Certainly can't argue with such pragmatic reasoning.
Interestingly, I pledged precisely because he laid out the apparently unvarnished facts. In my line of work it's almost impossible to find anyone willing to tell the honest truth about anything. [snip]
Ken
Ken -
We certainly appreciate your direct and indirect support of the project and your willingness to understand.
We chuckle about your comment. The response to that update was affirmative in the community and reassuring. By now, a lot of factors are responsible for the improvements in our curve -- not to mention recent support coming in from well-known photographers.
The New55 FILM Kickstarter page is about the ugliest thing I have ever seen and certainly the ugliest thing on that website. That's deliberate. Because the New55 FILM funding requirement is so high by Kickstarter standards, we felt it was important to be direct and honest about a) the difficulty of the project in both technical and business terms, and b) the likelihood of facing cascading delays and bumps in the road due in part to the unevenness of supply-lines in the analog film markets.
The idea of being honest and open -- and I know this is still unusual for a business -- comes from Doc Searle's "The Cluetrain Manifesto" (speak to people, not 'markets') and also from Eric Raymond's "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" (the person who finds the problem is not likely the person who solves it). The thing that attracted me to Bob Crowley and his 4x5 instant film project in the first place was his shrewd decision to open-source the reagent and DTR experiments from the very beginning back in 2010. This is unusual in itself but quite unorthodox given the context of Polaroid's proprietary culture. Openness was absolutely the right way to go, and it defines our comportment going forward.
It was important not to come at people from Kickstarter with the trappings of a product marketing presentation. Firstly, there is no
product yet; and secondly, this is not a pre-sale where everything is already lined up, inventory on the shelf, awaiting shipment invoicing. Whether or not that's ethically questionable, it's something Kickstarter has been trying to minimize.
We're open to criticism and have benefitted a lot from it. Sometimes we deflect ideas -- even good ones -- but when possible, we implement them. We've heard that the way it's done on Kickstarter is to set a low blow-out price there and let the traffic rush in in anticipation of a higher price in the market after. I will say that if that approach was encouraged at Kickstarter, and if it was fair to the community, then we would have tried it. But I asked Sir Isaac and even Pythagoras, too, and their number thing, the math, doesn't work. Not just the math but, for us, there's a permissible level of risk at Kickstarter; and pre-selling in our case would create an unknowable fulfillment burden when we have not got the machinery yet. We're not going there and we believe that the community of photographers is sophisticated enough to recognize the boundary of the requirement and take our $400,000 target at face value. ($400,000 is very little money in the context of making something.)
Here it is again, from the Kickstarter page ...
USE OF PROCEEDS
We will use the proceeds of this Kickstarter project to fund the final component specification work, the acquisition of assembly machinery, pay for hired engineering, general and assembly help, cover material costs and the purchase of the parts inventory for the "First Edition" manufacturing run of New55 FILM instant peel-apart 4x5 film.
We estimate that the machinery sourcing, development and qualifications alone could account for about $250,000, and the parts inventory connected with the 25,000 assembled sheets of New55 FILM (that's 5,000 boxes) will cost a minimum of $75,000. The remaining $75,000 is needed for overhead and general expenses.
Accordingly, to infer a per-sheet price from the Kickstarter rewards is natural, but it is misleading. Being successful at Kickstarter is the only objective now. As someone said, "...getting the elephant to stand up." If there is the opportunity later -- and that 'IF' represents its own elephant -- the market will set the price. Quite as it should.
At Kickstarter, through May 5th, there's an opportunity to VOTE. That's invigorating. Positive. We've been absolutely clear about the issues. If the vote doesn't turn in our favor then we'll all be back to PICKETING.
We've set the terms. Now, it's yay or nay. Real simple.
Thanks for hanging in there with us. This material is worth every effort of ours, and even more importantly, of the community's.
-Sam
