An Interview with a Kickstarter Success | Hacker News Reader

An Interview with a Kickstarter Success

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24 pointsjheitzeb14 comments

I'm not sure it counts as a success just because they reached goals. Get back to us when they've shipped.

Well, not only that, but even after shipping, life isn't necessarily roses and rainbows for even the most successful Kickstarter campaigns. A story worth writing would be a followup with some of the biggest winners in Kickstarter's history, with sort of a "Where are they now?" angle.

It's awesome that the Thermodo guys were able to get such interest in their product, and to generate such a big round on Kickstarter. But let's ask ourselves: is there really a market for plug-in thermometers for mobile phones? Would they have been able to establish such a market without Kickstarter? Will they maintain a market after the Kickstarter campaign is over? Or, perhaps more likely, is the set of all people who bought into this Kickstarter round = to the set of all people who will ever buy a Thermodo?

Don't get me wrong; I'm a big Kickstarter fan. And I've contributed to plenty of campaigns to get "gee-whiz" types of novelty products. But I have a hard time seeing a sustainable business model in many of these ostensible success stories.

(Maybe that's ok. Maybe some of these guys are just trying to bring cool or interesting products to a big group, and nothing more. So be it.)

This is our first attempt to foray into physical hardware products as software developers. It's our MVP. Kickstarter is a fantastic platform for that.

There are still lots of work ahead of us. We have several ideas on where we want take Thermodo project from here. We are already getting lots of feedbacks on ideas from users, too. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/robocat/thermodo-the-tin...

We will probably write a post on our journey from software developers to hardware designers when we are a bit closer to the final product.

Rock on, then. If this is the MVP of a bigger, Nest-like vision, and/or a springboard into more projects, all the more power to you.

BTW, I did not intend to come off as a dick in my previous post, and I apologize if I did. What I was trying to say is that I am really more interested in the what-happens-after phase than I am in the fundraising phase, and I don't think we -- meaning we, the community, the press, the readers, etc. -- spend enough time or attention following up with the people who've launched big. And we should certainly root for the success of those who do.

I do think the gadget is pretty cool, and I'm interested to see where it goes.

Touché!

Kickstarter is NOT an investment platform. That's actually against the law in the USA [1].

Kickstarter is a DONATION platform.

There is a huge difference between the two and people often confuse what Kickstarter really is (and is obligated to do).

[1] http://www.sec.gov/answers/rule506.htm

My co-founder and I at Lumi ran two successful Kickstarter projects and have been mentoring people on the platform. We turned our workshops into a Skillshare class that contains lots of good material + interviews with other project creators. http://skl.sh/111uQaJ

If you want to get a flavor for the course we're doing a live Google Hangout tonight at 6:30PM PDT, that you're welcome to join in on: https://plus.google.com/events/c1e21ts81gf4gdchcivs7ld8jec

Kickstarter is pretty amazing. My brother's company has had huge success and are only 7 days into their campaign (they got their initial funding in 3 hours) but they have a long time customer base and a lot of pent up demand as they are using Kickstarter to fund a less expensive version of the product they have been selling for years.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dwarvenforge/dwarven-for...

no spamming , it's in the kickstarter rules.

Are you...saying that dugmartin is spamming?

Thanks for reading the interview. The project from the interview is our MVP of a hardware product as software developers.

Edit: direct link to Thermodo Kickstarter campaign http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/robocat/thermodo-the-tin...

if anyone is launching a project, then check out our bootstrapped service at https://teelaunch.com -- good luck

We actually contacted you before we launched, but never heard back.

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