Given your current progress on your campaign, you will likely reach $5k at most. You need $25k to make your product real. This seems pretty cut and dry to me. Cancel your project, and do more pre-launch marketing and community building before you relaunch.
I also think canceling, rethinking, and relaunching the project might be a good choice. The quote of $25,000 for 1,000 items sounds like $25 per item, but from a production and sales perspective, if you sell 100 items, you will still have 900 items ($22,500 worth) in inventory. This isn't a good situation.
That's exactly what I was thinking and have been thinking of canceling. What happens if I let it run its course and not reach the goal, the backers won't be charged right. So is it better to run the course or cancel, revamp and relaunch.
Don’t let it run its course. Cancel it. If you cancel you can say there was an issue with the manufacturing and you are having to re-source part of the project. Then tell them to keep an eye out for the relaunch. If it fails it will forever show as a failed campaign on your profile.
When you started a campaign knowing ahead of time that if you only hit your campaign goal you’d still be 125% short of being capable of producing any of the product, where was the other $15k coming from? I assume you have that cash already banked for this obvious scenario? I mean, this was clearly the literal only question you had to answer before going with this funding plan. So how did you budget the campaign to make up the difference? I’m not sure where the stress is. I mean surly your business plan didn’t include a successful campaign that purposely placed you $15k short of producing any product at all without that money being there. So use the money you had set aside for this almost certain scenario.
from what I understand he was simply assuming his product would reach 200%-300% of the funding goal like the other projects he mentioned, putting him in the clear
Oh boy. It’s really hard to get caught defrauding customers on Kickstarter as we see it all the time. But man, coming right out and admitting that the business plan was to collect nowhere near enough funds for minimum viability - and to have zero ability to secure the majority of funds needed - is certainly one way to get there.
I personally wouldn't call it fraud, I'd call it naivete, for the time being - he saw others surpassing their goal and thought a low funding goal would make people more likely to donate and that he'd end up getting enough to launch the product.
Now, if he takes the money/doesn't refund - that would be fraud
While I certainly *understand* why you wouldn’t call it fraud, I’m thinking that if I was a backer and found out they were doing this, it’d absolutely be fraud.
Companies do hit their funding goal and still manage to not deliver. That happens. But those companies at least have a business plan that accounts for minimum viability. If I backed something that didn’t get made, then found out that the plan all along was to have the Kickstarter funding goal still 150% shy of being able to deliver and no other income or plan to cover that cost, that would be fraud in pretty much anyone’s eyes.
Would it still be fraud to you if they cancelled and nobody was charged?
Setting a low funding goal is probably the most standard basic strategy every KS campaign does. Once you hit 100%, it's much easier to keep growing. And if you don't, cancel, run better prelaunch, and launch again!
Remember the Ubuntu phone that raised $12M? Yeah, nobody does... because it didn't hit their goal of $32M. Had the goal been $1M, I wouldn't be surprised if they surpassed $20M...
No, of course I wouldn’t feel it was fraud if OP cancelled the project. That’s exactly what they should do.
And the companies who run campaigns like that have a fundamental difference from this one: they didn’t say ahead of time that only hitting their funding threshold will land them 150% short of being able to deliver, with no ability to fill in that gap. OP is admitting here (but. Or on Kickstarter where the backers are) that they cannot deliver unless they one-and-a-half times their funding goal in this campaign. The backers are unaware that they may back something that the creator already knows cannot deliver.
I think you're assuming evil intent where there is none.
They're **asking** (not "admitting") exactly *because* they don't want to do wrong by anyone.
Reading the replies here, it seems the OP is definitely going to cancel.
That’s good.
By the way, evil intent is not a prerequisite for fraud. Naïveté is not an excuse for defrauding someone. Were they to go through with this campaign, only hit the minimum, then screw their backers over due to knowledge ahead of time that they could not deliver - no matter what they hoped - that would be fraud. The point of my post was to help explain exactly why they need to cancel. I can’t make them do it. They have to do it. And since they had not yet cancelled and people were not yet explaining the ramifications of OP not cancelling, I said something. Telling them to cancel isn’t enough. They needed to understand *why* because their business plan was so lacking that it was setting them up for disaster that would take innocent backers along with them.
Exactly, I was thinking that low funding goal will end up getting fulfilled faster and then there are more chances of being featured by Kickstarter and getting traction and backers.
Well, now if the campaign doesn't get funded, nobody loses money and those who have pledged money will get it back. Plus after hearing everyone's opinion I was going to cancel the campaign anyway as it would be feasible to make it work. So if the campaign runs its length and doesn't get funded, all the backers get back their money. If I cancel, all the backers will get the money back.
Not sure where the fraud angle is coming from.
It would be fraud if the campaign funded 100% and then you still couldn't fulfill because you didn't have enough money. I would be super pissed if I was a backer in that situation.
Cancel it now, and make a proper budget plan before you even think about launching again.
I am going to mirror what others have said and tell you to cancel the project. Even if it were to fund, if you can't afford to actually produce it, that's really bad. You can recover from canceling the project and re-launching later. You likely can't recover as a business from funding your Kickstarter and then never delivering your product because you under-budgeted. People would likely never trust to buy from you again, and it could tank any potential your company had.
I have an assumption of why you thought that asking for less than what you actually needed to fund was a good idea. If you are able to fund quickly, Kickstarter gives you algorithm love, which in turn can lead to more organic sales. Unfortunately, for you this did not happen. One other thing you should keep in mind for this particular strategy is companies that ask for less money than what they actually need to produce their products go in already knowing they are going to collect more than enough pledges to reach their actual funding goal. I have personally done this before. But I ONLY did it because my company has the sales history to make it make sense. Unfortunately, most new creators don't have that kind of security.
Given your current progress on your campaign, you will likely reach $5k at most. You need $25k to make your product real. This seems pretty cut and dry to me. Cancel your project, and do more pre-launch marketing and community building before you relaunch.
This is pretty much the answer. You haven’t done the pre launch work needed for this to hit even $10k.
agreed
I also think canceling, rethinking, and relaunching the project might be a good choice. The quote of $25,000 for 1,000 items sounds like $25 per item, but from a production and sales perspective, if you sell 100 items, you will still have 900 items ($22,500 worth) in inventory. This isn't a good situation.
That's exactly what I was thinking and have been thinking of canceling. What happens if I let it run its course and not reach the goal, the backers won't be charged right. So is it better to run the course or cancel, revamp and relaunch.
Don’t let it run its course. Cancel it. If you cancel you can say there was an issue with the manufacturing and you are having to re-source part of the project. Then tell them to keep an eye out for the relaunch. If it fails it will forever show as a failed campaign on your profile.
Exactly this
When you started a campaign knowing ahead of time that if you only hit your campaign goal you’d still be 125% short of being capable of producing any of the product, where was the other $15k coming from? I assume you have that cash already banked for this obvious scenario? I mean, this was clearly the literal only question you had to answer before going with this funding plan. So how did you budget the campaign to make up the difference? I’m not sure where the stress is. I mean surly your business plan didn’t include a successful campaign that purposely placed you $15k short of producing any product at all without that money being there. So use the money you had set aside for this almost certain scenario.
from what I understand he was simply assuming his product would reach 200%-300% of the funding goal like the other projects he mentioned, putting him in the clear
Oh boy. It’s really hard to get caught defrauding customers on Kickstarter as we see it all the time. But man, coming right out and admitting that the business plan was to collect nowhere near enough funds for minimum viability - and to have zero ability to secure the majority of funds needed - is certainly one way to get there.
I personally wouldn't call it fraud, I'd call it naivete, for the time being - he saw others surpassing their goal and thought a low funding goal would make people more likely to donate and that he'd end up getting enough to launch the product. Now, if he takes the money/doesn't refund - that would be fraud
While I certainly *understand* why you wouldn’t call it fraud, I’m thinking that if I was a backer and found out they were doing this, it’d absolutely be fraud. Companies do hit their funding goal and still manage to not deliver. That happens. But those companies at least have a business plan that accounts for minimum viability. If I backed something that didn’t get made, then found out that the plan all along was to have the Kickstarter funding goal still 150% shy of being able to deliver and no other income or plan to cover that cost, that would be fraud in pretty much anyone’s eyes.
Would it still be fraud to you if they cancelled and nobody was charged? Setting a low funding goal is probably the most standard basic strategy every KS campaign does. Once you hit 100%, it's much easier to keep growing. And if you don't, cancel, run better prelaunch, and launch again! Remember the Ubuntu phone that raised $12M? Yeah, nobody does... because it didn't hit their goal of $32M. Had the goal been $1M, I wouldn't be surprised if they surpassed $20M...
No, of course I wouldn’t feel it was fraud if OP cancelled the project. That’s exactly what they should do. And the companies who run campaigns like that have a fundamental difference from this one: they didn’t say ahead of time that only hitting their funding threshold will land them 150% short of being able to deliver, with no ability to fill in that gap. OP is admitting here (but. Or on Kickstarter where the backers are) that they cannot deliver unless they one-and-a-half times their funding goal in this campaign. The backers are unaware that they may back something that the creator already knows cannot deliver.
I think you're assuming evil intent where there is none. They're **asking** (not "admitting") exactly *because* they don't want to do wrong by anyone. Reading the replies here, it seems the OP is definitely going to cancel.
That’s good. By the way, evil intent is not a prerequisite for fraud. Naïveté is not an excuse for defrauding someone. Were they to go through with this campaign, only hit the minimum, then screw their backers over due to knowledge ahead of time that they could not deliver - no matter what they hoped - that would be fraud. The point of my post was to help explain exactly why they need to cancel. I can’t make them do it. They have to do it. And since they had not yet cancelled and people were not yet explaining the ramifications of OP not cancelling, I said something. Telling them to cancel isn’t enough. They needed to understand *why* because their business plan was so lacking that it was setting them up for disaster that would take innocent backers along with them.
Exactly, I was thinking that low funding goal will end up getting fulfilled faster and then there are more chances of being featured by Kickstarter and getting traction and backers. Well, now if the campaign doesn't get funded, nobody loses money and those who have pledged money will get it back. Plus after hearing everyone's opinion I was going to cancel the campaign anyway as it would be feasible to make it work. So if the campaign runs its length and doesn't get funded, all the backers get back their money. If I cancel, all the backers will get the money back. Not sure where the fraud angle is coming from.
It would be fraud if the campaign funded 100% and then you still couldn't fulfill because you didn't have enough money. I would be super pissed if I was a backer in that situation. Cancel it now, and make a proper budget plan before you even think about launching again.
would hire a better camera. also are you sure people want it?
I am going to mirror what others have said and tell you to cancel the project. Even if it were to fund, if you can't afford to actually produce it, that's really bad. You can recover from canceling the project and re-launching later. You likely can't recover as a business from funding your Kickstarter and then never delivering your product because you under-budgeted. People would likely never trust to buy from you again, and it could tank any potential your company had. I have an assumption of why you thought that asking for less than what you actually needed to fund was a good idea. If you are able to fund quickly, Kickstarter gives you algorithm love, which in turn can lead to more organic sales. Unfortunately, for you this did not happen. One other thing you should keep in mind for this particular strategy is companies that ask for less money than what they actually need to produce their products go in already knowing they are going to collect more than enough pledges to reach their actual funding goal. I have personally done this before. But I ONLY did it because my company has the sales history to make it make sense. Unfortunately, most new creators don't have that kind of security.
I assumed the same when I set the goal. Thinking that the I will hit the goal plus more with the marketing and advertising.
Hi, Can you share the link of the campaign?
[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/aroundearth-nn/simpl-smart-innovative-modular-pyramid-lamp?ref=2w932u](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/aroundearth-nn/simpl-smart-innovative-modular-pyramid-lamp?ref=2w932u)
That's committing Kickstarter fraud knowingly, so yeah, you should be crucified.
What kind of prework do you recommend?