Eau de Space and Kickstarter regrets
Did anybody else back this when the kickstarter was happening?
Remember in the early 90s when you'd go to the local computer swap and sniff cards to see if they were fried or not? When you got a bad one, this is that exact smell.
I received mine today and I have to say, if you love the smell of solder / welding, raspberry, cheap alcohol, and suffering -- this is the scent for you!
This is easily the worst smelling fragrance I have ever experienced. So bad, in fact, that if there is ever an opportunity to go to space, I will respectfully decline.
This was the first campaign I backed. It took roughly eight months for everything to come together... and it really has me questioning this model. So my question is, what have you backed and what was your experience?
Not to rag on you, but I've heard stuff coming from space as smelling like hydrocarbons, which is to say astringent, burny, and basically what you described. A space fragrance seems more like a goofy thing you'd find in a science museum gift shop.
My regrets:
Spintool, an aluminum fidget spinner/multi tool. It was made of aluminum and so poorly machined it actually deformed the bearings to the point they wouldn't spin properly.
TwistPress Everybody wants to make the next AeroPress, but this isn't it. It's a bear to actually get the coffee out of the press, and if you want a similar effect you can just stop short on your AeroPress.
Polygons They've taken 4 years to bring their product to proper production and distribution. They finally got a shipment out last year before the pandemic, but their production completely froze, they're re-protoyping, and don't seem to be in line to have another production run to their backers. I'm at a point where I just want my damn spoons, and they were already having a hard time getting something made to their specifications before the pandemic.
I think the model works mostly okay, but there are duds, people with better ideas than management skills, and rarely actual scams. I've gotten some good stuff through it, been a part of stuff I didn't want to really buy into again but I felt I got my money's worth of. The issue is you're not buying a thing, but investing in a company, unfortunately not every investment pans out, and you can't take your money out if you feel they're mismanaging a project.
Space smelling like hydrocarbons and such does make sense. I figured they would glam it up a bit or, if they were going to release a truly accurate representation that smells like ass, they wouldn't pitch it as a fragrance. Everybody should smell this at least once... it's truly awful.
The TwistPress looks neat, but also like it'd be a total pain in the ass, like you said. I've been skeptical of the Aeropress attachments / Aeropress killers. So far as I know, nothing has come close. Beyond technique, the only change I made with the Aeropress was to switch to mesh.
Now -- Polygons looks really neat for a completely over-designed concept. How such a thing can take four years is beyond me, though.
The screwdriver option for the Spintool looks really awkward.
I don't think I'll be investing in any of these companies going forward. There are a lot of cool ideas that appear to be better on paper than in practice.
So I’m a member of a KS company who has successfully raised >$2M for two consumer electronics products.
The first one was 2 years late and the second one will be 1.25 years late. Our audience is pretty understanding of our struggles, especially since we’re quite candid about them on our blog.
Before I joined this company, I backed a bunch of projects and everything always eventually found its way to me. I backed beacon bike lights, a few comic anthologies, and Shenmue 3.
The model makes a lot of sense, but it puts a lot of onus on founders and customers. Even with KS rules to prevent “take the money and run” scams, it can always seem like a product you’re excited for is taking too long, because the founders are usually doing things they’ve never done before.
On the founder side, it can be very difficult to maximize campaigns, and to do so you need to do several “marketing” tricks to help create excitement which leads to more presales. You’re pretty much forced to pretend your funding needs are lower than they are and hope you clear the fence due to the way KS works. There’s an entire industry propped up around selling services to make campaigns succeed.
Anyways, happy to answer questions you may have on the founder perspective.