Not all Kickstarter projects are winners
Kickstarter is the largest of the crowndfunding websites wherein inventors, artists, and the like can post videos and description of why they need financial backing, listing what they will give to people for pledging cash, and if enough people chip in and they meet the financial goal they set, they get all of the cash, but if they don’t get enough pledges, no money changes hands.
It’s a wildly popular funding option with Kickstarter projects alone raising $275 million last year, and is popular enough to have the attention of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) which is reviewing what regulations they will impose on crowdfunding.
Not all projects are winners, though, and begging for money to paint rocks and sell them on a street corner is not anywhere near the same universe as Kickstarter pledges recently funding the Veronica Mars movie, reviving a cult classic.
Poking fun at some of the bad projects
YouTube channel omgchomp recently released a parody video that unveils the typical Kickstarter video formula (introduce random person, ask for money, offer rewards that may or may not be useful to pledges). They ask people to fund their “bullshit product,” by using “buzzwords,” and offering an “emotional appeal” and a list of “completely worthless rewards.”
Harsh? Sure, but there is a sliver of truth in the comedic piece – not all projects are winners, and some are poor excuses for begging.
The creators note that the video is truly a joke. “We think Kickstarter is great. I have used it for my own projects and donated to many successful projects that I was proud to be a part of. That said, there are lots of lame projects that never get completed and it’s okay to laugh about it.”
Continuation of the fatigue
There is nothing wrong with Kickstarter as a platform – it is an ingenious change in the business ecosystem that has opened new doors, but as we’ve reported, Kickstarter has gone mainstream and as any mainstream tool does, it has attracted some bad seeds.
Lani Rosales, COO at The American Genius opined a year ago that “While crowdfunding is an effective alternative to traditional banking, it is unfortunately becoming some random peoples’ way to pass around a collection plate, is causing investor fatigue as they get endless requests for money, and in some cases, it’s being used by creepers’ passing of counterfeit products, or inexperienced entrepreneurs unable to ever deliver a project they intended to.”
Parody or not, the Kickstarter movement is in full swing, and some projects really are bullshit.
Josef Holm
March 25, 2014 at 12:29 am
This is hilarious!