Kickstarter lessons from the failed Zano drone project

Crowdsourcing is still a ‘big thing’ that many people are relying on. Which means when crowd funding goes wrong it can have a big impact. For those of you following the funding merry-go-round the name of Zano will be familiar. If you haven’t heard, it was a semi-autonomous drone that you would control from your smartphone and it would follow you, avoid obstacles, and record HD video.

It was a spectacular failure, burning through funds, promises, and delivery goals.

Kickstarter commissioned Mark Harris to write an investigative report into the failure. It’s chock full of lessons for people running crowd funding projects, and those who support projects on these sites:

Kickstarter tasked me, a freelance reporter, to find out why a highly funded crowdfunding campaign for a palm-sized drone flamed out in order to give backers the full story, and provide lessons for itself and others. My report follows. Kickstarter had an advance look, but wasn’t allowed to make changes.

Fascinating reading.