ZPM Espresso and the Rage of the Jilted Crowdfunder

My full take away from the situation was simply that they had bad business sense and burned through cash on a several bad decisions, then hoped to pull success from the jaws (or more realistically, the stomach) of defeat, so made ridiculously upbeat postings in an attempt to hand wave over the cracks in the project.

It was a risk; I took it on. Not my most expensive bad investment by far. I checked out of monitoring the Kickstarter feed once it became clear that it was going no where. That was well before the final gasps from the ZPM people.

I'm glad that Kickstarter has pushed projects to post risks, avoid renders, etc. None of that would have mitigated the bad-businesspeople issue, however.

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Edit: To make things clear, I really don't hold a grudge on this. I threw money at some clever ideas, but we all know making them happen at scale can be hard. They didn't handle things well but I felt that the hugely negative response was largely an overreaction.

I had intentionally avoided backing the Kickstarter because I didn't find the risk to be worth it at the time.

One thing I learned through the process, which everyone should be aware of: there is no consumer protection available with either Shopify or American Express Platinum (famous for it's high level of customer service, "return protection", extended warranty on purchases, etc) if more than 60-120 days passes after a purchase and you haven't received the item.

Lesson: file claims early.

Don't order pre-order goods with uncertain delivery dates (or if you do, don't let them slip past 60 days from the order date without filing a claim for a refund with the merchant provider or your credit card company).

"Bio-Med Engineer Langhorne PA 13 hours ago I worked in an engineering design consultancy that was contracted early on to help productize the ZPM design, and as such am intimately familiar with their initial concepts. In my opinion, the founders were initially earnest and dedicated but also naive and lacking in engineering judgement. They confused the ability to raise money with the ability to make sound engineering and technical decisions. Falling in love with one's ideas is a trap into which many inventors fall, and ZPM fell hard.

Additionally, I believe that ZPM received a lot of questionable advice from people who did not have their best interests at heart, and were swayed by strong personalities.

But the early backers - particularly the engineers - should have had the sense to realize that open-source firmware that is intended to control a consumer product that delivers scalding hot water is a fundamentally BAD idea, and that using a PID loop to manage the process is totally unnecessary.

What this article highlights is that Mr. Polyakov's talent is in raising money and expectations. It is unfortunate that neither his ethics, nor his engineering abilities can match those talents."

As a business owner, and a fairly transparent one, that sickens me. In what world should customers feel "entitled to know everything" about a business.

Absolutely entitled to ask, to take their business elsewhere if they don't like the (lack of) answers, but entitled to know? No way.

This sounds to me like another group who confused Kickstarter with Amazon pre-ordering, or an investment fund where they became shareholders. You assessed the risks, took the risk to put some money down, and it didn't work out.

It's often said that Silicon Valley works, in part, because of its acceptance of failures. This is a witch hunt that says more about the hunters than those they are chasing. Good luck building the American Dream in a society where failing to deliver on a Kickstarter project means it's "entirely appropriate that he never work in technology, finance, consulting or the coffee fields (sorry, that kills the barista career) again.”