Philips has a net worth in the billions, $20.67 billion as of July 12, 2023. (Source link) Yet they decided to create a kickstarter, charging “early bird” buyers these earphones that’s designed for wearing while sleeping, basically the same as any other earphones, just slimmed down and cables running around your head.
What’s infuriating is that there’s dumbasses who actually gave them money to make a product ($500k million in total), so Philips is most likely not taking any risk making this, but will enjoy the profits.
The kickstarter - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kokoon/sleep-headphones/posts
I thought the whole point of a kickstarter was people with a product, but lacking the funds to get the project actually going getting a kick start to get going… Not for billion dollar companies to beg for cash.
I thought the whole point of a kickstarter was people with a product, but lacking the funds to get the project actually going getting a kick start to get going… Not for billion dollar companies to beg for cash.
Yeah, that’s what it used to be. Unfortunately, there has been a concerning trend in large companies using crowdfunding platforms as a way to measure market interest in a product before putting in the effort time and money needed for the old R&D process. It pays to check on the company or business for a Kickstarter before backing. Unfortunately it seems alot of folks use Kickstarter as a sort of shopping cart for new stuff, rather then a way to fund the future additions and innovation to an industry they care about. I fell for that a bit at first, but I’ve learned to ignore the FOMO.
As a Dutch person, Phillips used to be something to be proud of. Lately it’s mostly a source of shame.
MBAs totally ruined that company.
I thought the whole point of a kickstarter was people with a product, but lacking the funds to get the project actually going getting a kick start to get going…
I don’t think that is the point of Kickstarter anymore, people are much more wary of Kickstarters nowadays after a string of high profile failures (Arist coffee maker, Skarp shaver) and under-delivery (Star Citizen.jpeg, Coolest Cooler), so they would much rather treat Kickstarter as a pre-order system from a known brand like Phillips to minimalize risk.
Personally, the only Kickstarter I would invest in is card/board games, since these seems to be the lowest risk; Games are sometimes OK, depending on the scale, but hardware are usually way too risky because people tend vastly underestimate the amount of initial cost it takes to take an idea to a hardware prototype, nevermind from prototype to production.
Also, note to self: promote next movie on Kickstarter after strike.
I’ve seen this bullshit with them running crowdfunding campaigns linked off Facebook too. They claim it “allows them to more directly interface with interested customers” but it really just feels like a big corp that’s abusing a tool not intended for them
They claim to reach being fully backed within 23 minutes. Yeah, no shit if you set the goal as low as £10000.
They also artificially keep the super early bird remaining stock low to pressure backers into a snap decision. When I checked there were 7 out of 2310 left. That number will probably increase once it actually runs out.
