I'd like it if one of these marketplaces emerged that was more careful about vetting sellers. I've ordered Raspberry Pi-related gear off of two unrelated e-com sites in the past month (one was Tindie) and have yet to receive the goods (or any indication they received my order) 3+ weeks after the funds changed hands.<p>This isn't kickstarter. When I pay for something, I expect to receive it in a reasonable amount of time, or at least receive an explanation of what's going on. A little transparency would go a long way.
I've been a member of the maker community for several years now - buying purple PCBs, selling kits, going to Maker Faire's, etc.<p>I have a lot of friends, myself included, who started selling their items on Ebay, PayPal's button, or some variant of Magento. Nearly all of them have moved their shops to Tindie. When I was at PyCon, I happened to run into people I knew (independently!) at their booth.<p>I'm still not sure exactly how they'll reach profitability (they only take 5%) and I'd love to see better tools for sellers (a la shipping.) But I really like what these folks are doing!
Hey HN,<p>Just saw this was picking up steam so if you have any questions, happy to answer them! Some might remember me from my posts a few years ago when I quit my job to learn how to code. Happy to answer any of those questions as well...<p>Emile<p>Founder of Tindie
What I like about this is that it doesn't leave the buyer -- here, explicitly a buyer -- in the twilight zone that Kickstarter does. Kickstarter calls you a "backer", and a bearer of risk to some extent, and for this some people in the Oculus case have come to feel like investors and felt seriously cheated. Seriously, search HN.<p>Actually pricing what a Kickstarter "backing" offer should cost like is a lot like pricing financial derivatives. By offering to back a project, you're swapping a call option for something like a CDO - there are tranches, there are levels of haircuts, etc. etc.<p>Tindie is just Etsy for Arduino hackers. Congratulations for cutting that Gordian knot!
Sounds like it is for already created products, so is for a different audience than kickstarter. Although, honestly, if I were a maker I'd just pick the one with more traffic and customize or V2 to qualify for kickstarter if I had to since it gets a lot more eyeballs and eyeballs are where the money is.
Tindie is an awesome service, if you're at all interested in (hobby) electronics. There's a nice spectrum of products available, and there's always something new.<p>I was sad the day the "Supplies" category of product was retired, since there was plenty of stuff available which is hard to find, or just way more expensive, but I understand the need to focus and try to find a clear niche.<p>Speaking of Kickstarter, it seems possible for the two to co-operate: there's at least one product (Nick Johnson's "Re:Load Pro" active DC load) that I've backed on Kickstarter, and on the day the funding was complete I noticed it's also available (as a pre-order) on Tindie.<p>Kickstarter: <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nickjohnson/re-load-pro-a-dc-active-load" rel="nofollow">https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nickjohnson/re-load-pro...</a>, and Tindie: <a href="https://www.tindie.com/products/arachnidlabs/reload-pro/" rel="nofollow">https://www.tindie.com/products/arachnidlabs/reload-pro/</a>.
I am wondering why I have yet to see this tindie mentioned on hackaday.com<p>To the founder, I would approach them for an advertising deal if at all possible.
As lnanek2 said below Kickstarter and Tindie are serving 2 different markets. Kickstarter allows projects that require things like tooling to be crowdfunded prior to launch. You cannot supply a plastic spoon product to customers before you have the spoons.