Dan Shapiro

I want to buy some clothes.  From From Holden (not a typo).  And I can’t.  Because they’re full of Kickstoppers.

More and more, I’m seeing exciting, fun projects on Kickstarter that make me think they’re being run by the cast of Community.  Clever, well meaning, adorable, and more clueless than a general with a gmail account.

In case you just landed from Planet Preorder, Kickstarter is a site where you can “back” projects and get “rewards” in return.  For most of the civilized world, it’s a way to preorder stuff from teams that haven’t figured out how to make it yet.

I’ve backed a few projects before: Romo the Robot (in front of me), Stack Soap (in my shower), LadyCoders (in progress), DIY Spectroscopy Kit (in the mail), and Pebble (in schedule la-la land).  They’ve turned out with varying degrees of success, and that’s OK – part of Kickstarter is that you’re taking a bet on a team to make something amazing happen.

But more and more I’ve been seeing the same set of mistakes that just leaves me sighing wearily, hitting the back button, instead of kicking start.

Because examples are precious, I’m going to pick on the good folks from From Holden*.  I’m choosing them because a) they’re an egregious example of all three Kickstarter sins, and b) they’ve already raised 6x their target as of this writing, so I’m not going to stifle what appears to be a very well intentioned team that seems to have a great product offering.

Kickstopper 1: Dodging Details

Are these shirts machine washable?

Are the T-shirts cut for your founder? Because my abdomen does not look like his.

“You built a venture backed firm that reached 275 million people monthly” – Who?

I realize that you want to sell a crap-ton of T-shirts.  And I know the answers to these questions may not endear you to everyone.  That’s OK.  As a startup, polarizing decisions are a virtue. If you’re selling dryclean-only T-shirts cut for Arnold Schwarzenegger, own it!  You’ll get fewer returns and your target market will love you to bits.  A dear friend of mine (who may choose to identify himself in the comments?) was effusing, without irony, about how much he loved a pair of jeans that is completely unwashable but, instead, must be frozen and thawed.  If they found buyers, so will you.

But when you don’t address issues like these proactively, when you’re answer to “How do I know it will fit” is “Well if it doesn’t send it back”, it makes me think you’re more concerned with having lots of customers than having happy customers.

Kickstopper 2: Not Totally Thinking This Through

“We’ve had dozens of people ask us – ‘what’s next?’, ‘Do we have any reach goals?’ …. well, we spent all night thinking about it and here is what we came up with.”

Maybe you said this solely for the purposes of dramatic illustration, but let me take you at your word.  It is terrifying to me that you are now accepting real cash money for a product that you conceived of less than 24 hours ago.  I’m not entirely sure what a beanie is (this?) but presumably it hasn’t received the same care and diligence for sourcing, design, and so on as everything else you’re offering.  Or even worse, it has.

Kickstopper 3: Bull****ting About Risk

Quite recently, Kickstarter added a section called “Risks and Challenges”. They did this so you could reassure your customers that you don’t have any risks, and that there are no possible challenges to deliver your product.

Or at least that’s what I surmise from reading your section on risks and challenges.  You spend the whole (short) section talking about how awesome you are, then quite literally say that all you need is fabric.

Pro tip: if I, who know your business as well as I know the feeding habits of the Springbok Antelope, can come up with more risks than you can, you’re not doing it right.

Kick this nonsense to the curb

Come on, Kickstarters.  It’s OK.  We know  you’re excited.  We know you’re new to this.  We want to see you succeed. We don’t expect perfection.

We can forgive a lot, as long as you’re being straight with us.

*Update

From Holden has clearly mastered the rare and precious skill of listening to customers.  They’ve overhauled their Kickstarter page, and have gone from being the worst-case example to best-case.  I just backed them, because they’ve demonstrated a lot of planning about how to mitigate risk smartly. Bravo guys.

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