For local tech entrepreneurs seeking to kick-start projects with a “crowdfunding” infusion, the popular Kickstarter method is increasingly feeling like an uphill struggle.
Some recent Kickstarter campaigns, like SmartThings, fire the imagination of funders and soar to success.
SmartThings, a project to give everyday objects Internet-related features, sought $250,000 but garnered $1,209,423 in pledges from 5,694 “backers” last year. SmartThings was among only 17 of 18,109 successful Kickstarter campaigns in 2012 to top $1 million.
Then there are local Kickstarter projects that struggle and sputter as their deadlines loom. Two Twin Cities campaigns — the Machook and the Custom Balance Pen — were nearing their finish lines this week with a diminishing likelihood of success.
And while the reasons for this are not entirely clear, the creators of these and other Twin Cities campaigns wish Kickstarter had not made it arduous for them because of what they regard as onerous rules.
This has been a not-uncommon complaint as Kickstarter has tightened guidelines for accepting crowdfunding campaigns, which are open to contributions from all who study a project page and like what they see.
In September, Kickstarter banned the use of product simulations or photorealistic renderings of what it classifies as “hardware and product-design projects.” Candidates promoting tech gadgetry now have to display working prototypes.
“We expect creators to show their work,” Kickstarter said at bitly.com/kickstarterrules.
Kickstarter also banned hardware and product-design campaigns from offering “multiple quantities” of product as one of the rewards for those who contribute to the projects.
This, it said, was aimed at dispelling a common misconception that the Kickstarter site is a retail outlet with finished products ready to ship.
These tightened guidelines have created complications for local Kickstarter campaigns.
Machook inventor Adam Brackney said he received an inquiry from a major U.S. company that wanted a substantial quantity of the hook, which attaches to the edge of an Apple iMac desktop computer to hold a pair of headphones.
The company, a leading headphone manufacturer, said it would contribute to Brackney’s project if he would offer a quantity of the plastic Machooks as one of the campaign’s various incentives.
The St. Paul man could not. He ended up hand-manufacturing a special order of the hooks out of wood, which earned him side income from that company but added nothing to his campaign.
The Machook campaign is at bitly.com/machook.
Bobby Davis of Minneapolis, creator of the Custom Balance Pen, said he found the no-rendering restriction “a little stifling.”
This, he said, forced him to use limited funds on prototypes of the pen, which incorporates a set of adjustable weights for the user to find the right balance. Such a prototype costs $1,000 or so to create, an expense Davis would have preferred not to take on as he got his Kickstarter campaign going on limited resources.
Such a rule “does hurt people who have good ideas but might not get on Kickstarter because of the initial up-front costs,” Davis said.
The Custom Balance Pen campaign is at bitly.com/custombalancepen.
A campaign to fund the NanoQ, a toy quadrocopter, launched last year at about the same time Kickstarter’s tighter rules went into effect. This sent the campaign creator, Bloomington-based QFO Labs, scrambling to modify its campaign page.
“We had to go back and redo a lot of our video to eliminate any renderings,” QFO chief operating officer Jim Fairman said. “We had to scramble quite a bit, and that cost us a significant amount of money.
“It would have been great if we could have used our renderings, and we would have been happy to mark them as renderings,” he said.
Because there’s a gaming aspect to the NanoQ and its Mimix hand-held controller, he added, it became much more difficult to explain the project properly because the gaming features are nearly impossible to convey without simulated visuals.
None of the inventors interviewed for this article said the stricter Kickstarter guidelines were key to the failures of their campaigns. They all said they admire and enjoy Kickstarter, overall.
Davis said he is planning another Kickstarter campaign with a modified version of his adjustable pen.
But Fairman does worry that technology-related products might be somewhat at a disadvantage on Kickstarter, which he believes tends to favor the arts.
The irony, Fairman said, is that tech products like SmartThings “create the buzz and get people to look at Kickstarter.”
