Mildly Infuriating @lemmy.world Savas @lemmy.world 2y ago

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.

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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!
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
- &pp=ygUMU*********
  
  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 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…

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.
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.

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.
Smells of money laundering
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
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?
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.
  
  Of course they can, but why should they? There's nothing to lose for them (or anyone really) if they crowdfund it instead. It's essentially a preorder and market research.
  
  Like, you wouldn't catch me dead paying into it but there's nothing wrong with this strategy, until they steal the money and run, which they won't because companies care about PR more than KS scammers do.
  
  But why should they take a chance? You're saying that like it's surprising but I don't think it's unethical
  
  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).
- 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.

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