Re:Why 84% of Kickstarter's top projects shipped late
by pessimizer on Tuesday December 18, 2012 @12:36PM
(#4938530)
Because there's absolutely no economic incentive to ship on the estimated ship date, unless you plan to do more Kickstarter projects.
At a guess, funding will go up inversely with the estimated wait for shipping, and that relationship will be counteracted by some believability factor that is directly related to the apparent complexity of the project/apparent expertise of the project leaders i.e. people will not believe that you are shipping a flying car a week after the funding date, esp. if you don't have any pictures or graphs and you're three art students.
Unfortunately, the apparent complexity of the project/apparent expertise of the project leaders is going to be consistently way wrong, due to the credulity of the general public.
If you only plan to do one Kickstarter, fancy renders and other graphics + the earliest physically possible estimated ship date is the rational choice. Then just blow the date. There's absolutely no consequences. If what you get to the backers (late) turns out to be awesome, you'll still end up getting nothing but positive press.
The only time I've seen people get really irate about Kickstarter shipping late (but shipping) is when the backers' "exclusive" promos were also sold in other venues, or when retailers got a hold of stuff before backers did.
At a guess, funding will go up inversely with the estimated wait for shipping, and that relationship will be counteracted by some believability factor that is directly related to the apparent complexity of the project/apparent expertise of the project leaders i.e. people will not believe that you are shipping a flying car a week after the funding date, esp. if you don't have any pictures or graphs and you're three art students.
Unfortunately, the apparent complexity of the project/apparent expertise of the project leaders is going to be consistently way wrong, due to the credulity of the general public.
If you only plan to do one Kickstarter, fancy renders and other graphics + the earliest physically possible estimated ship date is the rational choice. Then just blow the date. There's absolutely no consequences. If what you get to the backers (late) turns out to be awesome, you'll still end up getting nothing but positive press.
The only time I've seen people get really irate about Kickstarter shipping late (but shipping) is when the backers' "exclusive" promos were also sold in other venues, or when retailers got a hold of stuff before backers did.