I managed to swing one of those as an “Amazon Warehouse Deal” for $75, shipped. Honestly, it was nothing short of a steal at that price. The Coolest Cooler had just so many clever features and accessories, but it was anything but clever when it came to manufacturing costs with all the custom moldings, accessories, bulk. and weight.
Somewhere was a website which attempted to break those costs down. No question that the engineering team put functionality and features first and cost second. The company needed to sell in volume to survive, but the final cost was just too high for that to happen. They seemed to have been slowly clawing their way back, but I do believe them when they say that new tariffs were the final straw which killed the dream.
I am truly sorry for backers. They were sold on the promise of so many clever features never before jam-packed into in a single cooler. (The only thing I would have added were larger rear wheels.) But it just wasn’t the right product brought to life by the right company and at the right cost. Some backers were strung along for years and really got screwed.
Still, you better believe that I consider myself lucky. I’m going to keep this monster for the rest of my life. Now if I only could have gotten my “World’s Thinnest Watch” from 2013 that raised over $1M on Kickstarter and failed to deliver anything. I know how it feels, and it sucks. Kickstarter isn’t a store, but I swear that some projects do their damndest to blur that line, you know?
The biggest challenge with many crowdfunding campaigns, is that many people running them don't get the economics right (and it's not always their fault). If they don't know any better, or don't have a background / experience in business / manufacturing / retail, then they don't know what they don't know.
I've run two successful campaigns (one on Indiegogo, and one on Kickstarter), which both surpassed the fundraising targets.
When putting together the campaigns, we modelled out everything thoroughly to account for all the costs that go into a campaign – manufacturing, packaging, shipping, duties, tariffs, etc
Our team all had experience in manufacturing / retail / business, so we knew that it was integral to get the economics right, and to model out the pricing at different scenarios.
If people are off on the economics, and a campaign hits scale, a $1 variance that isn't accounted for can be a big deal if you're shipping tens of thousand of units.
One other key was to confirm costs and get commitments for those costs with factories before starting the campaign. If this isn't done, then manufacturers have leverage after a campaign is over and aren't always willing to negotiate on price. They know that a team needs a product made and has commitments to ship them, so sourcing factories becomes much more challenging after a campaign is complete.
With that said, I've backed a number of successful campaigns that have come through with the product and timeline they committed to, so there are many successful campaigns, but some of the largest campaigns also prove to be the most challenging to follow through on.
Them ending by saying that tariffs killed them is consistent with their entire narrative as a company, which shows that they just lacked the business sense to build a cost competitive hardware firm on the market. People can buy into dreams but it's the function of business strategy to make sure the dream can be built into a cash sustainable organization.
I believe they ran into problems with their manufacturing partner, and also with some of their batteries bulging. They had very good intentions, but I believe the project became too big for this enthusiastic but novice team to handle. Also: Lots of failed components pre-assembly.
Too bad, really. A flexible e-ink watch embedded into a metal wrist band should have been achievable and quite a fantastic product!
Somewhere was a website which attempted to break those costs down. No question that the engineering team put functionality and features first and cost second. The company needed to sell in volume to survive, but the final cost was just too high for that to happen. They seemed to have been slowly clawing their way back, but I do believe them when they say that new tariffs were the final straw which killed the dream.
I am truly sorry for backers. They were sold on the promise of so many clever features never before jam-packed into in a single cooler. (The only thing I would have added were larger rear wheels.) But it just wasn’t the right product brought to life by the right company and at the right cost. Some backers were strung along for years and really got screwed.
Still, you better believe that I consider myself lucky. I’m going to keep this monster for the rest of my life. Now if I only could have gotten my “World’s Thinnest Watch” from 2013 that raised over $1M on Kickstarter and failed to deliver anything. I know how it feels, and it sucks. Kickstarter isn’t a store, but I swear that some projects do their damndest to blur that line, you know?