Kickstarter good or bad?

I have seen a few nanos try Kickstarter. Opinions good or bad?


this is a recent one here.
Personally i think its cool.

Cool unless it’s Stone Brewery ( yes, this happened). Otherwise for small ventures looking for cash, I say great.
Tim

I feel like kickstarter is sort of like the stockmarket for private companies. I honestly don’t care what goes on there: don’t give them money if you don’t beleive (like TimE said; Stone doesn’t need our money).

Sometimes it can be an investment in the community. Like Atlanta just kickstarted its first distillery (and the product is amazing!). I see this as an win both for the company and its investors.

I have mixed feelings on it. On one hand, we really don’t need more homebrewers with 2 years of homebrewing trying to launch another nano-brewery with a 1 barrel system giving away cozies and letting you name their beer. If the brewery’s business plan begins with: Step 1 Kickstarter, Step 2 Make Beer, Step 3 Profit, then it’s not going to work.

On the other hand, there’s some legitimate brewers with experience who have the potential for success that just needs to raise a little cash. However, if the beer/business is good enough, getting loans from a bank or investor seems like the best way to go.

So to conclude, I think it’s a good fundraising vehicle that’s abused by some people who’ve been told their homebrew tastes great. The massive amount of brewery kickstarters that fail is giving the good brewery kickstarters a bad name/image of looking like beggars.

Anyways, I’m sure this link will show up somewhere on the forum. It’s a great read especially the comments section of the post. http://dontdrinkbeer.com/2014/01/02/you-are-not-a-brewer-you-are-a-panhandler-with-a-kickstarter-account/

I’ve "helped" fund three Kickstarter projects, but in return I got something useful. Like that actual product. I’m not interested in getting personal thanks, name placement, logo t-shirts, etc. Unless a brewer is going to ship me beer in return for funding them, I’m not interested at all. And even if they do ship me beer I’m only vaguely interested if they come off as being amateurish.

You’ve got dreams? Welcome to the club. Make them happen by coming up with a credible business plan and borrow the money you need.

Originally posted by bitbucket
I’ve "helped" fund three Kickstarter projects, but in return I got something useful. Like that actual product. I’m not interested in getting personal thanks, name placement, logo t-shirts, etc. Unless a brewer is going to ship me beer in return for funding them, I’m not interested at all. And even if they do ship me beer I’m only vaguely interested if they come off as being amateurish.

You’ve got dreams? Welcome to the club. Make them happen by coming up with a credible business plan and borrow the money you need.

I think it’s great publicity for some breweries. Get a few hundred people, hopefully locals, to donate even just $5 and you have an instant group of people who will (probably) be there right when they open.

Bad crowd-funding attempts won’t probably reach their goal. If a brewery is totally dependent on the money they’re getting from crowd-funding, they’re going to fail. The ones I’ve contributed to already state they’re going to open regardless of if the funding succeeds or not, and it’s usually going to be either so they can open up sooner or so they can open with slightly larger equipment.

A local brewery was asking for $25k, which was absurd, since the last local one asked for $10k and eventually ended up with only $18k. It didn’t happen an they moved to one of the crowdfunding sites that let you keep money even if it doesn’t reach it’s goal. I think they got about $5k.

Another one that is currently going on for a local brewery is asking for $30k, which is unfortunate since they should probably be asking for a reasonable amount which is probably closer to $10-15k. They’re one of my favorite local places and they’re finally moving to a new location (from the guy’s original location in his basement garage) and I think they already have their location and are looking mostly for larger equipment.

I’ve been to some breweries that are run by some very good businessmen (or at least good enough connections to raise the kind of capital to open) that have average beer at best. I’ve also had fantastic beer (both by professionals and homebrewers) by a brewer/owner who probably should never have anything to do with the business side of the house. The trick for the ones who might struggle on the business plan is that the product is good enough to keep the business open and growing once open.


Businesses like Stone doing crowdfunding is incredibly arrogant, and not in a good way. (see what I did there???)

There was a similar thread a couple of weeks ago. Most are asking for down payment help. Opening a brewery, even on a small scale, is an expensive endeavor and unless you bring in investors, AKA "partners" you need to get a bank loan to open which is going to require 5%-10% equity.
Don’t look at Kickstarter as an investment.
It’s a donation. You may get something in return as a thank you.
And Bitbucket...no business plan in the world will get you 100% financing.

Originally posted by bitbucket
I’ve "helped" fund three Kickstarter projects, but in return I got something useful. Like that actual product. I’m not interested in getting personal thanks, name placement, logo t-shirts, etc. Unless a brewer is going to ship me beer in return for funding them, I’m not interested at all. And even if they do ship me beer I’m only vaguely interested if they come off as being amateurish.

You’ve got dreams? Welcome to the club. Make them happen by coming up with a credible business plan and borrow the money you need.

Kickstarter is great for a few reasons (not beer related)
1. Ground floor investment on a useful product that usually would cost more if you bought it @ MSRP
2. An easy way to support a friend’s product or idea
3. Mainstream funding of the arts (documentaries, music, public art projects)

If you’re not a friend of mine or the cause/art/location of art isn’t awesome then I’m usually backing a product (tangible as in I get something real for my investment). If that product I’m kickstarting costs the same as it will on your website in 1-2 years then it’s unlikely I’ll back it. I want to get a value for that risk I’m taking in backing your project.

I just backed this project very early on https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/orangemonkie/foldio-2-bigger-and-smarter/description

I backed it within the first few days before they had met any ’unlock perks’ and it was pretty clear that some perks would be unlocked. It’s a product I can use daily (for beer photography) and the perks (if all unlocked) would make my $65 pledged very much worth it. Finally, they had successfully delivered on a previous project on kickstarter so my risk was lower that they will follow through.

I backed this in December - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/445474695/electronic-opus

Brian is a friend of mine and the perks were great so I pledged $1,000..which is a ton of money but Id love to get some copies of his original sheet music from back in the day. Unfortunately, I lowered my pledge once he met his funding goals but Im still a big supporter.

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I’d never back a brewery that A. Wasn’t local. B. I didn’t know the brewers. C. didn’t have professional brewing experience. D. Wasn’t giving me real rewards (IE. Growler fills for a year, first 10 bottle releases, mug club).

Im not backing some unknown middle of nowhere brewery just because they’ll put my name on their website or send me a bottle opener.

Doesn’t matter to me, I will never kickstart anything.

You want money? I want a product. Sell me a product. Oh, you don’t have the means to make the product yet? Come talk to me when you do.