One crowd funding campaign I almost back was a for someone to open up a table top gaming bar. I watched for a year as the owners took expensive trips to gaming conventions around the country doing “research, promotion, and networking.” Now that they are a month away from opening they are publicly asking people to barter services with them so they can get the doors open.
From what I have been able to see so far most crowd funding falls into 3 categories. First would be various levels of fraud. Second would be, we don’t really need the money but crowd funding is a quick presale that gets attention. Third would be people that have no clue how to actually raise capital and run a business so they beg for money and end up squandering it. The second category of PR/Presale seems to be the most dominant, ie PONO.
Actual legitimate innovative ideas seems to be the vast minority.
