We have a stretch goal in sight – If we reach 136% then we will add a voice activated shutter to the HiLO Lens app. We will need to raise $1000 a day hit the stretch goal.

Please join us if you haven’t already. If you already have then please convince a friend to do the same!

I’ve been watching Kickstarter for nearly two years. The site has evolved a lot during that time. I loved the spirit of product development on Kickstarter when I first found it. Everyone was literally working out of their garage and developing innovative products.

Now

More recently there have been a number of very successful launches on Kickstarter. Behind many of these projects there are investor backed companies. The professionalism of the videos and the marketing investment made by these companies is beyond the means of the garage band. For these projects Kickstarter is a marketing platform. Kickstarter obviously makes a lot of money from those projects and it introduces more people to the crowdfunding model, so it may not be a bad thing.

Here

Our project is an “original” kickstart. What I mean by that is – if we are not funded on Kickstarter then we cannot make the product. This is not a marketing exercise, it is life or death for HiLO Lens

Next

So we’ll make a committment to our backers. After our campaign succeeds we will not be taking pre-orders. Only backers of our Kickstarter campaign will receive product in February. We will not offer product for retail sale until after we have shipped to our backers.

Below are some “beauty shots” of HiLO Lens, yes that is a concrete brick in front of our sofa These photos were part of the recent press release we sent out. FYI there have been two press releases: one two

A few weeks ago I was in Union Square, NYC with a friend. We came across an amazing street performer playing the Hang instrument - a beautiful and unique sound. Javier from www.murugalas.com let us film his performance for Kickstarter – check it out below.

Please excuse my poor video skills – I need to practice more… The good news is that you can be confident of getting much better results yourself

It is easier to get attention for a new Kickstarter campaign. We are now 5 days into ours and have reached 33% - a great result and all the credit goes to you! Now we really need you to help keep the momentum going - please tip your favorite websites/journalists and convince your friends, family and random strangers to join us!!! 

A huge call out to the people pledging on Kickstarter and making HiLO Lens a reality. We literally could not do this without you!!

Please visit our HilO Lens Kickstarter page

Thanks to you all for following our story to launch day

Today I was hoping to complete the Kickstarter project submission. It has been quite some time since I logged into the Kickstarter account. Some new steps have been added.

In particular there are some more requirements for Product Design projects. Here are the main requirements that have been added since I last looked :

• “Product simulations are prohibited. Projects cannot simulate events to demonstrate what a product might do in the future. Products can only be shown performing actions that they’re able to perform in their current state of development.”
• “Photorealistic product renderings are prohibited. Renderings that could be mistaken for finished products are prohibited. Sketches, technical drawings, CAD designs, and other parts of the design process are permitted.”
• “Projects must have at least a functional prototype before launching on Kickstarter.”

With the latest project submission system for Kickstarter it is possible to complete all steps of the process before submitting for final review. The Amazon Payments Business Account was accepted and is now linked to our Kickstarter account.

Kickstarter have added one more small hurdle since the last time I looked. They require a US number for contacting the project. So Skype was to the rescue, providing an Online Number.

The conclusion is that you need to have a US permanent resident or US citizen involved in the process. By creating a company we avoided the primary contact in the US needing to accept funds into a personal account.

It has taken about four months to jump through the Company creation -> US Bank account -> Amazon account -> Skype number -> Kickstarter hoops. It is a simple process for a US citizen or US permanent resident to create a Kickstarter account on their own. But for an international team the company provides a much clearer situation.

So I was confused when Amazon stated a debit card could be used but only provided a list of credit cards companies for selecting the type of card. In fact our debit card is issued by VISA. This resolved one large problem – we do not need a credit card to open an Amazon Payments account. A debit card is just fine.

Even for an Amazon Payments Business Account there is a requirement to verify the Primary Contact person for the account. That person needs to be a US permanent resident or US citizen because Amazon verifies them using a Social Security Number (SSN).

Fortunately the lawyer who helped establish our company in the US was willing to be the primary contact for our Amazon Payments account. The primary contact is not liable for the account but it does mean you need someone with a SSN to help when opening an Amazon Payments Business Account.

We are just waiting for the verification of the Company’s bank account by Amazon. Then the account should be good to go. Funnily enough, Amazon (THE internet company) requires faxing a statement to verify the bank account. Of course there is no confirmation that they receive the fax – and it took two weeks before they told us the first fax disappeared.

However I just went back to check the Kickstarter site and found the new system for project proposals. Perhaps Kickstarter were listening to criticism of arbitrary decisions in the project proposal process. If that is the case then hats off to them for actually doing something about it.

Previously you had a very limited amount of space (750 characters) to pitch the project to Kickstarter before they would allow you to work on the Kickstarter project page. That has been turned on it’s head and you can now prepare the Kickstarter project page before they review the project. But you can’t launch the project on Kickstarter until it is approved. This makes more sense as they will have more information about the project.

Regarding Kickstarter’s review of the project here is what they state : We review every project by hand before it launches to make sure that it meets the guidelines; projects that violate the following will not be allowed to launch.

This is very interesting, does it mean that they will not screen out projects based on other criteria ?

Now for the second part of my saga : Amazon.

Having created an Amazon Payments account I linked it to a business bank account and even made a small transfer of funds from the bank account to the Amazon Payments account. It seemed OK.

To be able to complete the new Kickstarter project proposal we need to “Register to Receive Funds” using Amazon Payments. Kickstarter provides a link to Amazon to create an “Amazon Payments Business account”.

But, shock, horror, upon clicking the link I was greeted with “Unfortunately, we have been unable to confirm your account information.” Hmmm. I read on. “This may be because you failed to respond to our past requests for more information or we could not verify the additional information you gave us”. I suspect this relates to some tax information that Amazon validates after validating the bank account, but I received no requests or updates from Amazon. The message gets better “As a result, we have restricted some of the features of your Amazon Payments account. Click here to find out more about these restrictions.” I clicked here almost as quickly as you did.

The conclusion :  I can withdraw money but can’t receive money or send money. There is no indication about what to do to solve the problem. I’ve sent the obvious question to Amazon but I’m not sure if real people are employed by Amazon or if it is Jeff sitting in a server room.

I’m now holding my breath for a reply from Amazon.

Thanks for writing in and sharing your idea. With Kickstarter, it’s important to be able to communicate past experience, visual examples of your work, and a comprehensive plan to complete your project within a reasonably certain time-frame — projects at the very beginning stages are less successful because they are not able to do this.

Something like this sounds exciting, but is not in an ideal position to benefit from our platform.

I’ll break this down into possible causes for rejection :

• insufficient past experience
• visual examples of the work
• comprehensive plan
• early stage

Regarding insufficient past experience our team has a great depth of experience, including project management, optical design, app development and mechanical design. Maybe my presentation was not clear but I would expect a question in this regard, rather than a flat out rejection.

I didn’t provide visual examples of the work, the main reason for this is because there is no way to upload attachments with the project proposal. I assumed the proposal would be a first interaction with Kickstarter and we could then provide more details.

A comprehensive plan is in place. But they asked for a brief outline ! Why not ask for more information rather than flat out rejecting the proposal ?

In regards to a Kickstarter campaign we are not at an early stage. The project has been developed for around 8 months and significant investments have been made e.g. optics design and prototyping, case design and prototyping, app development.

The Kickstarter project submission requires the following :

• Description of the project (max 750 characters)
• Description of the rewards (max 1000 characters)
• Link to web content about the project. Kickstarter asks for information on you, your work, and/or this project. I linked to some articles in this blog.

The submission form does not mention visual examples of the work or a comprehensive plan. It makes sense that they will want to see this at a later stage, however the proposal asks to keep things short.

On one hand I am happy to get a response that looks less like the previous template answers. But I would love feedback on how to get the project into a state that is acceptable. It is frustrating, to say the least, but I’ve not given up yet.

I’ve addressed the concerns raised in a reply to Kickstarter. Now for the inevitable waiting.

In the meantime we’ve finished designing the case for the prototype optics module. That will be 3D printed and tested shortly. Things are progressing independently of Kickstarter.