Billion $ net worth company creating kickstarter...
Philips has a net worth in the billions, $20.67 billion as of July 12, 2023. (Source link) Yet they decided to create a kickstarter, charging "early bird" buyers these earphones that's designed for wearing while sleeping, basically the same as any other earphones, just slimmed down and cables running around your head.
What's infuriating is that there's dumbasses who actually gave them money to make a product ($500k million in total), so Philips is most likely not taking any risk making this, but will enjoy the profits.
The kickstarter - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kokoon/sleep-headphones/posts
I thought the whole point of a kickstarter was people with a product, but lacking the funds to get the project actually going getting a kick start to get going.... Not for billion dollar companies to beg for cash.
14 people donated without paying enough to get the reward… that’s… wow
Yeah, that I do not get. It’s basically donating money to a corporation just to receive marketing updates about a product? I don’t get it…
It's pretty common in Kickstarter circles to pledge a dollar to gain access to the pledge manager and decide if you actually want to make a purchase there.
I assume that's what those people are doing?
can you elaborate what the pledge manager is, and what the benefit of doing this would be? thank you!
After a Kickstarter ends you get access to the pledge manager where you can change your pledge if you want. So if you donate one dollar, you could then change it to a greater amount in the pledge manager after the end date.
oh ok, thank you. but that still does not help you for limited quantity rewards, which i guess is why those are so common?
Where are you getting $500 million? This drive is only up to about $650k usd.
Never let facts get in the way of a good story - Isaac Newton
Oops, corrected, thanks. Was thinking half a million, ended up typing 500 and then a million.
Kickstarter is basically used like pre-orders for stuff like this.
lol "AI sleep headphones"
What a load of rubbish
Sounds like a money laundering scheme.
As a Dutch person, Phillips used to be something to be proud of. Lately it's mostly a source of shame.
MBAs totally ruined that company.
From what I've heard anecdotally kickstarter is borderline more of a marketing / market research tool these days, not really the investment backer that it was originally portrayed as.
You don't become a billionaire in the first place without using a few tricks here and there. Why change?
They claim to reach being fully backed within 23 minutes. Yeah, no shit if you set the goal as low as £10000.
They also artificially keep the super early bird remaining stock low to pressure backers into a snap decision. When I checked there were 7 out of 2310 left. That number will probably increase once it actually runs out.
now its 7 out of 2815
2820 now
I've seen this bullshit with them running crowdfunding campaigns linked off Facebook too. They claim it "allows them to more directly interface with interested customers" but it really just feels like a big corp that's abusing a tool not intended for them
Watching that video made me sleepy. The thing on the back of your head is comfortable? I doubt it.
Also Philips doesn't really exist anymore https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WE58YisgFeQ
FYI: You posted a youtube video with a pp parameter. It is not really clear what it does but as it is a unique identifier next to the actual watch id (watch=xxx), people assuming it is for tracking in some way. You might be leaking your identity or at least making it for google/YT possible to see where and who you are sharing things with. You can just cut of the &pp=xxx part to be save.
I don't think that is the point of Kickstarter anymore, people are much more wary of Kickstarters nowadays after a string of high profile failures (Arist coffee maker, Skarp shaver) and under-delivery (Star Citizen.jpeg, Coolest Cooler), so they would much rather treat Kickstarter as a pre-order system from a known brand like Phillips to minimalize risk.
Personally, the only Kickstarter I would invest in is card/board games, since these seems to be the lowest risk; Games are sometimes OK, depending on the scale, but hardware are usually way too risky because people tend vastly underestimate the amount of initial cost it takes to take an idea to a hardware prototype, nevermind from prototype to production.
Also, note to self: promote next movie on Kickstarter after strike.
Apparently, the actual company behind the headphones is a British firm called Kokoon Technology Limited.
I can't find anything that explains their relationship with Philips.
The company Philips is a very different beast from what it was. Almost all Philips products you know are produced by other companies who pay a licensing fee to Philips to slap the name on it. Philips itself is a shell of its former self and is focused on medical equipment. It's tragic actually, especially since ASML is a direct offspring of Philips. It should be a trillion dollar company but bad management and strategic shortsightedness have ruined it.
Yeah, that's what it used to be. Unfortunately, there has been a concerning trend in large companies using crowdfunding platforms as a way to measure market interest in a product before putting in the effort time and money needed for the old R&D process. It pays to check on the company or business for a Kickstarter before backing. Unfortunately it seems alot of folks use Kickstarter as a sort of shopping cart for new stuff, rather then a way to fund the future additions and innovation to an industry they care about. I fell for that a bit at first, but I've learned to ignore the FOMO.
But you can already buy a sleep mask with flat profile Bluetooth speakers in it for 20 bux off amazon. If you buy a new model (because stress sweat is gross) they charge via USB C
Smells of money laundering
It doesn't even seem like a breakthrough product.
Bose made this but wireless 4+ years ago.
I have had a pair of super comfortable $15 earphones that I use for sleep for 6 years. They're made of silicon and you can lay right on them and you wouldn't notice at all.
Sounds nice, can you tell me what they are exactly?
That's a darn good question I don't have an answer for. They don't have a name on them, and I don't remember. If you look for silicone sleep ear buds you could probably find some.
It's not begging for cash, it's seeing if there's a market before they sink a bunch of R&D dollars into it.
Philips can afford to take a chance on a product and risk losing money much better than regular people suffering from the combination of runaway inflation mostly caused by corporate greed and stagnant wages can.
Phillips CAN, but in a large organization like that there are a lot of politics going on.
Let's say, for the sake of argument, that this is someone's pet project, but they can't get funding for it because the higher ups don't see there's any interest in it...
"Well I'll prove there's interest!" (funded in 1 hour).
But why should they take a chance? You're saying that like it's surprising but I don't think it's unethical
If anyone should take a chance, it's the ones with vast resources that are increased by billions every quarter, not the people alreeady struggling to get by.
When you launch a product, there's always a risk that it won't be successful and offloading that risk on people who can't afford it anywhere near as easily as you can while keeping all the profits if it succeeds is as unethical as consumer banks gambling with people's life savings and then being bailed out at the expense of the same people they bankrupted.
They are protected from losses by their existing profitable market share ( in the billions) so it is unethical to use a tool created to help negate risk for those without the safety of an existing profitable market. There is an immense privilege in being the current dominant party in a market, and we live in a world that has put laws in place to protect companies who become the dominant party in a market instead of laws that equalize the market.
If we were all playing this game as kids, what phillips is doing would be seen as totally unfair, so why is it okay now that we are adults?
There is still risk even if you're profitable now? If you don't use mechanism to protect against risk you won't be profitable for long. Nobody is harmed who didn't consent to it by buying a Kickstarter project.
Yup, just imagine a world where companies launch a Kickstarter for a show that is on the chopping block to give fans a chance to pre-pay for an additional season (with blu-rays or something as rewards).
Same deal with some tech. Big company, lots of potential products, but many are axed if they don't think they can market them.