Crowd Funding the Pyra - Let's help ED make it work

[Timstertoo]

I think it depends on how much ED needs/wants fresh blood.

Also the one doesn't exclude the other. Why not do a Kickstarter with a relatively low amount for marketing purposes and do another one for the incrowd through Dragonbox?

This way he has the best of both worlds and the community can even make sure the Kickstarter succeeds if the fresh blood isn't as plentiful as hoped.

So ED shouldn't ask himself which one to do. He should ask himself if Kickstarer (IndieGoGo etc etc) will bring him something extra that makes it worth doing it next to a Dragonbox pre order.

 

[WizardStan]

If all ED wants to do is offer pre-orders then that's all he should do, don't bother with kickstarter.
However, one of the benefits of kickstarter is multi-tiered and different rewards.
So the Pyra costs €500, that can be tier 3. Below that at tier 1 and tier 2 you can have a straight up $5 donation, and a $20 T-shirt. A t-shirt does not cost $20, not even half that, so these additional tiers are a good way to raise additional funds: even if he doesn't pre-sell the 2000 that he needs, if he can raise enough through different tiers (higher and lower) then he can still go through with production and sell the extras later.
But that also means a lot more work. A LOT more work.

Also, if time is a concern then there have been more than one campaign that have gotten bank loans based on a successful campaign before the funding process was even finished. ED could do the same, I'm certain, but again, that's a lot more work.

There are benefits to using kickstarter, the marketing most notably I think, as well as at least an illusion of sincerity, but also a lot more work and higher cost than doing it yourself.

 

[vcoleiro1]

An alternative might be to do the Pre-Order on EDs site, and spend the money they would have otherwise spent on Kickstarter fees on advertising the Pyra & preorder. You could probably do a lot of advertising with the amount of money Kickstarter would have charged in fees.

In the end of the day, as someone else said, Kickstarter in itself has a very limited advertising benefit, most of the good advertising comes from news outlets that take up the story. That's why you always see a surge of backers after a news site runs a story on it. Like with the GPD WIN, It was off to a slow start, then Japanaese Engadget ran a story on it and it went off. Most of the backers are Japanese solely because of that article. So yeah, it seems getting onto news sites is far more important an advertising channel than Kickstarter itself. So writing in and having contacts that can help get you onto these sites is very important. I would try to do so by not just writing into the bigger sites, but also offering them a free Pyra after it launches and offering their readers a free Pyra via a competition. That way there's something in it for the site to put up the story. They always seem to like being able to provide their readers with somehting.

 

[Mr_Loon]

I'm not sure why you're so hung up on wanting to do a Kickstarter.

I'm not, see the original post. Personally I'd rather see the campaign run through Dragonbox. I'd be very happy to save 4%-5% and get a Pyra 1 month earlier.

However my gut feel is that if an established fund raising method is used the advantages slightly outweigh the disadvantages in terms of the overall likelihood of success for the project. Therefore that would be the prudent decision.

 

[rygD]

What about a fundraising Pyra raffle here, where you get 1 entry for every 5 or 10 euros? Obviously this only works if the money raised is more than the cost of a Pyra.

If you can still donate through the shop, is that bringing him any money that might help with Pyra production?

 

[Xcl4m4t10n]

We need that a lot of people communicate with a lot of e-magazines to spread the word. And it must have at least, a semi-proffesional presentation, so I think the good way to do this is writting a generic email on english with the community (with photos and videos, ofc) and then, translate it to each language.

 

[Ocean112]

Here's the thing. If a x86 cpu board is possible it would be quite a nice achievement for the pyra. This would make steam (and many other dd platforms and games) on the pyra a possibility. There's quite a market there if it can be done. This is something I could easily see being done on kickstarter. The only problem would be people wanting windows drivers and support. (This would also have the benefit of making it a much more mainstream product which means greater sales)

The problem would be the scalability of the manufacturing process. Are the contracted companies able to scale construction of the components to match the demand if it takes off? Is the in-house team able to scale assembly enough to match demand if it reaches a critical point?

My advice would be this. Do the first production run within this community. Maybe even an indiegogo campaign if it's needed, but if you do this I think you will receive many requests for android support.

 

[Klumpen]

Let's see how the world will react when the prototype is ready and people see how much stuff already runs on it well.

 

[Ocean112]

I don't like to bring it up, but this must be said as well. Most of us here remember the icp2 disaster; I was a backer, myself. We all have an almost certain idea of what caused it, and whom to blame for it. Like it or not, this community was linked to the icp and I see this playing a part if a kickstarter goes live.

Edit: I don't think there will be any major problems like the first project either. ED did more than I would have to help the UK customers of that other company out, anyway. He built up quite a bit of credit with that. These things will be brought up if a public crowdfunding campaign is started. It would be best if there was a response already ready when the inevitable questions occur.

 

[thatgui]

I agree with both of the above, however I think a good crowd funding campaign will need a lot of time and effort put into it whether it's done via Kickstarter or in house, it's a positive for Kickstarter IMHO that they provide the tools to streamline this process.

I am not sure about that:
While a campaign will allocate a considerable amount of time anyway, part of it could be handled by the community, in terms of either directing interested people to things ED said already here or even answer questions directly. With Kickstarter ED would be the only one who would have to answer erverything - and he would be inclined to do so, in order to keep the crowd happy. And looking at some campaigns from the past, some people can get really whiny there, maybe these aren't many, but the may be enough to stir up others, so ED needs to invest additional time. I know that kickstarter pages have a comment section, but I think an eco system that this board provides is a lot more suitable to handle that.

Credibility could be pro for kickstarter: people may be more inclined to channel their money through Kickstarter instead of giving it directly to some "shady" internet-shop. Especially as the Pandora pre-order fiasco still comes up in the comments sections when an articles about the Pyra gets online on some tech sites.

Personally I hope ED pursuits his plan: doing it himself, and if that fails, through some crowdfunding site - simply because I have no credit card, so I could not be part of it.

 

[Mr_Loon]

Most of us here remember the icp2 disaster

While a campaign will allocate a considerable amount of time anyway, part of it could be handled by the community, in terms of either directing interested people to things ED said already here or even answer questions directly. With Kickstarter ED would be the only one who would have to answer erverything - and he would be inclined to do so, in order to keep the crowd happy.

Good calls, it would be sensible to have a pre prepared Why buy a Pyra? FAQ.

What questions would you ask if you were a potential customer / tech journalist who hadn't followed the project closely?

Off the top of my head here are a few :

Are you the guys behind Pandora / iCP2? I hear that those projects did not go smoothly (to put it very mildly)
Why is the Pyra so expensive?
Why buy a Pyra when I could buy a GPD Win?
Why is the Pyra using an outdated (4 year old?) SOC?
I want Android, why not make the Pyra a dual boot system?
I've never heard of Dragonbox, how can I be sure the Pyra will be well supported in the future?

 

[Grench]

The moment that this would hit Kickstarter and it's public forums the people who were inconvenienced by C*IX will come out in droves to bash it - and effectively tie the Pyra to his failures. It could actually perform worse than ED just running it on his store. That stuff is going to haunt the projects for a long time.

 

[erico]

It is tough to give opinion on this subject. I think an in-house campaign to deal the first ~2000 units and a later kickstarter campaign to deal more would be a good idea.
Still, I´m really unsure about kickstarter. While it could push sales, it will make the product even more expensive than it will be and there are other problems with it too.

Is it necessary to amass huge sales right up at the start? Would it be better to sell at a more calm steady rate instead?

 

[Mr_Loon]

The moment that this would hit Kickstarter and it's public forums the people who were inconvenienced by C*IX will come out in droves to bash it - and effectively tie the Pyra to his failures. It could actually perform worse than ED just running it on his store. That stuff is going to haunt the projects for a long time.

There is a strong possibility that some potential customers/journalists would make that mistake whether the crowd funding is done in house or using Kickstarter, that's why ED should put together an FAQ that clears up this sort of misunderstanding. A brief overview of how ED handled the Pandora supply problems & had nothing at all to do with the iCP fiasco would hopefully put minds at rest and may actually lead to additional trust from strangers as ED's actions have been above and beyond the call of duty IMHO.

 

[PowerGod]

I think that an "in house" solution could be better for now... mostly because I fear that if something goes wrong, and more time is needed, new people can start shouting to a scam (scaring out more people), while who already knows the project and the history behind it could understand better and more patiently...

 

[Ian J]

But might an FAQ that in some way links this KS to a previously failed KS be a red flag to some that may not have heard about the iCP2?

Would it not be better to answer any questions if/when they arise?

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

But might an FAQ that in some way links this KS to a previously failed KS be a red flag to some that may not have heard about the iCP2?

Would it not be better to answer any questions if/when they arise?

I agree that makes sense. It's not Ed's responsibility to mention the failed ICP2 campaign. It was not his campaign.

Transparent answers when and if questions are asked makes sense also.

 

[ible]

it would be nice to start putting together a Pyra wiki, which could include a FAQ page. i think it emphasizes Pyra's openness and community. there's lots of questions that get answered over and over, which would be good to have for reference somewhere.

i think the biggest question/problem that most people new to the project is this:

• if the back-lid logo is rotationally invariant (by 180 degrees), how will i know which side to try and pry open?

and the answer is, as to many of these other concerns, of course, BUY A PYRA

 

[Plume]

@ible: Is the official wiki publicly editable ?

 

[TrashyMG]

@ible: Is the official wiki publicly editable ?

Yeah you prob just need to know the SECRET PASSWORD to register a wiki account...