What if my kickstarter project fails

Crowdfunding is a world of coolness and creators that have an interesting, functional product is bound to find success on the platform. Do not be discouraged by the low success rate.

It is indicative of the number of serious projects that are actually legitimate and are interesting enough for the market to gobble up. How to Start and Launch a Kickstarter Campaign? For crowdfunding to succeed, you need to have a novel product, a working prototype, a fantastic marketing plan, and great PR!

With all these elements combined, your Kickstarter campaign is bound to succeed. You must be logged in to post a comment. A Kickstarter where every project is guaranteed would be the same safe bets and retreads we see everywhere else. The fact that Kickstarter allows creators to take risks and attempt to create something ambitious is a feature, not a bug.

As Kickstarter has grown, we've made changes to improve accountability and fulfillment. In August we began requiring creators to list an "Estimated Delivery Date" for all rewards. This was done to make creators think hard about when they could deliver, and to underline that Kickstarter is not a traditional shopping experience.

In May we added additional guidelines and requirements for Design and Technology projects. These include requiring creators to provide information about their background and experience, a manufacturing plan for hardware projects , and a functional prototype.

We made this change to ensure that creators have done their research before launching and backers have sufficient information when deciding whether to back these projects. We've also allocated more staff to trust and safety.

We look into projects reported by our community for guidelines violations and suspicious activity, and we take action when necessary. These efforts are focused on fraud and acceptable uses of Kickstarter, not a creator's ability to complete a project and fulfill.

On Kickstarter, people ultimately decide the validity and worthiness of a project by whether they decide to fund it. So now that you've gotten some bad press will you finally do something with some of these deadbeat projects? I love looking through all the creative projects! It really makes me happy to see a site like this make peoples dreams turn into reality!

You need to look into this project. They aren't being honest and refuse to respond to anyone asking for refunds. It's been over nine months since the project was funded, and they still have no timetable for completion.

If someone is forced into a position where they have to offer refunds, does Kickstarter have a way to facilitate that? As incredible as it is that Kickstarter took this long to address with clarity what has to be the most FAQ of the service, this post is much appreciated.

Could still be more transparent. Crowdfunding is about to be barraged by regulatory attacks, but we need to protect the Kickstarters and IndieGoGos of the world to protect our culture and ability to innovate. I am also curious, as I backed a project that has not been fulfilled and the last update was February 14th.

I tried contacting the creator directly and have not heard a response. There are lots of "serial" creators, many that have had some great projects. But a few are notoriously late, maybe even have some that never shipped at all.

There should be a rating system after a project is successfully funded to let backers rate the creator on several different areas, including that they received the reward and it was as promised, received it within the promised time frame, there was open communication, etc.

Brandon Eley, I think a 5-star rating system for project creators is an excellent idea. Perhaps something that would help reduce the risk of failed projects would be some sort of "milestone" system:.

The creator could post it with three milestone dates on the way to the completion of their project, together with what they're going to achieve by that date. Then at each milestone the creator would make a post about their progress so far, and any backers that aren't happy with the progress could get a no-questions-asked refund for the 'remaining' part of their pledge. That way help backers feel better about pledging for more expensive things since they know that they have some control about whether the creator gets the whole amount.

Kickstarter is not another way to window shop on the internet for cool new stuff. You're not just investing in a product, you're investing in the creator and sometimes investments fail.

When that happens, generally, if the project creator gave a good faith effort to bring the product to market, the money has been spent. As with all investments, there is risk involved. One thing that I would like to see happen a bit more is to get the project backers more involved if the creator finds themselves in over their head.

Many people have incredible ideas but they lack the experience necessary to bring a product to market or underestimate the difficulty, which leads to large delays.

Your backers want to see your product succeed and they've already put their money behind it. Tapping the experience, abilities or knowledge of your backers could be a great way to help kickstart a stalled project.

It's my own personal opinions, but they're grounded in participating in Kickstarter campaigns and in talking with others who have done likewise:. Projects take time. I can handle that. I love that many hopefully most projects are created by people who are not "professionals" and therefore, may not have an engineer and manufacturer on speed-dial.

I've backed 19 to date with one failure and I will continue to back more. Kickstarter is for creators and backers who take on an element of risk. This is the world grown-ups live in. We have had great success backing people on Kickstarter. Thanks for the clarifications. We love falling in love with great people with cool, inspired ideas. My only problem there is that I don't want new Kickstarters to be put off because they will look bad compared to people with already existent high ratings.

I have been a Kiva supporter for years and love the opportunity to share funds with Kickstarter businesses, too. The funds I give are a method of "paying it forward" instead of a way to get cool stuff. I am really glad Kickstarter let's the fundraising go past the percent mark. Anyone who has had a start-up business knows to add 25 percent to any funding estimate! Projects should not be allowed to promise "product" as a Reward for funding Thousands of business owners have turned to Kickstarter , an online fundraising site, to help raise capital for new ventures.

For starters, raising money on Kickstarter is an all-or-nothing situation. You have to set a fundraising goal and you only get the money if you hit it.

So although 56, projects have hit their fundraising goal, 73, projects have come up short and raised nothing, according to Kickstarter statistics. His company, Palomino Labs , turned to Kickstarter to fund a digital board game called Rumrunners. We did press outreach too. Pledging money towards a project is not a guarantee that the project will be fulfilled as promised.

Kickstarter changed its terms of service last October to give project creators a way out of fulfilling their obligations as long as certain criteria had been meet including posting a report showing how funds were used and stating what is preventing the project from finishing as planned. But that terms of use only applies to project that launched after October 17, If neither conditions are met, backers have the right to sue the creator, according to a conversation I had with a Kickstarter representative.

This black and white policy is what caused Kickstarter to craft a new set of terms of use that gives project creators a backdoor out of their obligations. Simply put, sometimes things do not work out.