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http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/12/09/crowd-supply-is-succeeding-where-kickstarter-and-indiegogo-are-failing-miserably/

I came upon this article and thought it might be interesting to you guys, given the spotty track record crowdfunding minis projects have. Their model is alot more backer friendly than KS, and I like the oversight they bring to projects. Most projects though seem to be tech-related for now, with only a handful of games. I'd be interested to see if this or similar, 'stricter' crowdfunding sites catch on in the future.

seems to need an account to view the story

On a related note, did you guys see the report Kickstarter is currently showing on its success rates (which the above article references):

https://www.kickstarter.com/fulfillment?ref=hero

Kickstarter concludes from the study that only 9% of projects fail, but how they define it matters a lot, obviously. That's certainly a lower rate than I think many would expect, but as a study that involved the company themselves in data gathering it is a little bit hard to get fully behind the findings (especially Kickstarter's presentation of them on that page).

The full report is here, or if that link doesn't work click on "Open PDF in Browser" on this page:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2699251

And an interesting snippet:

We might also be concerned that a number of the projects that are currently waiting for
delivery will ultimately fail. If we look at older projects from 2012 or earlier, it may provide a
better sense of long-term success rates. For projects from 2012 or earlier, the failure rate is
13.9% for the broadest definition, 12.3% by the middle definition, and 8.6% by the strictest
definition. While these historical failure rates are higher, it is also likely that overall failure
rates have decreased since 2012, as creators have climbed the learning curve of how to create
successful projects, and backers have become more educated on which projects to support.
Combining all of these results, the overall failure rate for Kickstarter projects at the project
level is around 9%, and likely in a range between 5% and 14%.

I have a little bit of a hard time believing the author could even consider that the failure rate could be as low as 5%, given a pre-2012 likely definition of 12.3 - 13.9% failure rate... but again how they define failure (and what they do with those still "waiting", which aren't currently being considered failures) makes a huge difference.

Anyway, all really interesting and I am a huge fan of crowdfunding, but in my opinion the more visibility the better, along with a bit more accountability, particularly from the platform themselves! I think on thing Kickstarter should consider is refunding / donating their fee on failed projects... that would also provide incentive for them to do better vetting of projects. The largest EU Kickstarter ever recently failed (Zano, which I only backed for a dollar to track its progress, thankfully!) and Kickstarter has done very little regarding it, and made a large amount of money while the vast majority of backers did not receive anything.

So, it's definitely something that needs looking at further, and I don't think the conclusion should simply be "10% is a reasonable rate", but "How can the platform improve to provide better visibility into projects while they are live, and what can Kickstarter themselves do to soften the blow of project failures". I think if people knew Kickstarter was donating their fee (even if it was not refunded to them) for a project that failed, it would go a long way towards reducing the anger at the platform for making money while backers are losing money. Right now, there is every incentive for really ambitious projects to fund, but almost no accountability to be sure they follow through.

I have a little bit of a hard time believing the author could even consider that the failure rate could be as low as 5%, given a pre-2012 likely definition of 12.3 - 13.9% failure rate... but again how they define failure (and what they do with those still "waiting", which aren't currently being considered failures) makes a huge difference.

They even assume people learn from their failures and make better decisions next time while complete disregarding that most of the new projects (as kickstarter grows) are probably made by new accounts (I don't see someone making a campaign and then after that two or three more at the same time to fill whatever growth kickstarter had as a platform) who have no clue and could even be too optimistic if they calibrate by past successes (of other people's projects) on kickstarter.

My guess would be that the failure rate will increases (until it finds its equilibrium) as more and more people try it who have no clue how to actually deliver a project but hope for easy money and work once they have the funds (like money will solve all their problems). There are already too many projects that are looking for next to nothing and have no clue about budgeting (while being very enthusiastic when they manage to get multiples of their initial number while still being way too low for whatever they promised). On top of that the expectations (and accordingly rewards) will only get more demanding as projects get more and more professional.