Pissed O.

Kickstarter is the Soup Nazi of crowdfunding sites. I wasted 2 and a half weeks of my very busy life carefully building a kickstarter page paying close attention to Kickstarters very vague guidelines, only to get shot down in the review process without explanation. When I tried to contact Kickstarter in attempt to get details on their rejection, I found out quickly that it is nigh impossible to contact them. I filled out their e-mail form and never got a reply. For the two and a half weeks that I wasted chasing their smoke and mirrors, they couldn't even find the decency, respect, or professionalism to give a reply. In their vague rejection form letter, they claimed that my project didn't meet their guidelines, although anyone who has the ability to interpret written English to a reasonable degree would tell you that their claim was complete bullcrap. Nothing in the language in the guidelines came even close to being cause for rejection of my project. The fact is that Kickstarter is a group of cliquey, biased insiders who apparently are judgmental of which projects meet their edgy, yerba-mate-drinking, skinny-jeans-wearing, hipster standard, regardless of actual merit or probability of success. My project was highly evolved and professionally presented, and it got bounced -- yet the famous "Death Star" kickstarter project that has made headlines somehow got the green light (google it if you are not familiar with it). I guess Kickstarter makes exceptions for publicity stunts that they can benifit from. That ought to tell you a lot about the inner workings of their ethics. Before I even learned about kickstarer, I had support from hundreds of people to get my project off the ground so that they all could benefit from the end product of my project. They literally couldn't wait for my kickstarter page to launch. I'm talking about HUNDREDS OF SUPPORTERS. I only needed a group of 150 backers to reach my $28,000 goal on Kickstarter, and with the support that I had coming in, I would have met that goal VERY quickly. Kickstarter would have had my 5% commission, and everybody would have been happy and moving on with their lives. But my project wasn't hip or edgy like the faux Death Star project, or like any of the thousands of no-name Indy rock garage bands seeking help on kickstarter to produce their CD's. Which is fine. I will gladly go to Kickstarter's closest competition and give them my commission instead. If you have an innovative technology project that you feel is close to realization, and if you value your time like I do, I suggest looking to one of kickstarter's competitors.