This 3D Printer Raised $1,438,765 and Failed. Crowdfunding Warning.
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- čas přidán 19. 07. 2019
- The Pirate3D Buccaneer was one of the hottest Kickstarter campaigns of 2013 raising almost $1.5 million dollars. Unfortunately, it failed.
This video is my thoughts around the perils of crowdfunded hardware campaigns, and how you can protect yourself from losing money.
The Pirate3D Buccaneer campaign page - www.kickstarter.com/projects/...
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When you have 99% marketing skills, and 1% engineering skills
thats 99% of kicksterters and 80% of kicksterter supporters
Remember the company that made billions because of this. You know the self made billionaire woman that dropped out of school and had an idea just an idea to have a device that can diagnose any disease by just a drop of blood. But in the end she doesnt know shit about engineering or medicine.
@@midnightfun1277 wait WHAT
How was that thing named?
@@alionicle it was called Theranos.
When the economy work force is 99% market experts and. 1% engineers
Note to self, never buy hardware that becomes a cinder block the second the company goes bankrupt...
The Jibo robot met the same fate. When the company went under the servers went with it, and the $900 bot turned into an expensive paperweight
AKA Apple in the future
That's why I never got a Glowforge, considering the software is cloud based.
I wouldn't say it became a cinder block. After all, a cinder block is still useful.
Yes beware of proprietary software that only works on the cloud! Connection to the cloud can go away at any time. Due to a natural disaster, or someone not paying a bill. Then its useless. And heaven forbid if all you file content was there.
Avoid any hardware that depends on some cloud app as a plague.
tachiorz ight imma avoid Alexa
Like those cricket vinyl sheet cutters.....amazing machine completely crippled by a stupid cloud based software app that must be online. That shit is GARBAGE!
You better get a Nokia 3310 then. Stay away from them androids and iphones.
"All the hard questions up front"
*First question "Your Name"*
Me: *nervously sweats*
Second Question "Your Quest?"
errr….father's maiden name....LOL.
Third question: what is the capitol of Assyria?
Social security number and credit card number, 3 digits on the back, and exp date?
Named a project in kick started with "Pirate"
Internet: "W3LL nOtHinG wILL G0eS WrOnG"
A printing device completely dependent on an app?
NOPE! that's a big red flag right there.
> "Misc"
> 420 Bucks
i see what you did there m8
420... hummmmmm
too cheap for 420
Need a 3d potter. 3d planter?
could you kindly explain 420's significance to us dull mined individuals please ?
@@fortheregm1249 Smoke weed every day- ay -ay -ay
Did people actually send money to someone named Pirate3D? LOL
The full company name before they rebranded: p1r4t3d w4r3z
@@hemipemi LOL
What did PT barnum say happened every minute
irontoad123 a sucker is born every minute
@@irontoad123 Nothing. P. T. Barnum wasn't the one who said that.
It's tough, selling the dream but there are thousands of hurdles and obstacles. You need more than a war fund. Even successful companies are launching Kickstarters. Random: Where did you get that shirt? Looks custom-designed!
Yeah, so much goes into it that consumers are simply oblivious to. The shirt is from cyberdog :D
"Even successful companies are launching Kickstarters."
And that's a major problem.
Look at a company like CMON. They've pretty much gone KickStarter only now, cutting out the middle man and selling directly to the customer. One wave... No product in the local stores... No further support...
It's a clever way of (ab)using FOMO. People will put crazy amounts of money into an all-out pledge, knowing that they'll never get a chance later on. But it's a really shitty way of doing business as KickStarter was never intended to be a storefront.
Yeah, “crowd funding is not pre-order”. No truer words has to be said!
That been said, I am done with any crowd funding. Too many heartbreak...
"Projects with well known overhead like events"... Just like Fyre? :D
Well, you know know the overheads if you ya know, CALCULATE them... unlike Billy haha
Fyre was a scam from the get-go.
The overhead wouldn't have been hard to calculate, if anyone ever bother to do so.
The event was slapped together in the cheapest way possible, while advertising the exact opposite.
It was specifically targeted towards rich-kids, and was an easy and effective way of tricking them out of their money.
lol as others said, events actually do have pretty well known overheads. The guy who brought us the disaster of Fyre Festival had a history of scamming people with things that were too good to be true, and he was informed on multiple occasions that what he was promising was not feasible within the limits of time and money - but he insisted on keeping the charade going as long as possible.
dudepersonvids the only reason he kept going was because he had bank loans to pay
J Squad Vlogs “Man who scams those irresponsible with money is himself irresponsible with money”, where have I heard that before?
Excellent video thank you! The only issue I have with Kickstarter is that they still endorse failed projects that generate large sums of money as “projects we love”. Of course it isn’t the project that they love, it’s the money.
Very good point. They pretend failures were a success years later...
I just watched a 3 minute ad before this video started. Love me
Was it a good ad
@@MakersMuse yep, it talked about additive manufacturing and a 3d company that sold a desktop printer with dual independent extruders (BCN3D sigma R19).
@@cobeer1768 The form 2 is the most used 3d printer in the industry. Request a free sample part in our engineering resin
I've got it stuck in my head dang it
Specy hey. Dummy. You can skip ads after 5 seconds unless otherwise noted. Dummy.
Zac Birrer did you change your Google/gmail ad preferences? I did to remove targeted ads and now I get inky 5 second ads that I don't care about or anything longer allows to skip after 5 seconds. I really despise marketing and ads and data hoarding & whoring ... so this change for me was for the best.
I enjoy watching your enthusiasm in your presentations, young man.... Keep them coming.
Imagine a crowd funding company that not only provided the platform to raise finances for an idea or concept, but also provided financial guidance and even manufacturing and logistical support to successful concepts.
I need to get myself a crowd funding account and a GoPro aha 🤣 on a serious note, if you got that printer up and running it might have a sentimental object there for someone.
Great video and very informative for me! Looking forward to your future videos!
Great video Angus! Love your channel, been watching for years
I'm trying to wrap my head around the fact people saw the name Pirate3d and it didn't raiae alarm bells
Excellent video!
Thank you for this highly informative and insightful glimpse into the pitfalls of crowd funding.
i for one would love to see you revive that Buchaneer, perhaps with an SKR board, 2208's and stuff like that, it will have EVERYTHING , electronics install, marlin config, maybe even some fusion tutorial stufffor printed parts , etc i would love to watch that
I was one of the people who funded the Buccaneer project, and (although I never received mine... :'( ) I'd definitely love to see one refurbed!
Who the heck wants a 3D printer that needs a cloud based slicer, I.E. a paperweight if there's not connection?
Remember: There were almost no 3d printers at the time. Everything was a huge improvement at the time.
Agreed 10000%
I said the same thing at the time.
Everyone who owns a Glowforge? Which are amazing, for what it's worth.
@Yona Appletree A Laser versus a 3d Printer. Seriously, that is Apples to Oranges because if the Glowforge company died tomorrow you can still use the Glowforge to cut shit and engrave with but this 3d Printer it was all on the net or it was a door stop.
I’ve backed many projects. I’ve been lucky. All have delivered. Enjoyed the history and background on this.
Thank you for mentioning CrowdSupply. I hadn't even consider crowd-sourcing the RasPi shield I'm working on because I didn't know a site dedicated to that existed.
Excellent Information.
Thank you!
Fantastic. Cant be simpler. Thanks for your effort and sharing.
I’ve given up with Kickstarter. I’ve been burnt a couple of times.
This is a GREAT history lesson about 3D printing and the overall risks of of crowdfunding and I can't think of anyone more qualified to share this story than you, Angus. Things have gotten a lot better now days but back in these earlier times every printer, laser cutter, or widget machine was a gamble. It was the wild west and there were now standards.
My professor for manufacturing technology at Uni used to say do you cost and time estimates then double it and you'll probably be still 20% over.
Another great video, Angus! Thanks!
Great to see more videos from you
Very informative as always. Thanks.
2019 we have the same situation with Kodama's Obsidian from Kickstarter. 1.6 million, into it's 4th calendar year, and not one printer delivered - just vague updates every 3 months or so from the creator and the same prototypes being shown over and over again.
This is what sets Crowd Supply apart. They review each project personally and will not allow you to launch unless they believe you have a good path to production.
EDIT: he said it at the end of the video.
I love how both printers that you mentioned ( 8:39 ) failed
Finally getting around to designing a 3D printer to sell, these are really good lessons to rewatch for. Wish me luck!
Very nice presentation, thank you
Weird question: What is the small purple light on your desk? It looks quite nice
I have funded several projects that went no where, the worst was SinterHard which was making a FDM Metal filament that needed to be sintered afterwards. Although they failed, The Virtual Foundry picked up where they failed and have made an amazing metal filament. I had thought about doing my direct drive upgrade as a crowd funded project but after seeing all the fails and the constant spam on KickStarter I decided to just fund it out of pocket and it has done really good. I am sure I could have made A LOT more if the word had got out and it would be more popular but so far I have made a good profit and they continue to sell.
Very nice vid Angus! I love it!
Well thoughtout video with some personal view and experience as cherry on top. Great job - especially compared to testing some new printers or hardware in general. I like new Angus!
Great video. Good lesson here. If you are planning on putting something up for crowdfunding; Treat that support as a pre-order. Have all of the technical kinks worked out. Hardware design should be 90% complete. The money should only be used to finish and polish that last little bit at the end and provide a great experience to your backers. Too many of these are just down to bad management.
'Heeeyy welcome to kickstarter crap today we're going to look at ...'
Reminds me of the Morpheus Delta on kickstarter. Promised refunds for years, printer still isn't delivered.
Had every excuse under the sun.
I paid into two failed 3d printer projects.
First was the Makible MakiBox, which took over $500 of my money, including some filament, and then never delivered. It was a super low-cost printer, but I was dumb and ordered filament at the same time. Nothing ever showed up. HE posted lots of photos of working in China, and I think a number of people actually received units. I did not. Eventually, he just disappeared. The Makibox was a competitor to the Buccaneer at the time.
Second was the French Kickstarter ZeePro Zim which had an online slicer/control, dual heads, etc. Nice unit in 2014. They went under, though, and then their printer became a brick unless you replaced the control board with something open source. Out $1200 on that one. At that point, I vowed to never again buy anything like that that required a cloud service. That includes the laser cutters that came out later. I knew the risk, but at the time, thought I'd take it. The problem with cloud-based logic for a tool, is that at some point in the future, eventually, it'll go away, or you'll be required to pay more, or upgrade the hardware. That's a guarantee. So you need to treat the item more like you would software than a tool. I own tools (and synthesizers) that are 40+ years old, and will work for as long as I maintain them. Software, on the other hand, can stop working with the next rev of the OS.
Bought Prusa after that. They're slow to deliver, but they do actually deliver, and make good stuff.
I've had a few other Kickstarter fails, and many more successes. It's not as interesting a platform now that it's more big company with flashy videos vs. the original "person in a garage" approach. I'll check out Crowd Supply as it seems a bit more like how Kickstarter used to be, before they got greedy.
I got both printer (probably the last one delivered) and filament. It was a flimsy construction but after a lot of improvements it actually produced half decent prints. All in all it was a really bad printer and you might even been lucky not receiving one.
You can actually buy a cheap but pretty usable 3D printer nowdays for $200 - like the Ender 3. It's for home use, you don't get all quality parts, not as good as a Prusa, but it works pretty well. And they deliver. That's what happened in just a few years, I guess.
@@janosnoll6830 Thanks. With the Prusa, I bought it pre-assembled and configured, rather than as a kit. I was able to print a quality print within minutes after unboxing it. Tweaking 3d printers isn't my hobby, but I use 3d printing to support other hobbies, but at the same time, it's a hobby, so commercial 3d printers are out of my budget. For folks who prefer to tweak, modify, etc. there are tons of low-cost options these days.
The injection molding alone probably pushed the cost above the retail price.
I backed Reach3d printer on kickstarter a few years ago and they all delivered almost on time. Still using it.
Hey Ian! We did all right, got way behind, never realized what I was getting myself into sooo much manual labor that I didn't fully anticipate, so I had to do the work myself. There was no way I was going to throw in the towel though. :)
@@Reach3DPrinters Hey that's badass and it looks like you're still around selling and supporting machines.
Thank you for watching out for us, so to speak.
Wow. This video just made me remember I have a 101hero sitting in my garage that I meant to go back to and try to improve.
You are just awesome... Nice sharing!..... I need a little help maybe silly question..... Where can I get 3d printing reacted stickers to stick over my lappy!... I didn't find in India over the Emarket.
Thankfully there have been enough flopped campaigns out there that it's not too hard to distinguish a flashy video with a semi working product to a campaign actually offering a fully developed design. Good video. The kickstarter for my draken barely made it and the company isn't that big but they are still selling printers.... at least a couple that is.
Nice video mate, i did think a few times to use kickstarter but never did as i was scared of the risk
I never got mine. With a name like Pirate3D I'm not sure what I was expecting really.
dasbrawnyman did you get your money back?
@@DG-AI777 Sadly no.
dasbrawnyman Dayum so all these kickstarters that fail, the backers never get paid back! That's insane. Shame dude, that sucks.
Kickstarter is a mugs game, anyone who backs deserves to get robbed.
jon skinner calm down keyboard warrior. It was the one place on this earth where innovation was and is openly available to the public at affordable prices, from my understanding. How many successful campaigns were/are there, thousands I'm sure. And sounds like any investment, where risk is involved.
Smart and to the point, great!
I got mine and it worked very well for a few years. It was sad to see it go.
Thanks for the material, it’s very refreshing. I’m currently considering backing the Jadelabo J1 and maybe I’ll wait till they will really produce it to mass clients. Do you have any thoughts about that campaign?
Nice history
Thanks for sharing :-)
I want to have my own tech company, possibly starting using kickstarter.
But I don't rush, as you said need some experience, so I work as a engineer in a industrial company, I get to do various things related to production, both mechanical and electronics.
Great job, muse! I personnaly baked on several kickstarter projects and all were delivered... except the Obsidian!!!! These guys are not giving any news since months, and I am afraid they will finally go on your list...
Love this channel
I was watching some old videos of yours and was wondering would you choose the tronxy Xy-2 or the Creality ender 3. Neither would be my first 3D printer.
Thank you
How about snap maker 2?
Just before start of your video, snap maker ad came :-)
I love my TIKO paperweight! It also makes a pretty fancy, pulsing night light. ;)
Ill trade you one of my Reach 3d Printers for your Tiko!!! Id even send you an assembled one.
Yeah, can't wait for my Kodama Obsidian. Got so excited I went on and got me the Tronxy XY-3 a couple of days ago during Amazon Prime Day. Or days as this year was two.
I did get into the Obsidian after seeing it could have good posabilities from Makers Muse. Boy, I read a lot into that. Stupid Tax paid.
0:43 hey I had the exact same top as the one on your shelf as a kid. I think I might still have it somewhere.
Have you made a video about water soluble supports? Could not find on your channel. Seems like a nice solution for dual head/multi material printers. But the filament is so pricy!
I've used crowdsupply to back about 9 projects ranging from $50 to $1500 and they have always delivered.
What is the website? I get a bunch of companies when I search.
i have one of those wooden boxes i hate it X3
Getting a newer model tomorrow
I had a 3d doodler too.. but one day it let out the blue smoke of death and never worked again...
(i think i used the wrong adapter... some times when you use the wrong adapter the blue smoke of death is let out and everyone is sad...)
I have thankfully received 3 different items from Kickstarter. Helped to fund a movie, Some handcrafted leather tool cases and the tech item... the Vinci Headphones v1. The movie was on time, the leather items took about 9 months with zero communications for a few months, and the Vinci arrived on time.. However, Vinci on their V2 the company collapsed and a lot of stakeholders lost their return and sadly the communications to Kickstarter at the end was from staff soon to be retrenched. I didn't get the V2 but you can see how even with the success of a product, doesn't mean all is ok for the next... As you had said in this pretty important video, is that you are a stakeholder taking a risk, not a backorder with a money-back guarantee. Thank for posting...
I just received a new delta style printer due to the one I have had since the beginning is a prusa-mendel. It took me days to build, learn and set up but It still works and is just as good as most of the new ones out today due to my modifications to keep it somewhat up to date. I really am a big fan of the Delta printer and have enjoyed playing around with it for the last couple days and it took me about an hour to build and get it printing very well. Crazy how things have progressed. Oh, I spent a small fortune on the first one and the delta was so cheap I couldn't believe it. Did i mention it looks cool too?
I was a Buccaneer backer who got a printer, enjoyed the printer, and did my research about the printer prior to backing.
I've since moved on to an Elegoo Saturn resin printer because.. well.. mostly coolness factor, money to burn, and a desire to learn how 3D printing really works (without having it hidden by some simple front-end software), but I did have some really good prints on my Buccaneer and printed some nice brackets and stuff for some tech projects I was working on, plus learned a ton of stuff.
I went through a bit of a checklist before backing, which included "does this have a physical prototype?" (it did), "have they had other Kickstarters before?" (no), "realistically, how well could this all scale up on a manufacturing level?" (rather well, given the simple internals, off-the-shelf components and such), "does it have proprietary stuff that can't be replaced?" (no), and "if the company shits itself, can I still use this product?" (yes, even today, if you have the software, plus there were some efforts made to convert it into a more advanced 3D printer)
So with that in mind, I backed, and don't regret my decision, especially given that it was my first printer, but given the option earlier this year, I went for the more advanced (i.e. one designed for the masses, not for those that had never 3D printed before) Elegoo Saturn.
Anyway, I think they did the best job they could, but a combination of raising not enough money, tweaking of things before going to manufacturing, and failing to secure enough funding to continue on, were its downfall.
"Ouch! My Buccaneers!" - Todd (or Rod) Flanders, the Simpsons.
Still waiting for my Coolest Cooler, first and last time I ever use crowd sourcing for hardware
Thank you!
I remember a number of those campaigns. I thought about backing Tiko but didn't. If the Buccaneer and Tiko needed some app or custom slicer to be useful how difficult would it be to flash new (standard?) firmware to get them working or to replace their controller boards to make them in to working machines?
Remember when a project needed a proof of concept and not just an idea?
No, because we've been doing this since ancient times.
This makes me sad about NewMatter and the Mod-t. I know people had issues with them, but I loved mine.
It's what got me into 3D printing, and for $299. I always used Cura as my slicer and never really had issues. I printed many hundreds of great parts with it. They also delivered on their crowdfunding campaign.
Just bums me out they're not around anymore. I still have my Mod-t, but my CR-10s does all my work now.
Only kickstarter I ever backed was the Swiftpoint Z PC mouse, and I ended up forgetting about it as they missed their initial deadline.
But one day a package arrived and my god it was beautiful, looked as good as it should, worked even better, so many customisations and the world's first mouse with genuine full gyro and analogue buttons.
I had big plans to use it in 3D modelling where I could rotate the mouse around in the air like the commercial 3D manipulator devices.. but it was uncomfortable to do, using it as a joystick in gaming to fly planes was ok, but more difficult to master and required snapping a magnetic base plate on.
All in all they absolutely came through on their promise, but I had misjudged the useful of those promises.
I still have it 3 ish years later and the extra buttons and ergonomics are great, but for gaming I still end up going back to the old 12 button thumbgrid, so it now sits at my work PC with button maps for quick tab changing, opening/closing tabs, switching programs, adjusting volume and a few others.
Still waiting for my OLO/ONO ... but Snapmaker delivered.
9:03 I had what was essentially this conversation with some people on Steam after one of my favorite Early Access games had to close down. So many people have been calling it fraud, when it says right in the early access description that you are not guaranteed a finished product. You are paying for *early access* to an unfinished product. If anything, you are investing in the company and hoping they are able to finish.
I was about to write about the Ono just as I heard you calling them out. =)
I personally like kickstarter machines that use their own self made parts, it’s a sign that the machines work and it takes a decent chunk of outsourced production costs out of the equation.
Thoughts on makerarm, flex arm, z-arm and other kickstarter do it all robot arms? Makerarm and z-arm claim to be shipping soon or now and I have not seen any of these machines in action like they vanished.
My impression of crowdsupply is this it is a bit more serious about hardware projects and that some tangible return is there for your investment. More along the line of,
"hey guys I need to make 1 board to fill some role, does anyone else want one? Good then I can bulk buy and get a better price on the manufacturing."
There are some better players using it as well like Lime Micro (Lime SDRs). I backed that one and got a unit when it was completed.
I did not back them, but the Chronos was, IMO, the way to do a KS campaign. They had beta units in the field for some time.
Love your vids, keep it up.
It's Feb 2020 and I'm still waiting for my Kodama Obsidian.
Initially I thought this would be a video about the "Kodama Obsidian" the $99 printer, since I remember, you presented the prototype on the channel back then. Funding ended in mid 2017 with an planned initial delivery date of late 2017 I believe (?) - still waiting for this one to be delivered. Not holding my breath for it though... ;) The developers are posting updates about how they source items and unbox sample shipments of parts from china to appease backers as we speak. LOL!
In the meantime, the early adopter version of the Ender-3 I bought for
Most of these Kickstarters are people that have never even started their own business and think that it will be easy to solve things once the money is their. It's much easier to make a business when the money is yours vs when it's other peoples money.
The middle product there on that Crowd Supply screenshot (TinyPICO) is made by a great youtuber named Unexpected Maker, you should stop by one of his livestreams sometime!
Make a way to connect to the printer
I picked up a deltaprintr second hand, they had a crowdfunding campaign and wow, can you not find any support now. I have been looking for a copy of the firmware so I can get it to work properly however it seems like everything I can find does not work. Could be a board problem, but some other time I will get it working.
Can’t help but notice the DMX capable led par can sitting on your desk.
I backed the FlowMotion ONE Gimbal and the first few month everything was okay, but a few weeks ago i got an E-Mail in which they told us, that the company went bankrupt.
Alot of backers didn't get the product at all - i got mine but sadly a defective unit.
You can say, that they were successful at first but the luck left them later on.
I also backed the SmartHalo and i have to say, that this project was very successful.
Delivery is fast, support is awesome and they now working on the successor of the first Smarthalo.
have you heard of Diabase 3d Printers? My lab ordered one and they constantly put off delivery and were super late we eventually had to cancel the order
I backed the Tiko. After stringing me along for years, they had the gall to ask for a huge shipping fee before they even had a unit to ship to me. I'm bummed I wasted the money, but I'm glad I didn't have to deal with a bad printer that would have inevitably gotten bricked. I finally got over it and bought a Prusa MK3S kit a couple months ago, and am loving it and what I can do with it.
I got mine anyway! Worked great. Removable platform, it was cool for the day and the price...everything changes so fast .... That's life! You win some you loose some....plus there is no guarantees on Kickstarter....
I backed tbe Robo3d R2 and had been happy with it, until it failed after a few months.
I probably won't back anything on kickstarter like that again
I had the same thing happen to me with a TIKO spent $400+ on Kickstarter and it failed never delivered
My first 3D printer was the Trinus3D which is made by Kodama, the creators of the upcoming “Obsidian” printer. I have never been happier with a 3D printer before. Backed in 2014(?), still works amazingly well to this day, and the community is amazing. I think Kodama did a very good job with their previous KS and they probably can handle this one pretty well too. Micheal (Founder of Kodama) has always been, and still, heavily involved with the community, which is an excellent thing.
I was a backer for the Peachy printer, their projected cost was way too low, but I wouldn't have been as mad if they just ran out of money. There's no more information about the embezzlement out there other than Peachy's own updates, so it's entirely possible that both founders were in on it.
Now I have a Moai, which uses the exact same technology, but lo and behold, it actually exists and no one built a house with my money.
Great history lesson!