The Longest New Experience: Becoming a Backer on Kickstarter
This is quite a new experience to talk about: from beginning to end it took four years. Let me explain. Most people have heard of Kickstarter, the crowdfunding site, but, for those who hasn't, it works like this: people that have an idea for some creative project (like a new electronic device, stage show, comic book, work of art, among many kinds of things) but don't have the money to actually implement said project can go to the website and register as a "creator".
The creator, then, can start a "campaign": it tells all the people who go to the website that if he or she gets enough people to pledge to pay for the creation in advance, the project will get going and those who pledged in advance (which are the "backers") will get the creation first, plus possibly some additional goodies. For example: a comic book creator starts a campaign saying that he will create a brand new story if he gets enough backers to be able to print and publish the book by himself. He adds that the first backers will receive a signed copy. Enough backers make a pledge (an important detail is that it includes paying in advance) and then the comic book gets printed, the initial backers get their signed copies, and more people can keep on buying after that. In the case that not enough people back the project, their payment is returned.
Kickstarter has been around since 2009 and it became a great success. A number of cool creations came out of it: among others, the Pebble Time (one of the first smartwatches) and the cool Exploding Kittens board game started as Kickstarter projects. Given that, I felt like I really wanted to try it out!
In March of 2021 I had my opportunity: I found a Kickstarter project that was really up my alley. Some people may know that I have always been a fan of old technology, and one particular historical device was very interesting to me: the Nixie tube. This electronic device was created in 1955 as a way to display numeric digits and immediately found all kinds of applications: one particular popular use was in scientific instruments (as such, you may have seen them in some old movies whenever they were trying to show something "scientific"). Eventually all kinds of different (and more efficient) digital displays replaced them around the 70's, and they became history.
So, as I was going through Kickstarter back then, I found this campaign: a group of creators got their hands on a big batch of unused Nixie tubes and were planning to do something cool with them. Their idea was to create a Bluetooth speaker that would have a nice retro design and would use four Nixie tubes to show the time. It looked really nice! I could always use a Bluetooth speaker in my office, so I went ahead and pledged: I paid for the device and became a backer for the project. As I said, that was in March of 2021: I was given an expected delivery date of September 2021.
But then the difficulties started.
I will say this: I commend the creators of this project for being transparent. They sent numerous updates: the problem was that those updates narrated all kinds of difficulties. The speakers would have a wooden case: but then the guy who was going to do them couldn't do them anymore. They had to find someone else to craft them... in China. Then the pandemic messed up all their schedules, then they were figuring out who was going to do the assembly in China. Then this. Then that. And so it went... for years.
When I had already lost hope of seeing the device I paid for (and I was wondering what to do) finally I received the update that the devices were, honest to God, being shipped. But in batches. Small batches. Fortunately I was in one of the first batches, so I received my speaker... in August of 2024.
The drip-drip-drip of devices continued and, by September of 2025, finally all the original backers had received the device they had paid for. And, with that, the project ended. Even if you want one now, you can't get it.
The device is really good and I liked it very much. It plays music very well, the Nixie tubes are nice and bright, and it sits next to me in my office, helping me work while listening to some nice music. However, the Kickstarter experience itself... wasn't great. I got what I paid for, but years later, so the project lived in this limbo of not being cancelled but not being exactly active either. Because of that, I'll confess that I feel very reluctant to back another project on Kickstarter. But that's me: perhaps you guys can have a better experience, so maybe you should try it out yourselves.
(a scientific instrument from the 70's with Nixie tubes to count frequencies)
