Low-cost 3D Printers and crowdfunding suicide

[djbrowny]

Hello,

Some people here may have seen my works quoted around the place on 3DPI or on reddit, however I have decided to post my article in its entirety here today.

http://3dprototypesandmodels.com.au/blog-2/

This was written over 2 whole days following over a year of me spying on a lot of Kickstarter/Indiegogo 3DP projects and even working on one myself. The article is very long but it looks into the realistic goals that crowdfunding campaigns need to succeed. I then look into the strategies that campaigns use to try and stay afloat if they do not reach my determined minimum viability line.

The scenarios I explain are all too common and every month, the same story happens with a new company. If anyone is interested in the crowdfunding printing scene I implore you to read my article. These start-ups are all innocent and naive when they start, but they *always* pass a point of no return when the cost to buy printer parts exceeds their total cash and the companies enter a downward spiral into bankruptcy. It might seem like I use a lot of harsh words and black and white statements, but these companies will lie through their teeth to tell their backers that they merely have delays when in truth, the companies have no money to buy the printer parts anymore. It is only just a matter of time until they collapse. The coming months will see a lot more fall.

[Geoff]

Hello,

Some people here may have seen my works quoted around the place on 3DPI or on reddit, however I have decided to post my article in its entirety here today.

http://3dprototypesandmodels.com.au/blog-2/

This was written over 2 whole days following over a year of me spying on a lot of Kickstarter/Indiegogo 3DP projects and even working on one myself. The article is very long but it looks into the realistic goals that crowdfunding campaigns need to succeed. I then look into the strategies that campaigns use to try and stay afloat if they do not reach my determined minimum viability line.

The scenarios I explain are all too common and every month, the same story happens with a new company. If anyone is interested in the crowdfunding printing scene I implore you to read my article. These start-ups are all innocent and naive when they start, but they *always* pass a point of no return when the cost to buy printer parts exceeds their total cash and the companies enter a downward spiral into bankruptcy. It might seem like I use a lot of harsh words and black and white statements, but these companies will lie through their teeth to tell their backers that they merely have delays when in truth, the companies have no money to buy the printer parts anymore. It is only just a matter of time until they collapse. The coming months will see a lot more fall.

This is why I intend to make my own as needed and not do a kickstarter. If we havent got one in stock, it will not be for sale. I don't have the capital nor the coinscience to start a kickstarter knowing full well it may not ever come to fruition. We are literally on the edge of a market slide too, so I would hate to be those guys.

If you have been watching it for a year, you would have seen the slide also. Just simple components like stepper motors have halved in cost since these guys started their kickstarters.

But, like any business - you buy X amountt of stock and you pay what it's worth at the time, and often with no rebate, as Chinese manufacturers seem to not understand the concept of a rebate...

These guys have projected sales and most likely bought the stock, or the major components they can't make themselves, and meanwhile the prices plummet during their kickstarter process and by the end of it, their $500 all in one super duper printer is really onlt worth $300... and for $500 you get the next big thing... and so on and so on...