KickstarterForum.org

The Instacube is a device for capturing feeds of Instagram photos and projecting the images in a digital picture frame that can sit on a desk, table or countertop. It’s also a cautionary tale for individuals and entrepreneurs who use crowdfunding to help get new products and businesses off the ground.

Increasingly popular, crowdfunding platforms such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo offer individuals a chance to fund projects from niche gadgets to the Veronica Mars movie being released this weekend. In 2013, Kickstarter attracted $480 million from 3 million people to fund nearly 20,000 projects.

Unlike venture capitalists or angel investors, backers of crowdfunded projects don’t receive equity in the company. Instead, they typically get one of the items they helped fund.

But what happens when the item is never produced?

In a Sunday session at the South By Southwest tech conference titled, “I Ran an Extremely Successful Crowdfunding Scam,” social-media marketer Savannah Peterson told how she was hounded and vilified by investors after she led one of Kickstarter’s most successful crowdfunding campaigns, which raised $621,000 within four months. Then the company failed to launch the Instacube as promised.

Read the full article: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/03/11/ ... owdfunder/

What do you think?