If you use a French Press, you know the tradeoff. It makes great coffee, but cleanup is a pain. Once you pull out the press you have to bang and scrape the bottom to clean out the used grounds. On top of that the traditional glass carafe doesn't really keep your joe hot. The Rite Press "No Mess French Press" promised to change all that. Only one problem: it was merely an idea, not a product.
Still, for $35, it seemed worth taking a chance. And so I signed on as backer #9719 along with 21,000 others on Kickstarter to make it happen. If you aren't familiar with the platform, it's a place where entrepreneurs of all types go to raise funds for various projects, such as products, films or campaigns. In exchange for funding, the entrepreneurs offer rewards, be it swag or credit or actual goods. Rite Press did the same, offering backers bargain prices and first dibs on various sizes and colors once they raised the $1 million needed to go into production.
To be clear, this isn't Amazon. People raise money thru Kickstarter to try and bring ideas to life, not to sell a product that comes in two days. The site explicitly says that you are pledging money to an idea which might never come to fruition. There is no guarantee that you will ever see the final product or get any return. It's venture capital at the micro level.
And projects involving hardware have a poor track record. That's because entrepreneurs routinely underestimate the difficulty, time and cost of producing a product and scaling it up to the masses. And the Rite team seems to have fallen squarely into that trap. The factory producing the press had quality issues. The delivery target date of 2 months was too soon. And the original pledge of $35 was too low to make any money.
So for 6 months all I got were sporadic updates, along with angry community response. It didn't help that Rite kept offering backers updated models or new incentives for additional pledges, each of which pushed back fulfillment. Or that they developed a lower cost plastic version to sell on Amazon, one which they say was done with a separate funding stream. Backers posted scathing reviews accusing the company of mismanagement and fraud: "They are beyond contempt" was the general drift. Another: "I hope they get their asses sued into oblivion." And in a nod to the abortive music gathering that is the subject of two current films, "Is this the Kickstarter version of the Fyre Festival?"
Then in the fall, an unmarked package arrived. In it was the Press. And I can report from first hand experience that in general it works well. The unique removable bottom makes cleanup easy, and the insulated side keeps the contents hot. On the other hand, the magnetic hourglass to track brewing time is pretty useless, as is the removable thermometer. Some parts seem well made, like the bottom seal, while others like the screen assembly on the press needs another iteration. But for a first-time-unique-crowdfunded product, it wasn't bad.
However, I seem to be one of the few who actually got one. Nearly 70% of the other backers have not received their premium. Angry posts have piled up, law suits have been filed, along with many mea culpas and explanations from the originators. Then this week a rather remarkable email request came from Sargam Patel, the CEO. "The press that we shipped you ended up costing us far more to make than you pledged. If you like the product and want to help other backers get one please consider a supporting pledge. We are short about twenty dollars a unit for all the presses that we have shipped out, but any support you can offer would be great." Predictably, the responses from the backer community have been even angrier than before, along the lines of this one: "I'm not paying another dime, you tone-deaf and unscrupulous bastards!"
Ground breaking product? Not bad for a first go, needs some work. Worth the investment? I'd say yes. Scam or inexperienced and optimistic entrepreneurs? If only because I got my press and I'm basically a positive person, I vote the latter. Then again, I'm one of the few that can wake up and actually smell the coffee.
-END-
Marc Wollin of Bedford likes coffee in the morning. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
Still, for $35, it seemed worth taking a chance. And so I signed on as backer #9719 along with 21,000 others on Kickstarter to make it happen. If you aren't familiar with the platform, it's a place where entrepreneurs of all types go to raise funds for various projects, such as products, films or campaigns. In exchange for funding, the entrepreneurs offer rewards, be it swag or credit or actual goods. Rite Press did the same, offering backers bargain prices and first dibs on various sizes and colors once they raised the $1 million needed to go into production.
To be clear, this isn't Amazon. People raise money thru Kickstarter to try and bring ideas to life, not to sell a product that comes in two days. The site explicitly says that you are pledging money to an idea which might never come to fruition. There is no guarantee that you will ever see the final product or get any return. It's venture capital at the micro level.
And projects involving hardware have a poor track record. That's because entrepreneurs routinely underestimate the difficulty, time and cost of producing a product and scaling it up to the masses. And the Rite team seems to have fallen squarely into that trap. The factory producing the press had quality issues. The delivery target date of 2 months was too soon. And the original pledge of $35 was too low to make any money.
So for 6 months all I got were sporadic updates, along with angry community response. It didn't help that Rite kept offering backers updated models or new incentives for additional pledges, each of which pushed back fulfillment. Or that they developed a lower cost plastic version to sell on Amazon, one which they say was done with a separate funding stream. Backers posted scathing reviews accusing the company of mismanagement and fraud: "They are beyond contempt" was the general drift. Another: "I hope they get their asses sued into oblivion." And in a nod to the abortive music gathering that is the subject of two current films, "Is this the Kickstarter version of the Fyre Festival?"
Then in the fall, an unmarked package arrived. In it was the Press. And I can report from first hand experience that in general it works well. The unique removable bottom makes cleanup easy, and the insulated side keeps the contents hot. On the other hand, the magnetic hourglass to track brewing time is pretty useless, as is the removable thermometer. Some parts seem well made, like the bottom seal, while others like the screen assembly on the press needs another iteration. But for a first-time-unique-crowdfunded product, it wasn't bad.
However, I seem to be one of the few who actually got one. Nearly 70% of the other backers have not received their premium. Angry posts have piled up, law suits have been filed, along with many mea culpas and explanations from the originators. Then this week a rather remarkable email request came from Sargam Patel, the CEO. "The press that we shipped you ended up costing us far more to make than you pledged. If you like the product and want to help other backers get one please consider a supporting pledge. We are short about twenty dollars a unit for all the presses that we have shipped out, but any support you can offer would be great." Predictably, the responses from the backer community have been even angrier than before, along the lines of this one: "I'm not paying another dime, you tone-deaf and unscrupulous bastards!"
Ground breaking product? Not bad for a first go, needs some work. Worth the investment? I'd say yes. Scam or inexperienced and optimistic entrepreneurs? If only because I got my press and I'm basically a positive person, I vote the latter. Then again, I'm one of the few that can wake up and actually smell the coffee.
-END-
Marc Wollin of Bedford likes coffee in the morning. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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