Kickstarter

It's sad that this has gotten so much money while legit projects don't get funded.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/324283889/potato-salad

Not sure how he will full fill a few hundred people a bite of potato salad for $5. Dry ice and overnight shipping will exceed that.

This really irritated me at first considering how many very noble and worthwhile causes can't manage a tenth of the funding he got for potato salad. The more I think about it though, the more I suspect there are lessons to be learned here. First of course is that humor goes a long way on the internet. Second, if you want to fund something big, make lots of ways to contribute small. They have a ton of options under 50 dollars. Another lesson is probably to be careful about what you offer (ala bite of potato salad) and make sure it isn't going to cost you more than you gain. I suspect that those bites can only be had for people willing to travel to the location of the potato salad party.

Yeah this annoys me. Plain and simple. I think it would have been funny and fun if it would have gotten like 500 bucks or something but 45,000 dollars? Think of all the amazing, life-changing things that that amount of money could do. I guess it is just money.. And some people just have it to throw around but seriously I wish people would put their money into doing good for the world... And I would like to think that most of the world changing we can do without money but it definitely helps.. Hah

...but 45,000 dollars?

Less than an hour later, he is now over $55,000. Original goal was $10. (Still 24 days to go !)

He is just one of a multitude that are enjoying that type of success.
As P.T. Barnum is famous for saying, "There's a sucker born every minute."

To me, it is nonsense like this that will kill the goose that laid the golden egg.

I wonder what he is actually going to do with the money.. I mean it is obviously a joke so I wonder what will actually happen to the money..

Just shy of 5000 backers, a little over 71 grand, 23 days to go... Feed My Starving Children can provide a meal for 22 cents, so the money wasted on this Kickstarter at this point could provide over 327,000 meals to those in need.

That makes me so upset. I wonder if we are the only ones upset about this?! I wonder if he is getting any negative feedback at all?

And, he clearly stated that he has never made a potato salad before.
It's not as if he is promoting "The World's Greatest Potato Salad".

It has been hitting news stories on TV...has gone viral.

It makes me not want to click on a kickstarter link.
It probably has the same effect on millions more web surfers.
The net result is that serious kickstarters will suffer because of this (and other) games people are playing.

UGH! Blast you potato salad man! I wish we could do something to stop him..

What I would like to know is how this got past the screening process. Beyond clearly feeling like a 'fund my life' project, it was also clearly a joke. I've heard of decent projects getting turned down because of minor things they felt needed changed.... but potato salad? Sure let that right on by. Ugh.

Is a creator legally obligated to fulfill the promises of their project?

Yes. Kickstarter's Terms of Use require creators to fulfill all rewards of their project or refund any backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill. (This is what creators see before they launch.) This information can serve as a basis for legal recourse if a creator doesn't fulfill their promises. We hope that backers will consider using this provision only in cases where they feel that a creator has not made a good faith effort to complete the project and fulfill.

Well this is awkward... This quote is taken from the kickstarter website... There is no way that guy is giving 5000 people a bite of potato salad..

I was doing a posting today about Kickstarter for my blog anyway and couldn't help but mention this silliness at the end. When I went to pull the link just now however, I noticed something. The pledge totals showing are going down on my screen. When I checked it last, it listed over 45k,.... Rich mentioned 71k.... and now it shows at 43k. I wonder what is going on suddenly. Maybe there was a lot of false backing? That, or my screen is acting up.

Yeah it was up to 71 thousand earlier.. And now it is back down to 43 thousand! I wonder what is up with that!!

While the Kickstarter is still within the funding stage, you can change your support level or delete it altogether. Perhaps some people decided that this wasn't the highest use of their money.

Yeah but like 30,000 people in less than a day?! Super interesting! I wonder what happened. I hope they put their money to more valuable kickstarters!

Hmmm, that's interesting. He has 400+ more backers, but $27,000 less now? I did read a few articles where the guy would really like to donate the excess money to charity, but Kickstarter rules don't allow that. He never intended this as anything more than a joke with some friends and family, but it went viral. I feel better about him at least, but his backers are another matter. If this had been on GoFundMe, I'd have no issues with it, since that's what that site is for. It has no place on Kickstarter, and has me seriously considering not backing any more Kickstarters.

Cassie Langstraat wrote:

Is a creator legally obligated to fulfill the promises of their project?

Yes. Kickstarter's Terms of Use require creators to fulfill all rewards of their project or refund any backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill. (This is what creators see before they launch.) This information can serve as a basis for legal recourse if a creator doesn't fulfill their promises. We hope that backers will consider using this provision only in cases where they feel that a creator has not made a good faith effort to complete the project and fulfill.

Well this is awkward... This quote is taken from the kickstarter website... There is no way that guy is giving 5000 people a bite of potato salad..

I don't think Kickstarter will get in the middle if refunds aren't made. Refunds are a burden of the creator, not Kickstarter. Legal recourse is a burden of the Donor, not kickstarter. And for $5 this won't happen. Only option is to challenge credit card. And there again, is $5 allowable for a claim, will the cc just refund the $5 cause the labor to pursue it will exceed $5.

I would suspect this goes away soon. I would "hope" it goes away soon.

Yeah I know but it still pisses me off. Like, he is just breaking the rules on so many levels..

I get it cassie. The flip side is Kickstarter seems to be OK with the rule breaks and are getting like a billion dollars of free advertising. Good morning America apparently ran a piece on it. Not to mention it went viral on every forum.

Nobody at KS can claim ignorance. They are probably high fiving over the increased traffic.