Of the few “real” and “difficult” Kickstarters I’ve supported over the years Kickstarter has been around...
They were very specialized things that nobody would ever invest in.
Kickstarters for aviation products are a bit worrisome in that there’s decent places to finance something that will sell heavily in aviation.
We’re a small group in terms of market numbers, but we spend heavily on the stuff that really works.
And we’re not truly a niche market like the ones I’ve supported.
Here’s the rest of that story. Out of four of those niche things I’ve supported, two actually made it to product status and two didn’t. Both that did took two years to complete. One of those wasn’t of very high quality when completed.
25% ROI if you’re looking for “this is a great product” from Kickstarter. And a question they need to answer for an aviation product: “Why Kickstarter?”
Because it’s a market where we’re dumb enough to pay tens of thousands for a GPS and hundreds a year on mobile apps... as long as they work. Investors will fund aviation businesses if the product looks like it’ll sell.
Just thoughts. Haven’t had much luck finding things that made me say “Oh, everyone is going to want one of those!” on Kickstarter under any category, but in aviation I would really give anything offered as a Kickstarter a very skeptical hairy eyeball.
It MIGHT indicate laziness in the business plan and/or unwillingness to spend the time pitching it to a traditional or venture capital type lender.