Kickstarter is doing something about all the hardware projects that end in disaster
Kickstarter made it so that anybody with a great idea and a little know-how could make products and find customers.
That's when the problems would start. It's one thing to make something for a few dozen or a few hundred people. Making something for thousands of people is incredibly hard — without help.
Now, Kickstarter is looking to attack that problem as well. The company on Thursday launched Hardware Studio, a program that is meant to help small hardware manufacturers find the resources and plan the production of their creations.
"Figuring out how to engineer a product for large-scale manufacturing can be daunting. Some creators have a great idea and a working prototype, but could use help taking the next steps," Kickstarter's Hardware Studio page reads.
Indiegogo, a similar platform to Kickstarter, started offering assistance to hardware creators in 2016.
A report from Kickstarter found that 9% of all Kickstarter projects fail to deliver on their "rewards" — what the projects promise people who pledge money. Many of the most high-profile failures tend to be manufacturing projects that were hits on Kickstarter but had trouble fulfilling its orders.
Even Kickstarter isn't going this one alone. They're teaming up with two companies: Avnet, a supplier of electronics components, and Dragon Innovation, which has helped some of the crowdsourced projects with manufacturing plans including Pebble and Makerbot.
Hardware Studio is offering a couple different services. Tinkerers and inventors who want help can use Hardware Studio to find information, planning, and tutorials through Toolkit. For projects with enough ambition, Connection is meant to help find specialists and engineers, figure out how to get enough supplies, and even get a little promotion from Kickstarter.
The project isn't live just yet, but creators can sign up to get notified when it launches. Kickstarter posted that it is planned for a debut in September.
It's a notable step for Kickstarter. The company thus far has existed almost exclusively as a platform for connecting people and creators. Now, it's taking a step toward becoming a bigger part of the overall process.
Jason Abbruzzese is a Business Reporter at Mashable. He covers the media and telecom industries with a particular focus on how the Internet is changing these markets and impacting consumers. Prior to working at Mashable, Jason served as Markets Reporter and Web Producer at the Financial Times. Jason holds a B.S. in Journalism from Boston University and an M.A. in International Affairs from Australian National University.
