crowdfunding: crowded with failures

Crowdfunding was great when it worked.
However, the technology sector is awash with crowdfunding failures.
The idea of crowdfunding is simple-so that anyone with a good idea can help raise money for their projects by accepting donations from the public.
This is at least the promise of a crowdfunding site like Kickstarter to help fund projects based on the millions it raises every day, a very popular site.
In fact, crowdfunding sites have been an important source of some of the most innovative products in recent years.
Many people who have successfully funded projects on crowdfunding websites have actually formed quite successful companies-examples of this are peak design, one that started on Kickstarter, but now the company that has successfully retail photography packages and photography accessories.
According to a lot of statistics from Kickstarter, technology-
The success rate of related projects is the lowest, only 19.
Technology 72%-
The relevant kickstars have actually succeeded, which does not include those (such as Pebble)
This was a success in crowdfunding, but ultimately failed as a company.
We put together some of the latest technologies.
The projects involved exceeded their original financing objectives, but ultimately proved to be not a first-class or complete failure.
Anyone who wants to review a project on a crowdfunding platform should make it a cautionary story-it\'s unlikely to be true if it looks too good.
PebblePebble is actually a crowdfunding poster, at least until the company is closed and acquired by Fitbit.
Launched by founder Eric Migicovsky on Kickstarter, the original Pebble was an interesting concept-it was $99 for supporters (RM450)
A smartwatch connected to your smartphone via Bluetooth allows you to display messages and notifications and reply to them.
While it doesn\'t sound so magical you have to understand that this is in 2012, the cobblestone is a concept ahead of the present-two years earlier than Google\'s launch of Android Wear and three years earlier than Apple\'s launch of the Apple Watch.
Migicovsky released Pebble on Kickstarter with a target of $100,000 (RM442,550).
Due to the word-of-mouth and strong response of the project, at the end of the financing, the company had raised $10. 27mil (RM46. 2mil)
This was the most funded project in the history of Kickstarter.
The pebbles were actually successful, and despite some initial delays, the company shipped about 300,000 first pebbles by the end of 2013.
The company was very successful and then launched Pebble Steel (
The first metal version
For pebbles)
In addition, Pebble Time, which features color displays, also exceeded their financing targets, and Pebble Time again reached another milestone for Kickstarter, earning $20. 3mil (RM91. 4mil).
2016, once again launched the latest Pebble equipment on Kickstarter, that is, in Pebble month, the updated version of Pebble belt heart monitor, Pebble month (
Color Screen)
Pebble Core is a compact keychain device with 3g and GPS, so it can track your workout and audio stream using Spotify to Bluetooth headsets.
Despite the success of both companies with Kickstarter, the company even managed to provide some Pebble 2 devices to its supporters, but there was trouble behind the scenes.
Apparently, Pebble has fallen into some significant debt due to a slowdown in sales-in addition to Kickstarter, which relies on selling products in bricks --and-
Physical stores and online stores.
The problem is that by 2016, the market for wearables has slowed, and customers who buy wearables are looking for devices with more fitness tracking capabilities, and the pebbles are not doing well, pebble 2 promises but has not delivered yet.
Unfortunately, it\'s too late for the company-even before most of the equipment from Pebble Core, Pebble Time 2 and Pebble 2 is delivered to supporters, the assets were sold to fitness wearable Fitbit, which bought only intellectual property and gave up support for existing Pebble devices.
Unlike pebbles, Ouya\'s success is more due to hype and commitment than to the actual reality.
At the Kickstarter event in 2012, founder Julie Uhrman launched a video promising a revolutionary game console based on the Android operating system for only $99 (RM440).
According to sales promotion, Ouya will have a store where developers can produce games and get discounts from game sales without paying permission fees to Ouya.
The console itself is a small box connected to the TV and it comes with a wireless controller.
All of this sounds good and Oya managed to raise $8. 6mil (about RM38. 7mil)
Plus $15 m on Kickstarter (RM66. 38mil)
Capital investment by Kleiner Perkins, a venture capital firm.
Ouya actually entered the market as promised.
However, despite the hype and the success of Kickstarter, Ouya was doomed to fail from the beginning.
The main problem is that Ouya basically runs the smartphone operating system, the hardware specs are medium at best-few competitors for dedicated consoles like Microsoft Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 launched about 10 years ago.
Even with the booming Android smartphone market and the launch of a more powerful new phone every six months compared to smartphones, Ouya is quickly left behind.
In addition to that, despite the promise of the open platform, game developers are not in a hurry to create exclusive games on Ouya and the store, mainly featured games on Android smartphones.
Not surprisingly, after all the Kickstarter hype was over and the equipment was delivered to supporters, the actual retail at Ouya was very bad and the company ended up in debt.
After the acquisition of the assets by Razer Inc. , the company stopped its business.
TriggertrapLike Pebble, Triggertrap is a Kickstarter project that grew into a fairly successful company before it crashed and burned down.
Not as ambitious as pebbles, triggertrap is a very simple and fun idea-founder Haje January Kamps wants to create a \"smart\" remote trigger cable that can connect to the shutter of the DSLR camera.
The first product is Arduino-
Camera-based remote control-essentially a microcomputer with microphone, laser sensor and ambient light sensor.
Once connected to the DSLR, when the Triggertrap detects a change in sound or light intensity, it will trigger the shutter of the camera.
When Triggertrap is used with a cheap laser indicator, it is perfect for capturing images of wildlife, as it automatically triggers the shutter when the animal breaks the line of sight between the laser and the sensor.
V1 ertrap v1 exceeds $25,000 (RM112,000)
Goal of Kickstarter and got more than $77,000 (RM346,000).
The success of trigger trap v1 leads to trigger trap movement, a cable that connects Triggertrap to an Android or iOS smartphone, when the camera detects motion or vibration, it can also use the camera or accelerometer of the smartphone to trigger the shutter of the camera
Triggertrap Ada was released on Kickstarter again, exceeding $62,000 (RM274,380)
The target and the amount received are nearly six times what the company requires.
The Ada project is designed to be a modular trigger that allows the system to connect different sensors or multiple cameras and flash to the device so that all of them can be controlled by one unit.
Unfortunately, the company seriously underestimated manufacturing costs, and after running out of 80% of Kickstarter\'s money to make the prototype, it realized that the cost of the final product would be five times what it estimated.
After several rounds of layoffs, the company finally canceled the Triggertrap Ada and refunded the remainder of the Kickstarter funds.
But it was a costly mistake-Triggertrap announced it could not recover from the loss and shut down operations earlier this year.
The Pono music player, supported by musician Neil Young, was launched on Kickstarter for $800,000 (RM3. 53mil)goal.
The idea, according to Young, is to create a digital music player that can play music like it should be heard, which means being able to handle audio in a variety of lossless formats.
The player will also come with a music store called PonoMusic, which offers music in lossless coding format.
The Pono music player made $6. 2mil (about RM27. 9mil)
More than 18,000 supporters supported the project.
However, when the player is released, at a price of $400 (RM1,800)
You have a chubby Toblerone-
Deformation player with built-in 64 gb storage space, microSD card slot and touch screen display.
Music torn off or purchased online from a cd can only be transferred to the player using a USB cable and there is no wireless support for streaming audio or transferring files
In addition to the built-in devices,in high-
Excellent audio components.
It is reported that the battery life is not particularly large for the music player, only about six hours.
The player is still on sale, but it\'s hard to see how far the product will go because most people use their smartphones to play music or play music from services like Spotify.
The Zano drone was made in the UK by the Torquing Group, which was released on Kickstarter in November 2014.
Zano was described as \"super\" at its Kickstarter event
The portable personal aerial photography and video collection platform is small enough to be placed in the palm of your hand \".
Photos and impressive videos of this nano drone show a small quad-rotor aircraft that can be connected and controlled via iOS or Android devices.
The page also describes Zano as so smart that it can automatically avoid obstacles and use gesture control on the smartphone or set to automatically follow the operator for driving.
The company also claims that anyone can take \"Amazing aerial photos and videos\" without the need for complex flight training \".
\"When released on Kickstarter, the target is 125,000 (RM687,000)
The company managed to achieve the goal easily, eventually reaching a total of 2 pounds. 33mil (RM12. 8mil).
In fact, the demand is so high that the company is pre-
Order, 3,000 additional orders were accepted for Zano.
The story is very familiar from here-just to name a few issues, it was delayed and then affected by the propeller manufacturing problem.
Still, there were about 6,000 drones in the end.
Customers are reportedly ordered.
Interestingly, only four supporters on Kickstarter received Zano-Torquing\'s decision to ship most of the devices to the pre-
Order the customer first, because PayPal will only issue funds after completing the booking
Funding from Kickstarter supporters is already in the hands of the company.
The only problem is that they are barely functional-poor video quality is the least of the problems encountered by Zano drones.
Some drones barely leave the ground, while others that do fly will deviate from the ground and hit the wall, with no signs of promised autonomous flight function and no obstacles to avoid
The delay continued, and by November 2015 Torquing announced that it would carry out voluntary liquidation of creditors and announced that it had not only exhausted the funds of Kickstarter, but also owed another debt of £ 1 m (RM5. 5mil).
The final blow came when Zano shut down its server.
Since drones are designed to connect to servers that download calibration data and updates, they will no longer fly and will be permanently grounded.
Zano was the most well-funded Kickstarter in Europe at the time, but it ended up failing so much that Kickstarter himself hired freelance journalist Mark Harris to investigate what happened.
It was discovered that while the creator of Zano did not deceive the customer, even if the device was shipped to the customer, they did not have the device that worked properly.
Tiko 3D printerThe Tiko 3D has a dubious honor, it is the second most funded 3D printer on Kickstarter and is so popular that soon after the launch of Kickstarter, it also won
Target from $100,000 (RM442,600)
Tiko 3D actually ended the campaign to earn $2. 95mil (RM13. 3mil).
What did Tiko 3D promise?
Well, the main selling point of Tiko 3D is that it\'s a fullin-
A 3D printer is designed in one piece and needs almost no installation. The price is relatively low at $179 (RM800).
The project was launched in March 31, 2015 with an expected delivery date of November 2015-an unrealistic time frame for research, development, production and delivery.
During that time, the company slipped from outsourced production to the rental plant to assemble the printer, with the final delivery date slipping to July 2016 and finally to December 2016.
Despite the fact that there are more than 16,500 supporters on Kickstarter, the company shipped only about 4,100 Tiko 3D printers-people who received them found they had serious problems.
Obviously, the wireless printer is not able to connect to the WiFi network or load the filament print media correctly.
Some even bend on the pillar to stop the print head moving.
Even those who are really successful have produced substandard 3D objects.
While technical issues are not unsolvable, the creators of Tiko 3D have so far been in financial trouble.
As of February 2017, the founder of Tiko 3D published the article on Kickstarter: \"We don\'t know how difficult it is to go from prototype to mass production.
We are in the process of learning, but most mistakes are expensive and irreversible.
Our biggest mistake is to start counting too early.
\"We didn\'t realize this at first, but by ordering components in bulk, we \'ve pushed ourselves into a corner.
The design flaws have arisen and we are in trouble.
It is too late when we understand our predicament.
\"The founder of Tiko 3D is now looking for investors to save the business.
It is understandable that some supporters are asking for a refund, and the founder of Tiko 3d has a classic line like this: \"No.
If we can\'t refund everyone then it\'s not fair to refund anyone.
What is the moral of the story?
The project for Kickstarter is on your own.