Ask HN: Should I try to get my product on Kickstarter?

That's a lovely project.

Whether to put it on Kickstarter depends, I think, on what you're exactly trying to get from your funding, but I could see your bookshelf doing well. And is there a downside to trying with Kickstarter? Biggest one I can see is that your project doesn't get produce en masse, or, perhaps, that someone else sees it and copies it. But you can't live in fear of either of those. I'd say go for it.

I'd contribute to this project :)

That's nice design. Seems like something well-suited for Kickstarter. I wish I had an apartment to put that in.

You're first four reply's are about how great a design this is, and how we would purchase this if available. You should get this going...

Actual clickable link: http://thingsfromthefuture.com/grow/

P.S. I like it and my girlfriend likes it, we'd definitely buy a set if it's priced within the IKEA range.

+2 to Kickstarting it!

I love the concept. Are you trying to get funding to produce a decent volume or for another reason?

Excellent design!

Seems perfect for this site: http://getitmade.com/

We put a project up on Kickstarter back in February and got a ton of press, but it failed. http://kck.st/eSx2KR

That being said, you should absolutely put your idea up on Kickstarter.

You'll never know someone's true opinions about your product until you ask them to take out their credit card. And because you're so close to the work, you have no idea what's actually important to customers. So at the very least Kickstarter is a great way to get customer feedback. If it fails you can always launch again at no cost to you or your backers.

My biggest piece of advice is to keep the pledge tiers simple. We threw in other products because we couldn't offer a 'special edition' of the Classics. Bad idea. A special edition isn't necessary and we just made it confusing for potential backers.

We also priced the Classics way too high, but given our manufacturing situation at the time that's what we had to do. So the con is our project failed, but the silver lining is that people came out and told us what they wanted the price to be. It also brought a bunch of manufacturers and distributors directly to us.

Email me anthony[at]joystickers[dot]com if you have any specific questions you'd like answered.

Good luck!

I'd absolutely contribute to that, it's an awesome design.

Thanks for the comments (and encouragement) everyone. I will start investigating my options to see how this could be done in the SF area. The thinking behind this design is to use ressources that are excessively locally available (not a specific type of wood that needs to be shipped half around the country) and local production facilities in order to minimize environmental impact and help small businesses. It'll be interesting to see whether this can be achieved while meeting an acceptable price point.

I'll follow up on this if I make any progress. M