A reminder on Kickstarter projects

A lot of articles in 3Dprint.com present the latest projects being launched on Kickstarter. Since there are few articles on their failures thereafter, I think a little return of experience is in order for the newcomers, as a word of advice.

1/ Updates. Don't think you'll be kept in the loop, especially if things go south.
This, from a project that is over 8 months late and counting :
Attachment 6617
This, from a project that has several thousant backers, close enough to a million $ and almost a year late :
Attachment 6618

2/ Both projects above stated they had functional prototypes (a Kickstarter prerequisite), yet :
One had to hire an engineering company to finish the job, because they had not anticipated much, they weren't pragmatic enough to stop the campaign and would rather take your money than admit they weren't able to deliver :
Attachment 6619
The other "only" had to redo the whole bill of material to make it manufacturable and admit in the same pass that the prototype was not reliable (!).
Attachment 6620

3/ Whatever the actual situation, some project managers can't seem to build reasonable project plannings. They will always deliver "in 3 months". Just like young kids who haven't learned to count above a 100 (or 90 days in this case ?).

4/ In one case, the guys hadn't even talked to manufacturers yet during the campaign. This project contacted manufacturers and selected them 9 months after campaign end.

5/ The trips. Yep, in the end you feel like you paid for a bunch of teenagers to travel to dozens of events, seminars and shows.
Attachment 6621

But hey, wheren't those funds supposed to be "just for manufacturing" ? Yes they were. Is Kickstarter doing anything to control how the funds are used, and the actual maturity of any project started ? No.

So yes, there are great projects crowdfunded, yes some actually deliver great stuff. But don't forget : most real projects go to banks and investors. The tech projects that end up in Kickstarter are :
- existing companies promoting their newest product.
- once in a while a business savvy technician who actually gets to turn this into a company.
- but too often, projects too immature that couldn't convince bankers or investors and wash up there.

I don't mind admitting I backed both projects and in fact that is why I'm here : make sure you don't back for the bad reasons and do your research before backing. Kickstarter doesn't know you once the campaign is ended and some project managers have no shame.

The Kickstarter I backed is months behind now and although there have been machines delivered to a handful of backers, there are extensive design and manufacturing defects. The machine was totally redesigned after the Kickstarter ended, resulting in a product that is substantially not the machine that was sold in the Kickstarter. Virtually no testing was done, so the Backers are having to report the problems back to the manufacturer. To top it all off, the "team" that was shown in the Kickstarter are apparently not the actual people making the machine, and no personal information is available for anyone involved. The backers are literally operating on faith at this point. I am glad that I only have a comparatively small amount of money invested. Kickstarter needs to absolutely change so incompetent people can't exploit their system.