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Rated X wrote:

Burn wrote:There's nothing new about this at all. People have been investing money into start up companies for decades, hell, they've probably been doing it longer.

This is just a DIFFERENT way of doing it.

Sure it would be great to already have the money to start up a business, but why should those who have a great idea but no money not be denied the opportunity to get a bit of a hand up?

What world would we be living in if all ideas relied solely on the already rich?

Seriously ... I'm going to be "outspoken", but only the already rich should be allowed to invest? That's **** stupid.

It doesn't have anything to do with being rich or poor. If you flip your own dividends, whether its dollars or millions of dollars, you're an entrepreneur. When you persuade other people to flip their own dividends for your profit, you're a pimp. It's that simple. There's nothing wrong with pimping if you call it what it is. But when you disguise it as entrepreneurship, you're kidding yourself. We don't know if PWTT are rich or poor. All we know is they didn't want to go the traditional route which has brought so many 3rd parties success on their debut products. So one is only left to speculate why they chose Kickstarter. I speculate that they have the money but not 100% confidence they would score a home run. For that they should have just gone back to the drawing board. After all, they do draw a lot.

I'm actually going to have to agree with Rated X on this one.

Think I'll take it a step further by saying. If PWTT expects fans to pay for their toys. Then fans should of had more say as far as what toys they wanted to get made. Think posting a few rounds of polls with multiple toy options like MP, Combiner, Multiple changer, Pretender, City bot, CHUG, Weapon bot and so on. similar to what Hasbro does for the Fan favorite selected figure. Should of been the route taken here.

Just think the way PWTT went about this whole project seems rather selfish. Not only do they expect fans to pay for everything but fans have no say so on what gets made. Having PWTT's crew members dream toys made is fine, If PWTT's crew pay for it all.

Rated X wrote:

Agamemnon wrote:So, you're saying unless I have money, I should not be an entrepreneur? Most have to "beg money" from someone to invest. Traditionally that's banks. Sometimes that's rich "friends." How is this any different? Yes, it's a clever new way to find investors, but it's very innovative. And no one is forcing us to invest. It's all voluntary.

Just because it's new and unfamiliar doesn't really warrant such name calling, does it?

Taking a loan out from a bank is not begging because you are paying them interest. That's a business transaction. Also while pledging may be voluntary, everything PWTT has done to sell you on that pledge is a form of persuasion. Even if it all succeeds, it's still large scale internet pimping at it's finest.

You obviously haven't tried to secure a business loan. In order to secure that loan from the bank for a business proposition, they have to be sold on the idea, or some very heavy collateral needs to be provided. What you are deriding PWTToo for doing is exactly what they would have to do for a bank, only they would need to provide all kinds of business plan documents and show that the investment is worthwhile. Here, PFTT just has to show us cool products. (And technically dude, pimping is selling prostitution. So, that is definitely not what is going on here.)

And Tsut, just because you don't like the product doesn't mean others don't, as evidenced by this thread. If you don't like the product, don't support it. Really, if you don't have anything more to add here, why are you here?

Agamemnon wrote:

Rated X wrote: Taking a loan out from a bank is not begging because you are paying them interest. That's a business transaction. Also while pledging may be voluntary, everything PWTT has done to sell you on that pledge is a form of persuasion. Even if it all succeeds, it's still large scale internet pimping at it's finest.

Agamemnon wrote:You obviously haven't tried to secure a business loan. In order to secure that loan from the bank for a business proposition, they have to be sold on the idea, or some very heavy collateral needs to be provided. What you are deriding PWTToo for doing is exactly what they would have to do for a bank, only they would need to provide all kinds of business plan documents and show that the investment is worthwhile. Here, PFTT just has to show us cool products.

Think your missing out on the obvious. Some of these Former Hasbro employees now with PWTT were making Six figure yearly salaries with Hasbro. It's a safe bet to also assume some owned homes and had stocks options in the company. These guys didn't need to go to a bank and ask for money. All they had to do was borrow some equity from their home mortgage. or cash in some of their Hasbro stocks to fund this PWTT project. X, is correct, None of these former Hasbro Employees now with PWTT had the faith in their PWTT toys to help fund this project.

Think it's a shame these PWTT guys are asking fans to fund this project. When they clearly have the funds or options to do so themselves.

Kickstarters are for guys with no saved up cash, no owned homes, bad credit, no jobs. Not for formers Hasbro employees that had high paying Six Figures yearly salaries, with stocks options, homes and savings saved.

Tsutsukakushi wrote:Think your missing out on the obvious. Some of these Former Hasbro employees now with PWTT were making Six figure yearly salaries with Hasbro. It's a safe bet to also assume some owned homes and had stocks options in the company. These guys didn't need to go to a bank and ask for money. All they had to do was borrow some equity from their home mortgage. or cash in some of their Hasbro stocks to fund this PWTT project. X, is correct, None of these former Hasbro Employees now with PWTT had the faith in their PWTT toys to help fund this project.

Think it's a shame these PWTT guys are asking fans to fund this project. When they clearly have the funds or options to do so themselves.

You're just assuming things, unless you actually have access to their individual accounting records. If you're going to sprout off such things then by all means, feel free to back them up with facts.

Until you do, your statement is nothing.

What you're all ignoring, this isn't begging, they're selling pre-orders for their products.

Kickstarter came about due to paypal policy changes, originally loads of starting businesses used paypal to sell pre-orders for their self-published books (webcomics, etc), tech, designer toys, etc
But then PP had a policy change and required small time sellers to ship items within 30 days, practically leaving all the small internet start ups out to die, kickstarter changed that. Here these small guys can sell pre-orders to fund production of their products under the guise of "donations".
Take a look, every donation step gives you an item in exchange for your donation, save for the 1 dollar one.

And the old way, as you like to call it, requires you to pay even more money from your profits to your investors, and isn't that an even bigger ripoff?

If you want to make a movie, first you have to convince someone to pony up a couple million dollars. Kickstarter is the same basic concept, just on a different scale; rather than a couple studio executives giving a few million, it's thousands of fans giving up like $20 at a time. The difference is, with the former, you have to give that money back by selling your product, with the latter, you just have to deliver the promised product.

A slight necro to alert anyone who might care that Kickspy is shutting down. That's too bad. I like watching the analytics and projections as a project progresses. I have a weird thing for statistics.

Well, at least there is still Kicktraq...