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https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/117421627/the-peachy-printer-the-first-100-3d-printer-and-sc/posts/1572573

Well this is a cautionary tale for backers (and project creators too if they have partners with access to the company account)

I hope nobody from Dakka has been stung in this one (as I know there are a fair few with interest in affordable 3D printers)

Argh...

This comment is interesting:

Sam Fentress about 7 hours ago
I don't understand how your finances add up:
1. David stole $324,700
2. He paid back $107,000
3. You got a $90,000 grant
4. You got a $135,000 grant
5. You got a $50,000 loan
This adds up to $57,300 *more* than you had before he stole the money. The grants alone have covered what he hasn't paid back.
So were you *ever* going to be able to ship, even if he hadn't stolen the money?

The theft is inexcusable, of course, but the amount of presentation put into revealing it and the amount of time spent... I don't know, backers seem to be saying that he hasn't been showing progress on the printer itself, either.

The above comment about finances is telling, along with the graph of how they spent the funds they had - the VAST majority is in "wages"... not materials. So while the missing funds obviously account for a huge percentage of the project... it doesn't seem like they were progressing towards a bulk order of the components needed to make the printers, either... but spending it on labor (I would want to know if it is their own labor, or what that represents).

At the time this launched, I thought the technology was extremely risky (and the price point really aggressive) which is why I didn't back it... there is a similar but newer campaign that just ended called the Olo, which I backed for a small amount just to watch. I have high hopes for its technology, but because it also chose an aggressive $100 pricepoint, and also is very hesitant to show the printer actually functioning, makes me think the folks who backed for printers are going to be out of luck =(

In general, I think people just need to be a little more careful with emerging technologies on Kickstarter. It's certainly possible that something shown only as a render or even a prototype may be the "next big thing"... but it's also possible it's just not feasible to really implement and produce at scale. I think it's now pretty much over for the Peachy project - as even if they recover the funds, will they be able to deliver? A cautionary tale to be sure...

 RiTides wrote:
Argh...

This comment is interesting:

Sam Fentress about 7 hours ago
I don't understand how your finances add up:
1. David stole $324,700
2. He paid back $107,000
3. You got a $90,000 grant
4. You got a $135,000 grant
5. You got a $50,000 loan
This adds up to $57,300 *more* than you had before he stole the money. The grants alone have covered what he hasn't paid back.
So were you *ever* going to be able to ship, even if he hadn't stolen the money?

I know this is one of those projects that took in more than they had ever dreamed of... but building a house with the funds, sheesh!

That said, I thought the technology was extremely risky (and the price point really aggressive) which is why I didn't back it. The above comment about finances is telling, along with the graph of how they spent the funds they had - the VAST majority is in "wages"... not materials.

That assumes that they would have been able to fund the project without the grants and loan.

I didn't back, never heard of it until I saw this. I can tell you just looking at the initial page, I would have never backed even if I did hear of it. There isn't enough information, the way it was posted and how everything was explained bring up multiple red flags.

That said... The numbers don't add up entirely. There seems to be a lot of numbers and blame being shifted. Looking over the updates though they aren't even at a point of "production". Yes they show a lot of pictures of parts, half assembled stuff and boxes but no real stuff. I find it hard to believe that someone would be going through certification without an actual product. None of the updates even look like "real progress" was created.

I mean really... the videos are going to play "emotional music" while they paint this picture of what happened. I'd be more likely to guess they split it with people, bought a small amount of stuff to make it look like they were doing production and going to deliver.

The whole thing doesn't sound believable. It would have just been more believable to simply say, we mispent the money and there is none left.

Don't they have a whole bunch of videos of them producing stuff better and better over time? I watched the project but ended up not backing it.

It's only the hardware you need certified, not the product (I was involved in some radio certifications a few years back, and after certification we made an outer shell and packaging for the product. For certification, it just looked like a piece of PVC with circuits on it and a USB plug.

 Dark Severance wrote:
I didn't back, never heard of it until I saw this. I can tell you just looking at the initial page, I would have never backed even if I did hear of it. There isn't enough information, the way it was posted and how everything was explained bring up multiple red flags.

Yeah, that's what I was trying to say above (edited in while decker was quoting it!). There were just a ton of red flags with a printer that uses drops of water to raise the build level, instead of a motor!

I also think the blame is hard to fathom... why wouldn't they transfer all of the funds to the company account once it was set up? Obviously, it's terrible what happened - but it just takes a real leap of faith to absolve the creator of responsibility for such a massive oversight...

That said, in backing Kickstarters a lot of times you're also hoping that an ingenius creator can become someone who can handle logistics. I think clearly that is where things fell apart here... a neat prototype (but with a really high risk implementation to get working prints) but obviously not set up with a company, and didn't partner with one, to really get these into production.

That's what I find missing in the summary - there must have been tons of funds set aside for the creation of the printers themselves, shipping, etc... and while that could have all been waiting for the missing funds, it doesn't seem like much was spent on actually producing the printers this project was created for!

A kickstarter. Glag I rode the quick and very short golden wave of good video game kickstarters had a few busts but a 75% success rate and got the hell out before it all went downhill. I now only KS in incredibly rare moments and only for highly successful people with multiple successes under their belt. Last year I backed Into the Ninth World which was their... 5th I think KS campaign and I'm about 40% fulfilled all my rewards.

The biggest unknowns I'm waiting on now is Star Citizen (pre kickstarter backer) and Torment: Tides of Numenera both of which are shaping up excellently.

For me, these failures have always happened.

Some ambitious person takes on far more then they can handle..

Some sneaky person tricks people out of money

Etc. They are as old as business itself.

The only difference now is the ease of doing so. Its much easier to run a kickstarter then it was 20 years ago to fund raise in person or over the phone.
It is really just the times we live in, the ease of access to so many fields has just broken down, and launching a product/starting a business is just 1 example of many where in the past it would have been so hard, but now its possibly for anyone to try.

Honestly, i feel that the merit of slowly growing a business/interest in an organic way is being lost.

The only good news for me is that failure is far more public and permanent these days then it used to be. Failure is there to see for all, and will remain on the internet for a long time..

Examples such as this should be a lesson to everyone, not just potential backers, as people keep pointing out. But also potential creators, who are thinking about running a kickstarter.

Oh my... (!) :-(

I don't know how it works over at Canada but in Greece I'm pretty sure you'd be getting a few years behind bars. And unless the CEO doesn't have the agreement about withholding the funds in his personal account in writing that can be authenticated (in the video the says CEO says his partner "promised") he'd surely be keeping company to his partner.

This sucks.

 Gamgee wrote:
A kickstarter. Glag I rode the quick and very short golden wave of good video game kickstarters had a few busts but a 75% success rate and got the hell out before it all went downhill.

!! 75% - geesh. I've NEVER not had a KS (or an IndieGOGO) fulfill eventually. Now "eventually" might be a good 3 years longer than anticipated ...

Though more than half of my KS have been for minis - perhaps they just have a better success rate than most?

Schmapdi wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:
A kickstarter. Glag I rode the quick and very short golden wave of good video game kickstarters had a few busts but a 75% success rate and got the hell out before it all went downhill.

!! 75% - geesh. I've NEVER not had a KS (or an IndieGOGO) fulfill eventually. Now "eventually" might be a good 3 years longer than anticipated ...

Though more than half of my KS have been for minis - perhaps they just have a better success rate than most?

Granted it was only three projects that failed near the end. Hmm more I think about it would be about 80% success rate then. However one of my early backing stories before KS was mainstream was MechWarrior Online which.... if you were a founder they basically turned their back on you as soon as the new players came and there was an internal civil war. People were banned and the game went downhill fast. It's easily my biggest failure ever despite it being "finished".

Suddenly, this doesn't make Prodos' Kickstarter look quite as bad.
I'm sure there's a lot of angry backers out there right now.

Schmapdi wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:
A kickstarter. Glag I rode the quick and very short golden wave of good video game kickstarters had a few busts but a 75% success rate and got the hell out before it all went downhill.

!! 75% - geesh. I've NEVER not had a KS (or an IndieGOGO) fulfill eventually. Now "eventually" might be a good 3 years longer than anticipated ...

Though more than half of my KS have been for minis - perhaps they just have a better success rate than most?

Go look at the Robotech KS thread for a counter argument on that >_>

I've backed CMoN, Mantic, and a friend's Kickstarter. So far, all have been good, although my friend's is running about a year behind; he keeps regular updates though, with pictures, and I check in with him in person. Not anything too concerning, as it's a small $15 game and he stays vocal with his backers.

Out of the 200+ projects I have backed, only 2 haven't delivered. I am a little more careful about what I back these days, but I think I've developed a fairly good process for weeding through things given my track record. Although some I thought wouldn't deliver that I didn't back, did deliver (late) but so even though I was wrong... I still stand by my decision to not back them at the time.

One of failed ones was Monsters, Maidens & Mayhem, it was an art kickstarter and the artist vanished so it probably will never happen. I did at least get some prints and posters from it, but not the rest of the promised items.

The other non-delivered one is Arcane Factories. They are supposedly in production casting. But it looks like the company casting is still fresh to the market. It isn't a bad thing, but still pretty much a very, very late and wait game.

Demigods Rising is still in questionable state. Casting is being done by Prodos Games. There are at least updates and so they look like they might deliver, so jury is still out on it.

I got a refund for Middara not because I didn't think they could deliver. I was not satisfied with their initial 3d prints and test production run images. I warned them during the campaign the details on their renders were too soft. They found out they were, now having to redo some of them because of it.

I did back Robotech and AvP but I've received my stuff for both of them. Really, really late but it is received. I didn't go heavy into them but there are only a few that I really go big into, mainly because I'm only willing to risk so much money.

Now the majority of my Kickstarters have not delivered on time. In fact that is pretty much a given, tack on 20-40% more time than the date they have suggested.

First Created.

Product design.

I also avoid any technology I don't already understand, will be in the marketplace in a few years, and will only need one of. It's not rocket (or 3D printer) science to understand how to make metal, plastic, and resin miniatures, so it's not hard to understand the different problems a miniatures KS can face. But 3D printers and other product design? I'll wait until it hits Fry's or Best Buy or something.

As for accounting, I know of KS where the creator took the funds and put it into his personal account. Yes, his KS was First Created, too.
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-one-stupid-mistake-and-35000-from-kickstarter-made-an-average-guy-bankrupt-2013-1

And, more famously, there's Coolest Cooler. Another First Created (or at least first successfully funded) KS.
http://mashable.com/2016/04/16/coolest-cooler-money/#Sv9JbK6X.8qH

Oh, and here's an article about that food scanner you may have heard about on IGG:
https://pando.com/2014/07/08/tellspec-admits-it-cant-make-device-in-its-400k-indiegogo-project-months-after-denying-our-report/
https://pando.com/2015/11/02/tellspec-crowdfunder/

And another crowdfunded one: http://www.engadget.com/2015/02/09/healbe-gobe-review/

I've backed quite a few campaigns and so far I haven't been burned yet. There were a few that I backed and dropped out of, and ended up having lots of problems, so I guess I dodged a few bullets. The only one I have on my list that i'm waiting on is HINT, but they creators keep posting updates so at least I can see it's progressing.

From a creators point of view, KS campaigns can be really rough and it's really easy to have your costs spiral way out of control if you aren't careful, and I think that's more the reason that many fail in the end, poor planning and not enough funds to cover the real production costs. I think very few successful campaigns that are actually profitable in the end.

But this one, wow.. glad I missed it really sucks for all of those people though :(

What is an Expense Reimbursement? NVM. That's when person A spends money for the company or on company business and you give them a refund for money spent.

Flying Assault Butts was the greatest experience in the history of Kickstarter for me.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/grimdarkforge/miniature-wargaming-flying-assault-butts

Yeah, that's what I'm saying - that 70% (~$270K!) is awfully broad. Only $18K went to "Printer Components"... I find that kind of crazy.

How much do you need to pump into components before you have approval to produce the product?

Remember, that mid-approval process, they hit the breaks on everything.

Now, the company is a bunch of amateurs, and the one that took the money should be charged criminally (tough to get the home from him though - Saskatchewan has some very consumer friendly exemptions for that), but the complaint that not enough was spent on printers which was never a finalized product is crazy. Small tech companies work on a limited number of prototypes until they're ready to start actual production. Approval comes before production, since you WILL have to change things.

They produced enough prototypes for in-house and testing purposes, including however many copies $2,200 in shipping covers for beta testing. Considering the end parts had to be well below $100 once bulk discounts were factored in (assembly, packaging and shipping was included in the price), $18,000 is actually a fair bit of material (but most of that probably went to small run prototype production).

I don't see why people would expect engineering costs and software development costs to be anything less than a major component.

Regarding wages being $270k, aside from contractors, they probably had a full time engineer and software engineer working on it, and it's been 2.5 years since it funded (I didn't see when the project was canned). Under that assumption, they got really cheap engineers and software engineers.

Expenses being included in wages seems weird - presumably that mostly should be components.

I think people underestimate the costs of human capital.

The only Kickstarter I got in on was the Conan game, and I got in before it really blew up.

Over a year later, it looks like it won't even show up until next year.

From what I've observed, if a Kickstarter goes *way* over its goals, it's going to be trouble. So many of these Kickstarters promise way too much, especially with stretch goals. I've looked at the mess with Aliens vs Predator (a game I almost backed) as the best example. The Kickstarter ran so far over budget that they had to sell the game commercially just to generate enough cash flow to afford to ship the ones people had already bought.

Honestly, I'm not too upset about the Conan thing. It will show up when it does. If it doesn't it's so long ago I'll have forgotten the money. But I probably won't back any more games. Certainly not any untested technology like a bargain 3D Printer.

decker - That's fair in some ways, but the updates recently had been talking about how the final hurdle was just laser certifications. You would think they would have needed to order most of the parts for that to be true! The idea that they spent all the money they had, but under 5% on printer components... I just think it's a bit of a stretch to say that is reasonable when this is 2 years overdue.

They've known for 18 months about the theft. Unless all the development money was already spent, I would think a reasonable company would freeze most of their assets in order to preserve enough to order the production runs needed.

The "developoment costs / salary" line of thinking also falls apart when you look at the updates and how they really haven't shown printers that work much better than in the campaign (as far as I'm aware) or really at all, just individual component shots... it's certainly possible to spend all the money on development, but even Zano (which also delivered almost nothing) spent a large amount of money on the production runs.

What I'm saying is, they must have known they had no money for the printers needed for some time. With $18K listed as printer parts, that means something like $3-$4 per printer (maybe even less counting the IndieGoGo printers?) if they were actually getting parts in. As you point out, that indicates it isn't actually the production run, but just prototyping... so, they were spending all this money for the last 18 months knowing they didn't have enough to fulfill the backer rewards.

I just don't think it's excusable to post that a theft happened that long ago, that they continued to spend the rest of the money, and basically now have nothing to show for it. He apparently pledged to make things open source and release designs - hopefully he does this, so that even if they don't deliver a single printer (again - despite the theft, simply inexcusable to not even be able to deliver a few! Zano at least did this) the designs will be out there for others to try.

I think the more likely fact is, the printer was not functioning well and that is why it hasn't been shown... it has just been way too long to make excuses about the way the money was spent if they don't even have a fantastic prototype to show after all of those "labor" expenses!

Peachy Printer was always a gamble. There's a big difference between "I'm going to make a board game, the miniatures will be a big expense" and "I want to develop a new way to do this technology...by the way, the product involves radios and lasers."

The printer caught the imagination of a group that overall had good experiences with kickstarters (eg, among others, us) at an aggressive price point (while it sucks....if you were buying a $100 3D printer, you can probably afford to waste $100).

Unlike a lot of the 'labour of love' kickstarters we see where the creator doesn't seem to pay themselves, and is the only employee, developing new technology means you need to pay some professionals.

I guess that's just a good question - did that money go to paying contractors mostly, or was it mostly a salary for the creator... I'm not saying he can't pay himself, just that it's a lot of money on salaries when you know half your funds are gone long ago!

I also agree it was a gamble - as someone kind of obssessed with 3D printing (I built a MakerBot Thing-O-Matic, backed the Form1 on Kickstarter and used it for some time, sold it just before the Form2 hit and am currently outsourcing to a B9 Creator owner) I didn't think it had a high chance of success.

I just wish his update had been - "Here's the actual state of the prototype after all this development, I'm releasing all materials and making it open-source".

...followed by, "Here's why we're not able to deliver the printers, and we're taking steps to recover the funds and hope to be able to in the future".

I know projects can fail - it's just not having anything to show for all that development that I think is crazy. If you spent all the money on development, show the progress and release the results! Obviously with half the funds gone, delivery seems like a pipe-dream now... but that's a lot of money that's gone into this prototype and there should be something really solid to show for it.

I don't know about you guys but just hearing the soundtracks played on their posted videos make me frown. Worst yet the CEO doesn't assume at any point any type of responsibility whatsoever(?!) which makes me experience a certain level of annoyance towards the current status. The shifting blame play doesn't hold any ground to what is without a doubt a serious offence committed here.
And this comes from a person that didn't lose a bloody cent over this.

 RiTides wrote:
decker - That's fair in some ways, but the updates recently had been talking about how the final hurdle was just laser certifications. You would think they would have needed to order most of the parts for that to be true! The idea that they spent all the money they had, but under 5% on printer components... I just think it's a bit of a stretch to say that is reasonable when this is 2 years overdue.

They've known for 18 months about the theft. Unless all the development money was already spent, I would think a reasonable company would freeze most of their assets in order to preserve enough to order the production runs needed.

The "developoment costs / salary" line of thinking also falls apart when you look at the updates and how they really haven't shown printers that work much better than in the campaign (as far as I'm aware) or really at all, just individual component shots... it's certainly possible to spend all the money on development, but even Zano (which also delivered almost nothing) spent a large amount of money on the production runs.

What I'm saying is, they must have known they had no money for the printers needed for some time. With $18K listed as printer parts, that means something like $3-$4 per printer (maybe even less counting the IndieGoGo printers?) if they were actually getting parts in. As you point out, that indicates it isn't actually the production run, but just prototyping... so, they were spending all this money for the last 18 months knowing they didn't have enough to fulfill the backer rewards.

I just don't think it's excusable to post that a theft happened that long ago, that they continued to spend the rest of the money, and basically now have nothing to show for it. He apparently pledged to make things open source and release designs - hopefully he does this, so that even if they don't deliver a single printer (again - despite the theft, simply inexcusable to not even be able to deliver a few! Zano at least did this) the designs will be out there for others to try.

I think the more likely fact is, the printer was not functioning well and that is why it hasn't been shown... it has just been way too long to make excuses about the way the money was spent if they don't even have a fantastic prototype to show after all of those "labor" expenses!

Interesting....so what was the timeline with halting certification?

Certification being the last hurdle makes sense to me. As an example...I was working on an RFID reader that needed to be certified. Everything worked fine, and at certification, it was revealed that the reader had the potential to cause interference. On a test unit, it was easy enough to add a shield and fix the problem, but we had a small run of readers already, but it wasn't worth keeping them for anything but testing (not worth the labour to fix them all). Instead, we just updated our product design and ordered a new run, which ended up being approved and was the product we sold. Up until certification, we didn't carry any real stock or parts aside from testing units.

I just feel like, aside from the fraudulent stealing of funds, incompetence in dealing with the problems that arose is a more likely explanation than malice.

I definitely agree - I don't think it's malice, just that the creator is not free of the blame (for the incompetence part). If someone steals half of a company's money, you should be taking drastic measures... from the outside it looks like the rest of the funds were just continued to be drained on development (of which they've actually shown very little) counting on him paying it all back, when they should have radically adjusted their plans (instead of covering it up).

I certainly agree the unresolved questions are

1. who was paid what as salaries ?

If most of it went to contractors fair enough you have to pay what you have to pay.

If most of it went to the project creator paying himself not so much (especially after the theft although perhaps minimum wage would be acceptable)

He talks about 'laying everyone off', which implies that multiple people were working, at least part time, for the company.
Let's assume 5 people total, including himself, over two years that's not a ton of money to spend on wages by any means.

That would be reasonable - if they show advancements on the prototype, release it to open source as promised, etc... right now, they haven't shown anything but component shots, still images, and laser certification updates for a really long time. If there really was such development going on, there has to be more to show for it!