have taken their cut,” Miller says. “They can’t even give back the money. It’s kind of a really unfortunate position to be in.”
Also, while you might not like people asking questions about the investment simply because there is no equity involved, but you are essentially saying "use it like a store", but Kickstarter makes it very clear THEY ARE NOT A STORE:
https://www.kickstarter.com/blog/kickstarter-is-not-a-storeAs far as I'm concerned the risks section of the Hub Kickstarter is a joke "we have experience and stuff" is not a realistic depiction of the risks involved here. Delays, low quality product, non-delivery, etc are all possibilities. I'd much prefer a more realistic response there with details on how much money is being set aside for issues, and timelines and such.
Oh and you mention KS where people bought their own machining equipment, could you please provide links to some of those? I am aware of MANY that have purchased tooling for injection molds, but none that I am aware of have actually invested in their own injection molding machines.
Regardless, Evan's update goes a long way to appeasing some of my concerns, though I do hope he continues to follow up and address the others. I am still not sold on hub and am waiting to see how it's doing in around a month from now, but I may still get a few sets just for kicks even if I don't think I'd ever use them.
