Heather i would have to disagree just because you and EN might not like her idea that doens’t mean she shouldn’t try kickstarter EN might not have the right lps.

If we stop trying what is the point !!!!

They once said to Mr. Ford you are going make a machine that has tires and run on steam and replace the horse
and buggy ……That will never work and is a stupid idea nobody will buy those contraptions!!!!!

Now look at the automobile?????

Anant Gilra
You don’t need any patent to post on Kickstarter but you’ll loose all international patent rights unless you’ve filed with the USPTO (to my understanding). If you declare on Kickstarter the USA gives you 1 year to file for a patent on that idea, if you don’t mind settling for the USA this might be an option.

Video capture, presentation, editing, demonstration abilities are all pluses for their website. Like I said before you may have friends, family, or search craigslist for help in that sector. You may have to pay or give out a percentage of what you get in return for that help.

People are generous to a point, they will give 1-5 dollars if they like your idea but for some reason can’t use it. my case idea was specific to the droid x so people put in donations and asked if I’d come out with a _____ version. MOST people want to buy the product outright.

A great idea is to see if your invention gets up the ladder on here before you go there with a lame idea. If your idea doesn’t make it to G6 I’d say don’t bother.

Project failed.

It was a cellphone case, they don’t do very well on kickstarter, most dont make it, and the ones that do barely make it. This is due to stiff competition. There’s thousands of cases out there! I didn’t have the luxury of the crowdfundinghelp website when I made my project so I didn’t know how to explain to people what they are funding and how it worked. People really never got how one of the features worked, however after the project ended more and more people started emailing me about purchasing one, perhaps 90 days would have been more ideal?

The REAL problem was producing it. First industrial designer tried to rip me off, the second designer DID rip me off, finally the third was an enthusiast who decided to help me. This took almost 6 months just to design the case, by which time everybody who followed the project got other cellphone cases. This shook the confidence that people had in me that I could deliver the product. The model I used on kickstarter was a first generation 3D printed case that didn’t fit that well so no closeup’s could be made, also we used cellphone cameras to capture all the videos so the quality wasn’t that great. I also have difficulty remembering lines and speaking correctly so it took 2 days to create a minute of dialog.

The biggest problem was the gadget blogs, especially Droid Life who I contacted with the project earlier in the year to which they said they’d love to show it, I used to love their site and would submit news stories for them to which they’d post However when I submitted my project they blew me off. When I asked for an explanation I never got one. Other gadget blogs also didn’t want to publish the story so nobody ever knew about it.

I was going to come out with an iPhone 4 version however I came up with a much better (completely different) idea so I haven’t bothered with it since.

Jason, so are you saying kickstarter.com is comprised of generous donors who don’t expect a return on their investments? Sounds like some unbelievably nice investors along the lines of Sharks with no teeth from the Shark Tank and Dragons with no fire from the Dragon’s Den!

Heather you might have a slow computer or not an updated media player i have checked on other and it runs smoothly
and others it may skip due to the video buffering

I agree this website is for individuals with talents trying to convince people of the world to back their project
most of the backers don’t expect anything in return but a “thank you”

and yes you should have your cost in order if your project is funded and you promise to give the first production
parts to your backers but that is common sense, do your homework!!!!

some investors are giving gifts they already have for certain dollar donations and don’t want their final product

I think this is a rare and best website i have seen in a long time, (and EN of coarse)

So click on or cut and paste this website and give it an honest look before bashing it

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1183153058/...

Heather did you have a project on kickstarter, how did it go?

Heather, I thought you already participated on Kickstarter. I remember watching your video. Did you pull your idea?

Cool. Thanks for the detailed response, Heather.
Now I am better off than before, but I still have doubts.

As an inventor, it appears that I have to get a patent, pay for product design, or do my own, get in manufactured and do marketing. Who has the time money or expertise to do this. Long story short, I only see a very small niche of folks submitting to this site. Or is there a way in which they help.

EN is much better, since all I have to do is post an idea, with some images. My job is done. So much simpler. I don’t care if I am not getting the best royalty, but they are partners with such gr8 companies, that they get bulk orders.

Even from an inventor point of view – I wouldn’t invest my money on someone whom I don’t know. The product might never get made, the person may disappear with the money, or might just change minds.

I feel the Q model is at least better than KickStarter. But EN is the best of the lot!

Anant Gilra
In response to your question, there’s rewards (compensation) for contributing (sending money) to a project (product). Its less like a charity and more like a “pre-sale”. Most of the products on the website cannot be ordered anywhere else so if you want it that’s the only way you’ll get it, and get it first.

There’s a huge risk that you won’t see your money again. I agree with Matt that some people can underestimate the resources it takes to get a project to market. There’s a project that deals with Back To The Future power laces that was backed months if not a year ago that has yet to ship a single pair of shoes. However, people on Kickstarter have gotten a bit wise to the projects that have not done the research and those usually fail. You can however petition kickstartees to fund your project to develop your idea!!! If you’ve done your homework on what the costs are and you’ve got a great product idea there’s a chance you could get funded. What people really want to see is that you’ve done the research into where the money is to go and that you show that you can confidently deliver on the promises you make. I don’t believe there will be too many projects in the future that will pass without demonstrating these aspects.

I have a great idea that I submitted to EN that I wanted to submit on Kickstarter. However, I dont have IP on the idea so I’d have to scrap up $3000 for a patent, then $1000 for product design, then somehow create a great professional video before I can try my hand at Kickstarter. I’m very bad with making movies, being able to talk in a nice way on camera is beyond my talents (speech impediment).

Jason, I don’t think you fully understood my post, I do realize you get the money after the time limit you setup is over however the longer you have your project up the more people will see it, the more you can perfect it. I was saying that it would be nice if you could setup a long time period of 90 days for example and as soon as your project reaches the funding goal you set you’d get some money to start production. Nobody wants to wait 90 days to receive a product, and likewise no product creator wants to see his/her product die because they didn’t set the clock long enough to generate interest in their product. I’ve backed and created projects on kickstarter before, here’s a helpful link…

http://crowdfundinghelp.com/getting-started/

Looking at your Kickstarter video I do have some guidelines outlined in the above link you may want to follow, first of all is the quality of the video, I don’t know if its my computer but at certain points the audio cuts out, another point is the Star Wars effect of the words makes it really hard to read. Another point is that I couldn’t really tell how the product works, perhaps an install demo and show how the cord thing works. I saw that someone’s leather jacket had the cord device on to prevent it from being snatched however I don’t understand how it attaches to the jacket permanently. Another point you should express is the benefits to your idea over a saddlebag or some of your competitors (without sounding arrogant or naming names).

A big issue is the cost, Why does it cost $125, like the weblink above people want to know what you need the money for, explain the cost to the consumer.

If you need help consider craigslist gigs, or creative section. Wherever you have a weakness get help, you can always split the profits of the campaign with those who believe in your idea. Perhaps a film student would volunteer their time if they could use the project for their school, etc.

Lastly, remember you can always cancel the project before it ends or even place it back up later if it doesn’t work out the first time.

Lastly, you said this was a second chance. What stage did your project reach before it was rejected?

I haven’t looked at this site, Kickstarter.
But irrespective of what it provides – I don’t see why anyone would invest in any idea. What does someone get by paying say 100S’s for an idea, and how many people would do that.
Additionally, what if the person collects the money and disappears?
I don’t get the concept at all.

Excellent info Matt- thanks!

Guys,
Please be careful with Kickstarter. I think it’s an awesome site and I’ve even contributed to the funding of a good friend’s Kickstarter project. I invested in it because 1) I wanted to support my friend and 2) I knew he could do what he set out to do with the money he set out to raise. He was making a film. Kickstarter is great for art projects. It’s not great for most consumer products, though. The successful projects on Kickstarter are projects that are started by industrial design firms. That’s because they have the resources necessary to bring a product to market and they can better eat the expense if they do the numbers wrong and don’t ask for enough money. They are basically just using it to get pre-sales before they invest in tooling.

Put yourself in that position, though, and it might end up being a scary story. If you underestimate what it takes to bring your product to market, you’re still on the hook to deliver those products to your investors. That means you’re going to be paying out of your personal savings (or selling your car, house, etc…) in order to get the project done just to meet your responsibility with your investors.

If you don’t know exactly how much tooling is going to cost (and it can be tens of thousands of dollars) and exactly how much your patent work is going to cost and exactly how much the industrial design, engineering, packaging, branding is going to cost, and exactly how much the manufacturing is going to cost, you could end up tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in the hole. Believe, me, product development is a combination of art, science and luck. We do everything we can to make our luck but you need to leave a lot of room for fluctuations. If you are all-in and you don’t have the ability to cover those financial gaps, you could end up deep in trouble.

I think Kickstarter is great for what it was designed for (social good/arts projects) but can be very dangerous if used incorrectly so please go into it with your eyes wide open!

You do get the money right after the timeline you choose is finished from 7 to 60 days later

and in all sites you have to choose what your interested in that is why for inventors like us go to

Discover/ great projects : then go to Design then Product Design

this site helps you recieve money which we all know is the main thing we are in this business!!!

and it is up to you to give the backers a product or gift once you made it with the backers money

I hope this info answers all the skeptics out there and possibly takes your inventions to the next

STEP !!!!!

GOOD LUCK

You know what there needs to be is a site like kickstarter just for products. Kickstarter is a bit limited in what it can do for products. For example, lots of people don’t want to wait until the end of the project to get their product. A great idea would be if after the product is funded the inventor immediately gets the money to crack on with getting the product to the consumer as soon as possible. Another idea to re-assure people would be if this “new” site did the distribution of the product and that shipping charges could be calculated automatically instead of a flat rate charge for USA and other countries pay $15+ more. What limits Kickstarter is all the other projects it has, if you goto kickstarter right now at the top of the page are products unrelated to inventions, artsy and other products that probably don’t interest me if I was trying to find some cool new gadget.

you will see alot of projects for artist,musicians,writers etc… BUT go to Discover great Projects on top of page and on the right side of the site click on “Design” then PRODUCT DESIGN there you will see hundreds of individuals with great ideas trying to get to market

Read some of their project ideas and you will see they are inventors like us and have gotten a lot of funding
from backers all over the world

I hope this helps let me know if you want more info

Im not sure but I looked at and joined this site but after a deeper review it didnt seem as though it was really a place for inventors to find funding. I could be wrong and if so please enlighten me and others.