There is a post over in the birdkids OffGrid thread from Mike Beim one of the principles of that company, and leader of that development.
It’s an inside view of developing a new product, and the process of funding through KickStarter. In particular also is the effects the pandemic has had on manufacturing, and business development.
We don’t often get an inside view of the processes and risks of new product development, unless you’ve been in the business, and done it yourself. Crowdfunding has opened parts of that, bringing others into the process as funders in a partially opening of the process.
When things go well, everyone is happy, and you might almost think that that is the way things are always. But it’s not. Things go badly, despite the hard work and dedication, experience and collective intelligence of all those involved. These sorts of things are hard to do, and there are real risks, risks that are nearly impossible to anticipate, even by the best.
Mike Beim’s post gives some view into the inside of that process.
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The post also mentions the third party marketing and advertising done to promote, a KickStarter campaign, and drive it to success and increase the amounts of money raised. I don’t know much about this end of the crowdfunding business, but it makes sense that over the years that sort of 3rd party assistance would develop. Part of that is good, in that it makes fund raising more efficient, but it also increases the risk for others to game the system.
Anyone else have any thoughts on this ?