It doesn't look like they were going to make their funding goal. I know that a lot of money comes in on the final 2-3 days, but unless they had a pile of friends and family ready to throw in, the projections don't look good.<p>They also say that they decided to cancel just 10 days into the campaign, but it looks like they actually cancelled on Nov 14th (day 24) with just 7 days remaining (and at less than 50% funded).<p>None of that invalidates what they've written and what they gained from running a Kickstarter, but it seems like they're spinning it that they killed what was going to be a successful campaign.<p><a href="http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/marshallhaas/201552485/#chart-exp-projection" rel="nofollow">http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/marshallhaas/201552485/#cha...</a>
For anyone that needs a DIY preorder site, there's the lockitron selfstarter project<p><a href="https://github.com/lockitron/selfstarter" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/lockitron/selfstarter</a>
Kickstarter takes a lot of money for basically delivering hype. I think KS really should have rules/terms that prevent you from canceling after certain things happen.<p>Press like covering KickStarter. It is a validation that the product is "obtainable" as opposed to a pie in the sky press release from a company that something might come out someday. KS takes a big cut for what they deliver, but they do deliver it, so they should protect that model more fiercely than they do.<p>That said... If I were shipping a physical thing I would just use Amazon and do Pre-orders instead. Doing a KickStarter can preclude you from many retail stores, and Home Shopping. If your product is awesome you'd likely be better to be in those places instead. If your product kind of sucks, making a splash on KS can get you easy money early. I can think of several products that this has happened with (a talking bear, a video game console...)<p>But what it all boils down to is you have to decide if hype is what you need, or distribution. If you have a solid product you don't need hype.
I use notebooks, notepads, blanks sheets of paper, Japanese A5 and A5 notepads, and Pilot Frixion erasable pens.<p>I do mostly writing, and also diagramming (I'm a software developer) with the odd doodle and 3-d house.<p>I'm very picky about pens, very picky about paper.<p>I also definitely want to keep my notebooks.<p>I do not want all this stuff digitized. At all.<p>What I do digitize, I convert carefully, taking care to craft it as well for pixels as I did for paper.
What about confidentiality and privacy?<p>Love it, but some of my notes are highly confidential. Obviously, I could use a separate notebook, but is there any thought towards privacy or assurance from these guys that no one is reading these notebooks when they're digitized? The video makes it look like a fairly manual process. Ordered one anyway to try it out.
<i>>"We’d kill the subscription model..."</i><p>I tend to be wary of any service with ongoing running costs sold as a one-time fee.<p>As long as new sales exceed the cost of servicing the existing population everything is fine. Once that relationship reverses all bets are off.<p>That said, I like this idea and $25 is a better price point that I would have expected.
This is such an interesting experience, especially with canceling to what seemed to be a promising kickstarted campaign. I am glad you killed the subscription based model and are now selling it simply as a product.
I wonder if the notebooks are stripped to bare sheets, scanned and then re-built as a new notebook with proper bindings for sending back.<p>I don't see any other way of doing this that would keep it efficient.
Very interesting piece to read about their thought process - and a very interesting product that I had not heard about before.<p>If I was in the US, I would buy it.<p>If they get international shipping (EU) at say an extra 10 bucks and no return shipping, I would still consider it, but I fear the cost of shipping + added turnaround time would make it a much less attractive value proposition.
Livescribe pen been on the market for years. It's good and you do not have to wait for 5(!) days for digitized version - it's there automatically. Could you please explain me, why would you want to use service like Modnotebooks? Am I missing something?
Is there a HN thread where we can discuss this service and ask questions/debate the merits? I'd do it here but it feels inappropriate as the thread is more about Kickstarter and not the core product/service.
I'm personally interested in when Kickstarter makes sense, vs. one's own self-hosted presales site. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?<p>It seems like Kickstarter makes more sense for smaller projects, but the 15% cut and inflexibility (no bitcoins, no bulk sales, etc.) might be a bigger issue for larger projects.<p>The "virality" part of KS is nice, but it doesn't seem like a huge percentage of orders. The "all or nothing" part reassures people, but for a YC company or other respected entity, you could just make the same promise.<p>The "artificial deadline" part is nice, though.
In case you missed it, there was a plug of a fulfillment company www.monthlyboxer.com<p>Does anyone have experience to share about fulfilment companies in general?
What costs per shipment should one expect?
I associate Draft with Nathan Kontny's wonderful stuff
<a href="https://draftin.com/about" rel="nofollow">https://draftin.com/about</a><p>(edit) I see it's been renamed! Should have gone past the banner image!
Do these people ever heard of screenshots?<p>Taking photos of your screen in oblique orientations introduces horrible artifacts. Just don't do it!