"Besides this whole model of skipping a VC/investor to go directly to customers and then make super profits is a disruptive trend for investors."
Having customers pre-order a product and pay directly for it isn't exactly disruptive.
Having customers pre-order a product and pay directly for it isn't exactly disruptive.
Is it sustainable for tangible goods businesses? Generally, campaigns don't sell full pre-orders, they sell deeply discounted preorders. Unless there is some major, major margin built in there.... I mean, I'm looking at Pebble's kickstarter, and all but the first level give you 1 or more watches. Considering that the first run is the most expensive (by a wiiiiide margin, getting the tools made, setting up QA, etc), I wonder what Pebble's books are going to look like once all the preorders are filled?
This is like the sales pitches pre-real estate collapse. "The markets have steadily risen at 5-10% so its safe to take a 4.5-8% variable interest mortgage!"
Then things go wrong.
I lose my bet if KS can dodge a hit to their reputation, by ensuring that their system doesn't get gamed or become a target for cons.
Edit: Incidentally the reason VCs and others don't invest in some ideas is because of ticket size of the initial investment and final ability to knock it out of the park. (the 9 in 10 fail, but the 10th is Google rule)
So VCs are never going to be worried about losing out on KS projects except very rarely.
On the other hand, I know that I can create a sales pitch for a vapor ware product which sounds good enough to at least get some funding, and use that to create more believable KS pitches.
Speculation of course - I assume that this is something KS has worked on.