Still no detailed print

[Asmordean]

Thank you James, for the update. I think many people are worried that this will become another "Mu Thermal Camera".

[NanoH]

Thank you James for taking the time to answer this thread, it was very informative. I apologize if you felt aggressed by my first post. You and your team are working hard trying to revolutionize the 3d printing world, and I have to admit that I forgot to consider that there are lives behind this amazing project.

Keep it up, I have faith in your work !

[MysteryAlabaster]

While I'm not invested nor interested in the Peachy Printer, my boss [was].

He pulled his backing immediately when the news about 'lacking the ability to show a more detailed print' came out, and I agree.
That's the big problem with Kickstarter things, nothing is set in stone, and things might very well fail horribly before they reach the masses. We saw something like this with the Fill-a-bot, they had an idea for something amazing, but lacked to ability to successfully recreate their idea.



Personally, if I had a good idea that I wanted to kickstart I would make a Kickstarter page and hammer it in that the funding would go into a PROTOTYPE build, that there was the possibility that the idea would NOT work, and that no rewards would be given out for backing (save for recognition in some way). I would make it a set backing amount, so that once I have enough money to make the first prototype the funding period would end.
Then I would actually make the prototype, and even if it was going badly, I would keep in contact with my backers (Because not doing so is a jerk move). I would test my prototype extensively and then eventually, I would look into mass-production.

[nka]

That's the risk of KS. As it's the risk for business who invest in stuff that dosent show or dosent sell.

[Slatye]

Personally, if I had a good idea that I wanted to kickstart I would make a Kickstarter page and hammer it in that the funding would go into a PROTOTYPE build, that there was the possibility that the idea would NOT work, and that no rewards would be given out for backing (save for recognition in some way).

The problem with this is that you'd have a lot of trouble actually getting funding. Paying $100 for a good chance (maybe 80% likelihood) of getting a 3D printer is one thing. Paying $100 for an absolute certainty that you won't get anything is not attractive.

You see this with a lot of the Kickstarter campaigns. Campaigns that promise a valuable product for the user are generally pretty successful. Even if they fail, they generate a substantial amount of money (largely depending on how valuable the product appears to be). Campaigns that promise a not-so-valuable product for the user (with most of the money going towards a 'good' cause) are much, much less successful. I can't think of any that promise nothing at all; Kickstarter probably doesn't allow those.

Then I would actually make the prototype, and even if it was going badly, I would keep in contact with my backers (Because not doing so is a jerk move). I would test my prototype extensively and then eventually, I would look into mass-production.

The contact thing is a touchy issue. Consider something like the Makibox (which is finally shipping!) where there are well over a thousand backers, of which a hundred or so are actively communicating (forums, email, etc). The team is only five people or so, and if they handled every customer request (could you make this colour? When are they shipping? Will it print nylon? What's happening for orders that included items that aren't in stock? Why is postage so expensive? Where am I in the order queue?) they'd get no work done on the product. As a result it'd take even longer than it already has done, and the longer it takes the more customer questions they have to answer. If you don't answer them you get a reputation for not caring what your customers say. If you do answer them, you get a reputation for running late on projects.

You can aim for one-way communication (ie where you post updates but don't take questions) and just post updates really frequently. This still occupies a lot of time - I'd imagine that it takes a couple of hours for the Makibox or Peachy teams to prepare a nice professional-looking update. As a result a weekly update is really about as frequent as you can hope for; if it was daily you'd spend half your time doing updates. The other problem with it is that people very quickly become impatient with a perceived lack of progress. For example, if you have four updates in a row saying "worked on the software, still not able to print anything" or "waiting for parts to turn up before building the prototype" then you'll get hundreds of comments along the lines of "this is a scam, they're never going to release anything, I want a refund". Of course, in the real world, spending a month working on software is not at all unreasonable. Waiting a month for parts from China is also very common.

The result is a very fine line between not enough updates (causing people to complain that you don't talk to them) and too many updates (causing people to complain that there's never any progress because all the updates are the same). Regardless of which one you pick, people still expect two-way communication and your undivided attention to their issue. If you do pay attention to them, you never have any time to work on the product. If you don't pay attention to them, they complain.

[JamesCooper]

Slatye: I'd say you hit the nail on the head. It's a delicate balance between promising too much and not being able to deliver vs. not promising anything and not getting any buy-in from potential backers. Likewise, there's a delicate balance between spending time writing updates and spending time developing the printer. We're currently trying to put out updates every time we reach a new milestone. A new piece of software, addressing a known issue, a new hardware rev, and so on. But yes, even just posting on the forums and responding to questions takes time away from development. We're constantly monitoring the time we spend and the reaction from our backers to strive a balance between the two.

Speaking of which, I was silent this weekend because I was working around the clock with Rylan and Nathan to get those prints and we made great progress. We have printed several objects that we will be posting soon. Nathan asked me not to promise any dates (since he's assembling the interviews and video right now), but look forward to something this week.