I was once the backer for a campaign that deliberately underbudgeted, because "project like theirs" were routinely getting 2x to 3x their goal, which was actually what he needed.

His project made it, but barely. It, rather predictably, failed miserably.

This is such a terrible thing to do. You are intentionally taking advantage of your backers by giving them the false sense of security that you will be more likely to complete your project if you get far more then your goal, when in reality you could be far below what is actually needed to deliver because you really expected to get even more.

Again, you are taking advantage of your backers if you do this and it shouldn't be OK. I wish Kickstarter had a penalty or some other system in place to discourage this.

Indeed. This whole post is a frustrating exercise in how not to do arithmetic. It's not Kickstarter's fault that he failed to budget the vast majority of his costs -- and failed to proof the product before shipping. Maybe next time he should invest a couple thousand up front and get a competent project manager.

Where in the post is he blaming kickstarter for anything? It's not the post I'm reading.

The post starts with the kickstarter & transaction fees because they come off the total amount raised.

The entire thing seems to have been delivered on time, and would have returned a reasonable amount of money without the reprinting & 2nd mailing costs.

As someone who saw the original version (with typo), and missed it entirely: it's easy to miss.

Heck, I had to look three or four times before I saw the typo, knowing that there was one!

"It's not Kickstarter's fault that he failed to budget the vast majority of his costs..." Definitely not. But this is a primary reason for authoring the article—a heads up to others who may launch a KS campaign and not fully understand where all the money might go.

Well, that's the trouble with the all or nothing part of Kickstarter. Each poster he printed was profitable, so he was much better off setting a small goal and making some money, than setting a large goal that he missed and making no money.