1 Master Thesis – Business Administration
Specialization: Entrepreneurship and Innovation (6314M0254)
How do backers perceive late deliveries in reward-based projects on Kickstarter? Investigation of response resulting from the wait for delivery of a reward.
Supervisor: Professor R. van der Voort
Date: June, 2015 Word count: 12082
Author:
Egle Tumenaite
2
Statement of originality
This document is written by Student Egle Tumenaite who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.
I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.
The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.
I would like to take this opportunity and thank my supervisor Roel van der Voort for his support, time, valuable inputs, and enthusiasm throughout the thesis period.
3 Table of Contents
Abstract ...5
1. Introduction ...6
2. Literature review ...7
2.1 Concepts of ‘scam’, ‘fraud’ and ‘legitimate delay’ in crowdfunding ...8
2.2 Trust of funders ...10
3. Knowledge gap ...11
4. Data and methodology ...12
4.1 Case selection ...12 4.2 Methodology ...14 5. Ethical question ...16 6. Phase 1...16 7. Phase 2...18 7.1 Comment observation ...23 8. Results ...25
8.1 Perception to delivery delays ...26
8.1.1 Communication ...26
8.1.2 Trust ...28
8.1.3.Fraud ...29
8.2 Impact: future funding intention ...31
8.3 Memos ...32
9. Discussion...34
10. Limitations and future research suggestions ...39
11. Conclusion ...40
11.1 Transferability of findings ...41
12. References ...42
4 Abstract
Explosive emergence of crowdfunding offered a funding alternative for entrepreneurs and artists who need funding to pursue their ideas. Having brought over a billion of dollars on
Kickstarter, some backers sometimes get burned by empty promises regarding the reward delivery. In this paper, I seek to contribute to understanding of how project backers perceive significant delays in reward deliveries, and how does such experience in delays affect their intention to fund other crowdfunding projects. I describe an inductive, grounded theory research, based on 4 reward-based project cases on Kickstarter. Main findings include that project creators can maintain backers’ trust levels through regular and honest communication. Crowdfunding platform juxtaposition with e-commerce did not result in contradictory results, suggesting that crowdfunding backers and online shoppers may similarly perceive late deliveries. Furthermore, inductive nature of the research resulted in shedding more light on fraud concept in
crowdfunding. Based on observed backers’ communication, a descriptive model was developed which defines legitimate delay, failure to deliver and fraud, reflecting different scenarios of late reward deliveries. Finally, analyzed data suggested that experience of late deliveries has a negative impact on future intention to back crowdfunding projects.
5 1. Introduction
The concept of crowdfunding originate from a broader notion of crowdsourcing, which refers to obtaining ideas, feedback or solutions from the “crowd”. Whereas, crowdfunding provides an alternative way to raise funds. It is widely recognized that entrepreneurs are struggling to attract funding through bank loans or equity capital which is necessary to start a business (Cosh et al, 2009). To overcome these problems, crowdfunding was introduced and it reaches out to the ‘crowd’ instead of financial institutions or specialized investors. Furthermore, crowdfunding concept is not limited to financing projects, as Belleflmme (2010) stated,
crowdfunding may also help firms in testing, promoting and marketing their products. Research firm Massolution, which specializes in crowdfunding, released its annual 2015 report, wherein they announce that crowdfunding platforms (CFPs) raised $16.2 billion in 2014, a 167% increase over the $6.1 billion raised in 2013 (Hobey, 2015). Crowdfunding helps entrepreneurs adopt new approaches of undertaking entrepreneurial projects and managing ventures (Belleflamme, 2014). As Berglin (2013:3) noted, the individuals, investors or customers, that make up the “crowd” are called crowdfunders and usually pool their money together via the Internet (Schwienbacher & Larralde, 2010).
There is extensive literature on successful crowdfunding campaign parameters
(Belleflmme, 2014; Wheat et al, 2013; Mollick, 2013) or methods for predicting success (Etter et al, 2013). However, to the best of my knowledge, no one has studied what happens after the creator successfully reaches campaign goal, and, specifically how do backers respond to the situations when they never receive a promised reward. This paper attempts to investigate
6 funders’ perception of late reward deliveries by analyzing their communication on crowdfunding platform Kickstarter.
2. Literature review
In general, entrepreneurs may reach the “crowd” directly, however crowdfunding
platform may be seen as a tool which increases the effectiveness of reaching specific audience of funders. Belleflamme et al (2010) offered the following definition:
“Crowdfunding involves an open call, essentially through the Internet, for the provision of financial resources either in form of donation or in exchange for
some form of reward and/or voting rights.”
Based on the proposed definition, it could be argued that crowdfunding is based on the close cooperation between three primary parties: a) entrepreneurs who initiate a project to raise funding on crowdfunding platform, b) backers who fund projects, and c) platforms which act as intermediaries. For simplicity, entrepreneurs, artists, and others who initiate projects or ventures are grouped under the label “creators”, investors, pre-buyers, and donors are grouped under the label “funders” or “backers”.
Kickstarter, the crowdfunding platform (CFP), was chosen as a source of crowdfunding campaigns because it is the most popular global platform (Barnett, 2013), one of the earlier platforms, and has experienced strong growth and many break-out large campaigns in the last few years. The projects can range from new creative products, like an art installation, to a watch, to pre-selling a music album.
Kickstarter is All-or-Nothing (AoN), rewards based crowdfunding platform. Project makers must pick a financial target and a deadline. If a campaign falls short of the goal, the
7 creator gets nothing. According to Massolution Report (2012), donation and rewards-based crowdfunding is the largest category in terms of overall number of CFPs, and it grew 85% to $1.4bn in 2012 (Massolution Report, 2013).
Reward based crowdfunding campaign allow funders to participate in the campaign in the form of either donation or pre-purchase. Creators aiming to receive a certain amount of money, must offer rewards to their backers, most commonly a project’s outcome, for instance a copy of the album of the creator. In other words, rewards are what the creator of the project share with the backers who helped to bring the project to life. Typically, technology and design category projects offer actual created technology products as rewards for project backers. Kickstarter guide for creators advise to offer a wide variety of rewards for backers based on the size of their financial contribution which can vary from $10 to $100 or more. After receiving the necessary funding, some of the project creators fail to deliver the reward to the backer. Generally, a project can fail to deliver pre-orders to funders after reaching its’ funding goal for a number of reasons. Johnston (2014) noted that there can be unforeseen costs, or design problems, or a team member quits or fails to deliver their part of the project. While Julianne Pepitone (2012) announced in her article that ambitious but inexperienced creators cause failure of pre-order delivery as based on the series of interviews, which yielded the same pattern. However understanding the reasons of failure little informs on perceptions of funders, and their intentions for future contributions in crowdfunding projects.
2.1 Concepts of ‘scam’, ‘fraud’ and ‘legitimate delay’ in crowdfunding
Failure to deliver a pre-order is being described in various terms, such as ‘scam’, ‘failure’ or ‘legitimate delay’. Definitions of each concept vary in different contexts. Charles Luzar and Christopher John Cornell (2014) clarified the formal criteria for fraud from the perspective of
8 funder, and offered the following refinement: “A crowdfunding campaign solicits and accepts money from backers or investors using deliberately misleading pretenses about the nature of the project or the expected outcomes”. However such criteria does not elaborate clearly on failure to deliver pre-orders in case of reward-based crowdfunding campaign.
Furthermore, it is critical to understand the different between the fraudulent activity and legitimate delay. Ethan Mollick (2013), found in a recent study that more than 75 percent of non-equity campaigns are late delivering on their promises, but less than 0.1 percent of crowdfunded campaigns have been intentional frauds. However it is not clear how funders perceive the risks associated with late delivery campaigns. As stated by Mollick (2013) "The danger of fraud is pretty low, but there's a good chance that your products will be delivered late and potentially in a slightly different form than you originally intended”. Thus, according to Mollick late delivery and/or slightly different outcome is not considered to be a fraudulent activity. However, there is a blurred line between the two concepts of legitimate delay and non-legitimate delay and at what point ‘fraud’ becomes a reasonable notion to use. Moreover, there is no common definition of late delivery, therefore it may be difficult to determine if the product will be delivered later or will not be delivered at all. On the other hand, legitimate delay can easily turn into illegitimate delay. For example “Illumi Smartbottle” campaign on Kickstarter can be seen as a legitimate delay at certain point of time when the entrepreneur update funders of the project with delay reasons. However, if product backers do not receive any information regarding the product for a relatively long period of time (for instance one year), naturally their perception change and legitimate delay can then be seen as fraud.
9 2.2 Trust of funders
A trust concept, as noted by Dogmin and Benbasat (2009) has been studied in many disciplines, including marketing, psychology, economics, and therefore, the definition varies depending on the discipline and the context.
By trust, this study refers to initial trust in an unfamiliar trustee (in the context of crowdfunding, the initial trust is in entrepreneur). In such a relationship, an investor rely only in information which is publically available on the internet. Dogmin and Benbasat (2009) in their study found out that customers are more influenced in the content of trust-assuring arguments when the price of the product is relatively high than when it is relatively low. In contrast, project pre-selection process carried out by funders may be conducted not only based on the content of the campaign but also on external information. For instance, Ramchurn (2004:835) argued that “trustworthiness can be assessed in two ways: (i) confidence derived (mainly) from analyzing the result of previous interactions with that agent and (ii) reputation acquired from the experiences of other agents in the community through gossip or by analyzing signals sent by an agent”.
Kickstarter in their Frequently Asked Questions section advise backers to look for additional resources such as links to websites, relevant background information, or connected Facebook account in order to find out more about the project creator.
The research conducted by Belleflamme et al (2014) showed that trust-building is essential. Crowdfunders are offered very little protection, especially reward-based type project funders. Belleflamme et al (2014:589) argued that “it is common for consumers who pre-order the product to pay more than regular consumers, who wait until production takes place before purchasing directly”. This impose the idea of crowdfunders usually having a high willingness to
10 pay and are being motivated by more than merely consuming the product. Strong interest in the product and higher willingness to pay refer to the concept of trust.
Trust building process in the context of crowdfunding starts in the very beginning of project launch. The first impression about the project is made by the content of project campaign, as published on crowdfunding platform or any other information source that is accessible by potential funders. According to Salam et al (2005), trust does not exist in a vacuum; it needs the context of a relationship to develop. Entrepreneurs can use different marketing and
communication strategies to attract more funders, these include the use of hard information in product detail, extended narratives and concrete descriptions, endorsement by group leaders, and building strong interpersonal connections – all determine project funding success (Gerber, 2012). It suggests that project creator is able to achieve some level of funder trust by using trust
building techniques, and the built trust is confirmed by funders’ pledge to the campaign. In other words, a project backer express some level of trust in project and/or entrepreneur by supporting the campaign financially.
3. Knowledge gap
There is a number of research papers suggesting success determinants of crowdfunding campaigns (Wheat et al, 2013; Mollick E., 2012), or relationship between
crowdfunding type and initial capital requirement (Belleflamme et al, 2014). However, based on literature search, it may be concluded that the cases of successfully funded campaigns where reward deliveries are significantly delayed, are under investigated. Specifically, there was no research found regarding fraud in crowdfunding and effect of reward delivery delays on future funding intention. Search was based on different combinations of keywords “crowdfunding”,
11 “scam”, “fraud”, “trust”, and search did not bring any matching combinations results (a number of results were brought by search only when searching single keywords).
This paper intends to fill the knowledge gap by placing trust and fraud concepts in crowdfunding context, specifically in significant reward-delay situations. The aim is to understand how backers perceive reward delivery delays by analyzing the naturally occurring discussion in the comment sections of selected cases and capturing the most emergent themes. Discussion will include the role of communication in trust maintenance, fraud conceptualization in delays situation, and finally the effect that reward delivery delay experience may have on future funding intention.
Conclusions drawn from the research could bring a better understanding of fraud concept in crowdfunding setting from the perspective of project backers, and may also serve as a
guidance for project creators helping to ensure the maintenance of trust of the funders.
4. Data and methodology 4.1 Case selection
The sample of 4 reward-based funded campaigns will be drawn from Kickscammed.com website, there backers report projects which are seen as alleged fraudulent campaigns. Selection of projects will be based on the following criteria: (i) all projects in the category ‘rewards not delivered’; (ii) projects in Design and Technology categories (iii) projects that were funded between 2012 and 2013; (iv) projects reached from $20.000 to $100.000 in funding (this range yields sufficient number of projects. (v) projects that contain at least 200 between-member postings in the comment section.
12
Note: (ii) Design and Technology projects usually deliver concrete products as rewards, produce a manufacturing plan when starting a Kickstarter project, and a clear delivery date for rewards (Mollick, 2013). (iii) Projects funded between 2012 and 2013, given that they belong to ‘rewards not delivered’ category have been selected as it gives minimum 14 months of pre-orders’
delivery delay. 14 months or longer is assumed to be a relatively long period as deviation from initially expected delivery date predicted by project creator.
Kickscammed.com webpage allows users to filter the projects based on the following categories:
fake project; no communication; reselling existing project; rewards changed;
rewards not delivered; all categories;
Due to the investigation scope and question of this research, “Rewards not delivered” category was chosen to filter the reported projects, producing 156 projects in the category (data retrieved on 2015 March 26).
156 projects in “Rewards not delivered” category were further filtered based on the project category on Kickstarter website. Only technology and design product categories were selected which shortened the project list to 45 projects. 36 out of 45 projects were funded between 2012 and 2013. 16 of them fall into the $20.000 - $100.000 interval of raised funding.
13 However, these 16 reported projects differ from each other not only in terms of amount of
funding raised but also in terms of the ratio between initial goal of funding and the actual raised amount of money. This ratio fluctuates from 102.03% to 356.03% across the filtered projects (Appendix 1).
Mollick (2013:2) in his study concluded that “delays are predicted by the size of the project, with overfunded projects being particularly vulnerable to delay, likely due to the increased complexity and expectations associated with large projects”. The collected data (see sample table Appendix 1) supports this statement regarding the higher likelihood of relationship between overfunding and delivery delay, as the majority of projects are overfunded. Therefore, for the purpose to further explore funders’ perception regarding delivery delays, the overfunding factor will also be included in the research. This would potentially enrich the research, enabling to yield broader picture regarding perception of reward delivery delays. Therefore, 2 marginally funded as well as 2 overfunded projects were selected in order to be able to compare the answers of funders, and get a deeper insight of the importance of overfunding factor.
4.2 Methodology
The study used a mixed strategy of multiple case, netnography and grounded theory. Given the exploratory nature of the research and the fact that grounded theory method will be applied, such research relies on theoretical sampling, as suggested by Eisenhardt (1989).
Selection of multiple cases was based on experimentation logic, i.e. replication logic. According to Eisenhardt, the “cases may be chosen to replicate previous cases or extend emergent theory <…> and each case is analogous to an experiment, and multiple cases are analogous to multiple
14 experiments” (Eisenhardt 1989:542). Replication logic was seen as the most applicable
approach, as it allows to select cases that would predict similar results or contrasting results but for predictable reasons (Yin, 1994). By applying a replication logic, each analyzed case gets augmented by the next case, allowing to confirm or disconfirm the pattern emerged in the first case, and thus enabling a researcher to draw stronger, generalizable conclusions. In this research, replication logic was employed to increase the validity of data, and to extract the emergent themes across all four analyzed cases.
The tradition of grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1998) was followed in the design and analysis part. Inductive approach involved creating theory iteratively from observations and data points, moving from statistical data (Phase 1) to loosely structured in-depth observation (Phase 2). Grounded theory approach was chosen to reflect the nature of the research – inductively observe funders’ communication in late reward delivery cases in order to gain insights of funders’ perceptions. Data collection started without a formation of an initial theoretical framework with the goal to capture the most prominent themes reported by funders. The entire procedure involved an iterative process of simultaneously collecting and analyzing the data until the theoretical saturation (Glaser and Strauss, 1967) was reached.
Netnography can be described as ethnography on the Internet, and is a qualitative
research method that adapts ethnographic techniques to study the communities that are emerging through computer-mediated communications (Kozinets, 2002). Funders on crowdfunding
platform could be defined as an online community, as they share the same goal – to support creators to pursue their ideas, engage in creative process, etc. Netnography uses the information that is publically available in online forums (Kozinets, 2002). This technique was seen as highly applicable to this research, since it enabled to use naturally occurring conversations in each
15 project’s comment section to get a deeper insight regarding respondents’ perceptions. Most importantly, this method is significantly less obtrusive and is more naturalistic than focus groups or interviews. Such features increase the validity and objectivity of data.
5. Ethical question
As a research technique, netnography uses the information that is publicly available in online forums to identify and understand the needs and decision influences of relevant online consumer groups (Kozinets, 2002:62). In general it is acceptable to use data that are officially and publically archived, no password is required for archived access, and the site policy does not prohibit its use and the topic is not highly sensitive for those individuals (Saunders, 2012:80). However, since the posters who originally created the data do not necessarily intend or welcome the data's use in research representations, so it was decided to contact posters who provided their contact information on Kickstarter and they were informed about the research and its purpose. In order to maintain a higher level of anonymity, the usernames of posters were coded.
6. Phase 1
All reported projects were originally published on Kickstarter platform. Information published on Kickstarter will serve as data for analysis. Variables which will be included in project analysis:
(1) Degree of overfunding.
16 (3) Frequency of communication between project creator and backers in the means of
updates and participation in comment section.
Month was used as a unit for analysis in estimating time periods and communication frequency calculations. The listed variables will be used to complement further project analysis in a later stage of this research. As inductive approach was employed in the research, statistical information will enable the researcher to capture important attributes of the analysis that may have a direct impact on funders’ perceptions towards late deliveries. Variables will allow to better assess the project timeline, and conduct cross-case comparison, enabling to see if any of the listed variables yield different results. According to Eisenhardt (1989:538), quantitative evidence can indicate relationships which may not be salient to the researcher. It also can keep researchers from being carried away by vivid, but false, impressions in qualitative data, and it can bolster findings when it corroborates those findings from qualitative evidence. The
qualitative data are useful for understanding the rationale, gaining deep insights or may suggest directly theory which can then be strengthened by quantitative support (Jick, 1979). See below the summary of variables used for all the selected cases.
17 Table 1. Summary of variables for selected cases:
Data summary: Frequency of communication
General information Updates by Creator Comments by founder
Project Degree of overfun ding Campaign launch and close dates Estimated delivery* Total number of updates Number of updates posted before (incl. the last campaign day) \ after the funding goal
achieved Last update Total number of comment s Number of comments posted before (incl. the last campaign day) / after the funding goal achieved Last comment Mutator 102.03 % 2013.05.24 - 2013.06.23 2013 October 21 5\16 2014.08.31 31 27\4 2014.03.18 Spike 107.97 % 2012.07.05 - 2012.08.11 2012 September - 2013 January 30 3\27 2014.08.10 68 24\44 2013.06.11 Ilumi Smartbottle 356.03 % 2013.07.09 - 2013.08.08 2013 November 12 7\5 2013.12.23 26 24\2 2013.09.26 Baboomi 231.47 % 2013.09.28 - 2013.10.28 2014 March 22 7\15 2014.10.10 26 15\11 2014.08.25
*Time range applies to cases where several versions of product are offered with different estimated delivery dates.
(Data was extracted on 29 April, 2015 – as more comments or updates may have been added after the data extraction date)
As suggested by Eisenhardt (1989:540), the key to good cross-case comparison is counteracting these tendencies by looking at the data in many divergent ways. According to author, one tactic is to select categories or dimensions, and then to look for within-group similarities coupled with intergroup differences. Dimensions can be suggested by the research problem or by existing literature, or the researcher can simply choose some dimensions.
18 Based on the selected dimensions, gathered data allowed to produce the following
findings:
1) Degree of overfunding
Two selected cases Spike and Mutator were considered to be marginally funded, having reached 107.97% and 102.03% of their funding goal accordingly. The other two projects Ilumi Smartbottle and Baboomi were assumed to be overfunded with 356.03% and 231.47%
accordingly.
2) Time gap between campaign completion (project funding date) and estimated delivery date.
Based on the gathered data, it could be concluded that creators of all selected cases set their estimated delivery dates 2 to 5 months after campaign completion. In other words, creators expected to produce and deliver their created products in 2 – 5 months after the funding was received (“Mutator” and “Ilumi Smartbottle” in 4 months, “Baboomi” in 5 months). Only Spike stood out with a promise to finish and deliver the actual product in 2 months after the funding was raised.
3) Frequency of communication between project creator and backers in the means of updates and participation in comment section.
Data was collected from original Kickstarter webpage of each investigated campaign (data extracted on 29 April, 2015). Below the data is presented in line charts:
19 Line Chart 1. Line Chart 2. 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
16
Mutator: Communication frequency
Updates Comments 0 5 10 15 20 25 2012 Ju ly 2012 A u g 20 12 S e p t 2012 O ct 2012 N o v 2012 De c 2013 Jan 2013 F e b 2013 Mar ch 2013 A p ri l 2013 May 2013 Ju n e 2013 Ju ly 2013 A u g 2013 S e p t 2013 O ct 2013 N o v 2013 De c 2014 Jan 2014 F e b 2014 Mar ch 20 14 A p ri l 2014 May 2014 Ju n e 2014 Ju ly 2014 A u g 2014 S e p t
Spike: Communication frequency
20 Line Chart 3.
Line Chart 4.
Each crowdfunding campaign’s lifecycle naturally could have a start and end dates. Campaign launch could be seen as a starting point, and estimated delivery date - the closing point, where funders receive their rewards, and campaign reaches its’ closure on the
crowdfunding platform. In cases where project creator is unable to fulfill the obligation to deliver rewards on estimated delivery day, the projects are assumed to enter the “late delivery phase”
0 5 10 15 20 25
2013 July 2013 August 2013 Sept 2013 Oct 2013 Nov 2013 Dec 2014 Jan
Ilumi Bottle: Communication frequency
Updates Comments 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
Baboomi: Communication frequency
21 which lasts until the project creator either delivers the promised rewards or issues refunds to project backers (as required by Kickstarter Terms of Use).
Project creators have communicated with their project backers (through comments and updates feature on Kickstarter) in “Late delivery phase” for projects “Mutator”, “Spike”, Ilumi Smartbottle” and “Baboomi” for the approximate period of 10, 24, 5, 7 months accordingly, 11.5 months in average. Most notably, the data of “Spike” project increased the average number of months, as the time gap between the estimated date (2012 August) and last update by the project creator (2014 August 10) was around 24 months. Where project had several estimated delivery dates based on different product versions offered, the earlier date was selected as it represented the initial project offering, for which the majority funders signed up. Funders of all four project received last update from creator through the Update feature on Kickstarter platform rather than Comment.
Given the date of data extraction (April 29, 2015) it can be concluded that project backers haven’t received any communication from project creators on Kickstarter for at least 7 months, as last updates were provided on 2014 August for “Mutator” and “Spike”, 2013 August for “Ilumi Smartbottle”, and 2014 March – “Baboomi”. This can be seen as a significant amount of time, thus communication was later discovered to be an often re-occurring topic in discussion among backers.
From the summary of variables in Table 1, and frequency line charts, it can be concluded that in all four investigated cases, communication frequency drops dramatically after the funding goal gets hit. Also, communication frequency can be described as irregular, for instance in case of “Mutator” fluctuating from 2 updates in 2014 January followed by 0 in the next month (see Line Chart 1).
22 There were no salient differences when comparing marginally funded vs. overfunded projects given the data summarized in the Table 1.
7. Phase 2
The goal of phase 2 is by using a netnography method, observe and analyze
communication among backers and creator in the comment section of each campaign. Comments composed by projects’ backers allow to examine a subject in its natural environment or study naturally occurring behaviors. Data gathered in phase 1, will enhance the analysis by providing a more detailed insight into each case. Memos will be used to cross-validate the observed
information. According to Eisenhardt (1989:542), “researchers use multiple sources of evidence to build construct measures, which define the construct and distinguish it from other constructs. In effect, the researcher is attempting to establish construct validity”.
7.1 Comment observation
NVivo 10.0 software program was used to enter all codes, facilitate coding links (i.e., connections among codes in the data), as well as perform text searches, and count instances and intersections of codes.
The tradition of grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1998) was followed in the design and analysis part. This strategy involved creating theory iteratively from observations and data points. Analysis in grounded theory is a multi-step iterative process (Eaves 2001). Comments composed by backers were initially analyzed line-by-line for words or phrases consistently used by backers to talk about late deliveries. The first step was data reduction in
23 which the data were manually coded. „A code in qualitative inquiry is most often a word or short phrase that symbolically assigns a summative, salient, essence-capturing, and/or evocative attribute for a portion of language-based or visual data” (Saldana, 2009). Coded information was selected based on two criteria: frequency in the text in order to determine the most prominent themes of communication, and relevance to the research question. After reading the extracted comments of all four selected cases several times, the researcher identified significant and
repetitive statements, line by line without making any assumptions. These statements were coded into corresponding constructs, named as “fraud”, “trust”, “refund”, “update”, and “future funding intention”. The second step was followed by grouping similar words and phrases together into themes (Glaser, 1978). Two main teams emerged: perceptions towards late deliveries and the impact it makes on future funding intention. Identified constructs were organized in tables to show frequency (Appendix 2). Coding memos denoted and synthesized this constant
comparative analysis (Glaser 1978). They were an essential component of the analytical process (Eaves 2001).
Insights from early data (quantitative data) better informed the next wave of data
collection and/or analysis. Findings resulted from data points in Phase 1 enriched the analysis of data in Phase 2. Our inductive method also compared emerging ideas from the data with existing literatures and vice versa in such a way that each was used to inform interpretation of the other. According to Eisenhardt (1989:545) ideally, researchers should stop adding cases when
theoretical saturation is reached, the point at which incremental learning is minimal because the re-searchers are observing phenomena seen before (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). After coding comments of 2 cases, no new themes were found (i.e., no new codes were created) in the
24 remaining 2 cases; Absence of novel codes suggested considerable support for having reached a theoretical saturation.
8. Results
The findings were obtained from the 4 reward-based projects on Kickstarter „Illumi Smartbottle“, „Baboomi“, „Spike“, and „Mutator“ yielding 373, 235, 684, 464 comments
accordingly (total number of comments = 1756). The comments were extracted from Kickstarter webpage on 29 April, 2014. These comments were reviewed one by one, and 546 (31, 1% of total number of comments) were coded based on their relevance to the research question. These 546 coded comments were generated by 177 backers across all four investigated cases,
representing 4,8% of total number of backers (see Table 2).
Table 2 – References by Source
Source Total number of comments Number of references (coded comments) Total number of backers Number of backers in coded comments Ilumi Smartbottle 373 88 782 27 Baboomi 235 108 500 46 Spike 684 129 1205 64 Mutator 464 221 1171 40 Total 1756 546 3658 177
Findings show that funders response to delivery delays can be understood through the following themes and sub-themes (Appendix 2): (1) perceptions to delivery delays
(communication, trust, perceived fraud), and (2) impact of delivery delays (future funding intention).
25 Frequencies were used as the basis of analysis representing the number of individuals expressing their opinion or suggestion in order to identify patterns in the data.
All 177 backers who fall into coded comments group, were coded for the purpose to keep their anonymity. Each backer was assigned a code name, which consists of a first letter of the project name and a sequence number. Letter “I” refers to a project “Ilumi Smartbottle”, “M” – “Mutator”, “S” – “Spike”, and “B” – “Baboomi”. The sequence number was used to track the total number of backers for each case, whose comments were used for analysis (see Appendix 3 for full list of coded backers’ usernames).
8.1 Perceptions to delivery delays
8.1.1 Communication
Communication was the most prominent theme in all 4 cases, yielding 227 references, representing nearly 42% of total coded comments. Funders perceive communication as the most critical ingredient in making them satisfied. Just like receiving a reward is considered as an ultimate part of the project, active creator communication with the project backers is seen as an important part of project life cycle, allowing them to experience the process of going from idea to fulfillment. Regular updates supposed to guide backers through the project development, allowing them to observe and engage in creation process. In situations where backers do not get any updates for a significant time period, i.e. weeks or months, update existence becomes more
26 important than update content. Substantial part of comments coded under ‘Communication’ code show that funders ask for ‘any update’:
“It's nice though that you have been posting more updates, even if they don't say much. Let's us know you are still alive”, B21.
“Would be really cool if Matt gave an update. Good or bad, I don't really care”, I12.
The absence of communication allows backers to generate a wide range of assumptions and allegations. Naturally, backers may feel abandoned, frustrated, and sometimes disrespected:
“Please keep in mind that we backers are just like investors and deserve to be treated with the same respect.” I22.
Furthermore, it can also be concluded that communication is seen as an obligation for an entrepreneur:
“Considering it is now 8 months past expected shipping i think you owe it to your 500 backers to keep us updated. Thanks”, B34.
Also, lack of communication can evoke associations with fraud:
“I've long written off my $40 - the amount isn't really the point - it's these guys lack of communication and transparency - which leads to speculation that they're hucksters”, S54.
Fraud in turn potentially can have a negative effect on trust between the project creator and backers: “How about letting us know what went wrong with the production. Again, being honest is the only way to generate any level of trust”, I7 or the crowdfunding platform itself, and
27 ultimately on backers future funding intention: “Getting so frustrated with KS lately. Good timely communication that makes you feel a part of something is very much not the norm.”I17.
Communication is seen as evidence and assurance of valid project, which maintains the trust in creator – backer relationship.
8.1.2 Trust
The key reason for the existence of crowdfunding platforms such as Kickstarter is trust. Backers need to be assured that their pledges are going toward the stated goal. According to Kickstarter’s Terms of Use, creator by posting a project on the platform, invite other people to form a contract by backing the campaign. Kickstarter is not a part of this contract — the contract is a direct legal agreement between creators and their backers.
Kickstarter website has a section called “Trust and Safety” whereby it attempts to inform readers that the platform “is not a store”, and people “are not buying things that already exist – they are helping to create new things”, suggesting not only that backers have an opportunity to engage in creative process but also that some projects may run into obstacles and may be delayed. As it is announced in Kickstarter Terms of Use: “there may be changes or delays, and there’s a chance something could happen that prevents the creator from being able to finish the project as promised.” Furthermore, it is emphasized that creators are responsible for their projects, not the crowdfunding platform, and when backing a project, a funder trusts the creator to do a good job. Based on these rules, trust concept becomes very dominant in project creator and backer relationship that gets formed in crowdfunding setting.
28 114 comments were coded under the theme of trust across the 4 investigated projects, composing nearly 21% of all coded comments (Table 2). Backers explicitly acknowledge the important role trust plays in crowdfunding:
I17: “this whole crowdfunding thing falls apart when all trust and accountability is gone”. M11: “backing a project on Kickstarter is an expression of trust”.
According to comment posters, trust building is based on regular and honest
communication. Similarly, trust can be lost when project creator communicates rarely and/or communication is misleading.
I7: “<…> being honest is the only way to generate level of trust”
B37: “Last minute pledge mainly due to the Creator’s constant communication”.
Such statements suggest that even if creator fails to create a product and thus deliver rewards, he/she should still communicate honestly and regularly to maintain trust levels. Absence of trust can naturally lead to associations with fraud. In crowdfunding situations when trust levels decrease dramatically, backers tend to suspect project creators with intentional delays as project creator does not provide any evidence that could dissipate uncertainty. Furthermore, an indication of lost trust can also be seen in the form of frequent requests to refund the amount pledged: “I want a refund because I don’t believe that this product actually exists anymore”, B30.
8.1.3 Fraud
Unlike equity-based, reward-based crowdfunding is not regulated by any regulators, backers are not assured by any guarantees, thus they can naturally be more sensitive to delivery
29 delays. Accusations of fraud in the context of reward-based crowdfunding typically occur when rewards are significantly delayed. „Fraud“, „scam“, „thieves“, – are words often used by backers, expressing their disappointment with delays in reward-delivery. However, it is important to distinguish between intentional fraud and legitimate delay. Ethan Mollick’s (2013) research found that more than 75% of non-equity campaigns are late delivering on their promises, but less than 0.1% of crowdfunded campaigns have been intentional frauds. He also noted that the
distinction between a legitimate delay and potentially fraudulent project isn’t well understood yet and failure is not the same as fraud.
This section will explore comments, posted by project backers that reveal their perception of alleged fraud in an effort to understand what crowdfunding fraud looks like in the eyes of project funders. Generally reported backers associate significant delays and uncertainty caused by absence of communication with fraudulent activity:
I7: “The problem is that Matt Hubber [creator] doesn’t seem to have the stones to admit where
things went wrong and communicate in a forthright manner. I wouldn’t mind the loss if I felt like I was really a part of his dream and it just didn’t work out. But The Huber Group is like <…> too many other scam artists. Take the money and then whine when things don’t work out. If I am wrong, let’s see the post that disputes it.”
Similarly to trust maintenance, fraud suspicions arise in the absence of updates from project creator: “Dearth of updates. Is Baboomi <…> a scam?” B6.
“If this was a genuine error and simply a failed project, the creator would be around offering assurances, apologies, and promising to come up with the plan to help redeem themselves. The fact this hasn’t happened to me shows this was a scam pure and simple”, - I11.
30 Such perception can be further fueled by the absence of refunds: “The creator is supposed to
give a refund for unfinished product but they don’t and no one holds accountable for it. This is actually a great scam.”- M1.
Although the tendency to suspect a project to be fraudulent due to the absence of regular communication is dominant, there is some evidence that a small proportion of posters reported around the topic say that the delay may be unintentional, thus should not be described as scams:
“The reality is that Matt [creator] probably did not set out to scam us. <…> he probably had best of his intentions, but could not complete the project with the money he raised.” I8.
Such perception illustrates the failure to deliver. On the other hand, the creator’s intentions could be confirmed only by elaborating such information to project backers.
Fraud, trust and communication are very closely interrelated. More often than not, there was no single dominant theme in one comment, as terms “fraud”, “trust”, “lack of
communication” are used interchangeably, confirming close relationship between each notion.
8.2 Impact: Future funding intention
Inductive research approach allowed to identify another salient theme – future funding intention. 31 comments (6% of total coded references) were identified that reported the impact delayed projects may have on Kickstarter and backers future intention to back projects. Backers explicitly aknowledge the negative impact of significant delays in reward delivery. According to them, such experience can cause reduced confidence in backing other projects either on
31
„I must not let the scamming antics of one creator put me off backing genuine ones”, I11.
“This is the absolute last project I am backing on Kickstarter. I have made that statement before and have held true to it. There is no excuse for the lack of communication regarding this
project”, S3.
“I'll definitely never contribute to anything that any members of the SoloMatrix team are a part of that is for sure”, S4.
Comments show that some backers distinguishes an idea of not backing projects, created by particular creators, showing their disappointment with the particular campaign. Other acknowledge the impact that experienced delivery delay may spill over on the entire Kickstarter platform or even non-equity crowdfunding concept.
8.3 Memos
Having observed all four cases one-by-one, memos were made for each case in order to identify possible similarities or differences between each case. As Eisenhardt (1989:540) noted, “the juxtaposition of seemingly similar cases by a researcher looking for differences can break simplistic frames <…> and lead to more sophisticated understanding”. This section will discuss case-by-case analysis with an emphasis on communication. The discussion will attempt not only to compare cases but also to capture the relationship between communication and refund request.
In all four cases, communication from creator side becomes irregular (see line charts 1-4). Most notably, in several cases first refund requests start to emerge in the month of delivery, when reward deliveries are not technically late yet, i.e. the projects has not entered the “late
32 deliveries phase”. For instance, in the case of “Mutator”, first refund request was posted on 29th October, 2013, while estimated delivery month was October, 2013*.
*Note that according to Kickstarter rules, estimated delivery date is considered to be the “best guess” by creator, thus this date is always expressed in month and year format, without a specific day.
As the refund requestor (M21) explained: “This point blank lack of communication is not
reassuring me that we're going to get the Mutator this year!” Similarly, in “Ilumi Smartbottle”
had an estimated delivery date in November, 2013, and a backer I26 on November 12, 2013 reported “Is there any accountability for these guys how we get our money back or is it gone?”
However, the case of “Baboomi” slightly differs. Although estimated delivery date was March 2014, first signs of lost trust start occurring in end of subsequent month, 26 April, 2014:
“Please try harder [to communicate], I don't want to feel like I spent $100 for nothing”, B21. Later in May on 24th day, 2014, another backer signals the lost trust: “Is bamboomi a scam?” B6.
Finally, Spike’s backers, based on reported information, have been the most patient with delivery delays. Spike’s estimated date for the first version of product was in September, 2012, as the refund theme was triggered only in January, 2013. This could be explained by relatively frequent communication (5 comments and 2 updates in the estimated delivery month). However, there were several signs of lost trust captured in the early October, 2013: “Last update was September 17th? Not feeling too cool about backing this project.” S34. It confirms a previously made implication that tolerance to delivery delays and trust in project and creator can be
maintained by frequent and regular communication. On the other hand, communication by itself is not sufficient, and tolerance to delivery delays can be lower is time-sensitive projects. It is important to note, that “Spike” keyboard and protective case for an iPhone was extremely
33 sensitive to production delays and was at high risk to become obsolete due to rapidly changing cellphone models. Evidence shows, that such experience can have an impact on selecting future projects, as S4 reported: “this particular project will probably stop me from pledging to more ambitious and time-sensitive projects in the future”.
Memos enabled to assess the data using case-by-case dimension. It confirmed the previously made implication that communication frequency forms a foundation in trust maintenance, given that refund request indicate decrease in trust levels. It also enriched the analysis by suggesting that time sensitive products (e.g. Spike) are more vulnerable to delivery delays, and thus it can prevent funders from selecting similar project to fund.
9. Discussion
Eisenhardt (1989:544) suggested that “an essential feature of theory building is comparison of the emergent concepts, theory, or hypotheses with the extant literature” This involves looking for similarities as well as contradictions with existent literature. Although crowdfunding and e-commerce may seem as very different concepts, however online good pre-ordering or refund availability is at the very core of reward-based crowdfunding. Thus, in this study trust and fraud concepts in crowdfunding are often juxtaposed to e-commerce or industrial purchases due to the novelty of crowdfunding. Results of this study showed that trust was a frequently re-occurring concept in late reward delivery situations, representing around 20% of all coded comments across four investigated cases. Mutz (2005:399) reported that several
publications in the United States have shown significant correlations between high levels of social trust and purchasing online, however these associations are naturally subject to different
34 interpretations. This not only suggests that trust is perceived as an important attribute in backer-creator relationship but also theories developed around e-commerce could be applicable in the context of crowdfunding.
Participating in crowdfunding project relationship assumes some level of trust which could be described as shallow as backers rely on external information, such as product
description etc. As Mutz (2005:398) noted “trust is needed the most when risks are perceived to be high. And e-commerce is perceived as highly risky by most accounts”. Whereas
crowdfunding could be seen as a relatively high risk “investment”, as it involves expecting to get a product which has not yet been fully developed and is likely to face a lot of challenges
throughout its’ development stages thus deliveries may be expected as well.
It can also be argued that in reward-based crowdfunding, funders can enter the deep-dependence relationship as referred by Salam et al (2005), which facilitates development of a long-term relationship, important aspect for entrepreneurs starting new businesses. Funders often engage in product development process, suggest ideas on product improvement and share their opinions. In such relationship, obligation-trust mechanisms develop which relies on mutually perceived obligations, and consumers expect certain behaviors from Web-vendor. According to Salam et al (2005) only when “these expectations are consistently met and the contracts honored, consumers are more likely to develop the trust in a vendor required for a long-term exchange relationship”. Similarly, refund request may be seen as a termination of deep-dependence relationship and failure to meet the expectations of buyers or funders in the context of crowdfunding.
35 On the other hand, reward-based crowdfunding juxtaposition with e-commerce brings some contradiction. As Kickstarter emphasized, it should not be perceived as a store, as “people aren't buying things that already exist — they're helping to create new things” (Kickstarter, Trust and Safety). However, study results show that reported backers perceive delivery delays
similarly as buyers in a store: ask for active communication from a project creator, solicit refunds.
As noted previously, similarly to e-commerce, the nature of reward-based crowdfunding positions trust as a critical component which is dependent upon project creator actions. Study carried out by Diana Mutz (2005:409), suggested that levels of social trust are malleable. The levels of trust held by individuals can be altered by what they see, hear, and read. This type of trust, as referred by Mutz (2005) “Knowledge-based” or “strategic” trust (e.g. Seligman 1997), results from information or personal experiences (Mutz, 2005:409). Results of four selected cases show that backers perceive honest and regular communication from project creator as the most critical attribute for trust maintenance. Thus, absence of communication may reduce trust levels and a project can be associated with fraud. There was no commonly accepted fraud
definition in the context of crowdfunding, however study results showed that in general, projects were associated with fraud in situations where communication was either irregular (e.g. one update per month followed by two months of silence from creator) and refunds were absent. In order to complement Mollick (2013) study, this research attempts to shed more light on fraud conceptualization and perception by backers in late reward delivery situations. Fraud concept manipulation was considered by taking into account the presence of communication and refunds from the project creator. To better reflect on reported backers’ perception, and visualize the
36 conditions under which late delivery can be perceived as legitimate delay and fraud, the model was developed (see Picture 1 below).
This model represents the manipulation of communication, resulting in three possible situations that illustrate perceptions of fraud in crowdfunding.
(1) Legitimate delay. As it was explicitly reported by backers in the multi-case study, regular communication with project backers is seen as critical domain that maintains trust in reward-delivery cases. Since there is no common agreement, which would define the maximum time period for the length of late delivery phase, given that project creator regularly and honestly updates backers with project progress, the situation could be defined as legitimate delay.
(2) Failure to deliver. In situations, where refunds get issued, the project creator confirms inability to produce a product, therefore fails to deliver rewards, and reaches project
closure. Another possible scenario of late-reward delivery is when a creator is unable to deliver products due to a shortage of funds, if funds are spent before the rewards are manufactured. Kickstarter Terms of Use advises creators to set realistic financial goals, sufficient to produce the product. However, sometimes inexperienced entrepreneurs may set inaccurate financial goals, disabling them to finish the project. Observed data suggest that funders, by backing a
37 project, acknowledge the associated risks, and in the event of insufficient funds, backers expect the creator to inform them about the situation and admit failure to deliver rewards (see results part, trust section). This way, as observed participants referred, the project “closure” would be reached.
(3) Finally, based on collected data, funders tend to associate project with fraud when communication from project creator is absent. In other words, backers perceive reward-based crowdfunding project to be fraudulent when they do not receive refunds nor get regular updates or any other form of communication from project creator (see results, fraud part). This study focused on cases where communication was absent for at least 7 months, suggesting that such period of time is sufficient for the formation of such perception.
The earlier mentioned formal criteria for fraud from a perspective of funder as proposed by Charles Luzar and Christopher John Cornell (2014) was defined as follows:
“A crowdfunding campaign solicits and accepts money from backers or investors using deliberately misleading pretenses about the nature of the project or the expected outcomes”
Analyzed data suggests that could be further extended by describing successfully funded campaigns that enter a late delivery phase of the project, where creator fails to issue refunds or frequently communicate with backers by either admitting failure of the project or explaining delays.
38 Findings of this study confirms Mollick’s (2013) statement that late delivery and/or slightly different outcome is not considered to be a fraudulent activity, and also suggest criteria for defining legitimate delay and non-legitimate delay.
Finally, around 6% of all coded comments reported the late deliveries impact on future intention to back projects. Generally, the negative impact was evident, ranging from “avoiding time sensitive products” to “never backing any crowdfunding projects again”. Such outcome can also be explained by comparing a backer in crowdfunding to industrial buyer. As suggested by Eisenhardt (1989:545), “tying the emergent theory to existing literature enhances the internal validity, generalizability, and theoretical level of theory building from case study research”. For instance, Taylor (1994) and Osuna (1985) proposed that in situations of uncertain waiting time, satisfaction response function was downward sloping. In late crowdfunding reward delivery situations, it can be argued that uncertainty in waiting time was enhanced by lack of
communication from project creators, resulting in backers’ negative reaction. Furthermore, prospect theory (Kahneman and Tversky, 1979) says that equivalent losses are generally perceived to be larger than gains, therefore pessimistic estimates of deliveries should be used. Such perspective may be well applicable in crowdfunding, and if employed by project creator, it could potentially reduce backer waiting time and negative reactions in situations where reward delivery delays are perceived as legitimate or as a failure to deliver (see Picture 1).
10. Limitations and future research suggestions
This research included analysis of 4 late-reward delivery cases in technology and product design category, ignoring other categories such as art or media. Also as the study comprises two
39 marginally funded, and two overfunded projects, making it difficult to determine the importance of overfunding factor in funders’ perception towards delivery delays. Analyzed data also ignored the size of pledges and its effect on funders’ perceptions.
Since netnography technique was used for data analysis, it limited the opportunity to find out some additional information, e.g. survey would enable to find out what communication frequency do funders expect from creators. At the moment, only implications were made that confirm the importance of frequent and honest communication, however does not elaborate precise frequency requirements. Future research could include more overfunded and marginally funded cases across more categories, and finding could be cross validated by interviews or surveys. These strategies could also enable researcher to extract more information on backers’ future funding intention, which could be categorized in several domains such as a specific type of project, a platform or crowdfunding in general.
11. Conclusion
This study reveals the most prominent themes that emerge in the discussion among backers when they face late reward deliveries on Kickstarter. The emerged themes determine the perception of funders in given situation. Results show that the foundation in trust maintenance is active communication from creator’s side. The level of communication determines funders’ perception toward late deliveries. Based on observed data, late reward delivery project could eventually be characterized as legitimate delay, failure to deliver, or fraud. Refunds were seen as a mean to reach closure to the project, however absence of refunds does not necessarily implies
40 fraud associations. Experience of late reward deliveries generally has a negative impact on future funding intention.
Although, according to Kickstarter, the platform should not be seen as a store, however results show that theories developed around e-commerce are to some extent applicable in the context of crowdfunding.
11.1 Transferability of findings
As previously stated, the theoretical saturation was reached after analyzing two cases, as analysis did not yield any novel themes in another two cases. However, regarding the findings transferability question, it could be argued that selected four cases have a number of features that suggest that the findings are likely to share commonalities with other late reward delivery in crowdfunding cases. Thus, it seems reasonable to say that although each studied case may have a certain level of ambiguity and specific characteristics (e.g. Spike case was more time-sensitive as it was directly related to fast changing mobile phones models), however it did not affect the general findings. Therefore, it could be argued that findings of this study apply to other late reward delivery cases in crowdfunding.
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44 Appendices
Appendix 1
Project Name Project
category
Funding goal Funding raised
Overfunding degree
Cobra Vallet Product Design $30,000 $51,128 170.43%
Vertus Product Design $40,000 $68,431 171.08%
Dash The Smart Phone Car stereo Technology $45,000 $72,042 160.09% Spike: Real Keyboards and Protective
Cases for the iPhone
Product Design $75,000 $80,977 107.97%
Spixi: a better way to charge & sync your iPhone and Android
Product Design $30,000 $48,778 162.59%
Foundation Dock Product Design $37,000 $67,748 183.10%
Gekko stand Product Design $20,000 $42,361 211.81%
The Glitch: Security / Pen-Testing Hardware Platform
Technology $14,500 $30,132 207.81%
AirTracks: Inflatable All-Terrain Camera Slider
Product Design $20,000 $32,618 163.09%
ILUMI Smartbottle Product Design $10,000 $35,603 356.03%
ZOpro: Incredibly Thin Case-Integrated Charging. iPhone 5
Product Design $15,000 $20,925 139.50% vrAse: The Smartphone Virtual
Reality Case
Product Design £55,000 £66,556 121.01% Foundation Dock - The new home for
your iPhone
Product Design $37,000 $67,748 183.10% Ping Wallet - The world's thinnest,
smartest wallet.
Technology $30,000 $59,030 196.77%
Baboomi: A Customizable and Comfortable Alarm
Technology $20,000 $46,293 231.47%
45 Appendix 2 Theme and description References (total = 527) Examplary Quotations Communication - comments demonstrating the role of communication between project creator and backers.
227 S46: “I understand the challenges and delays of launching a project on Kickstarter and generally expect the items to ship at least 90 days after the estimated ship date. Lack of
updates - check out other projects, especially those running late to deliver. A weekly update is fair to expect.”
S57: “I think that your updates should be more frequent.
This becomes more important the longer there are delays. Given the radio silence since the last update some time ago, it is starting to look like the Spike project won't ever deliver, which is a shame really, as it was an excellent concept. Cody, Robert, I believe you should take the time to explain to your backers what went wrong, and bring some closure to this project.”
S26: “Could you at least have the courtesy of checking your
kickstarter page and letting people know what's going on? I'm beginning to feel like your avoiding your backers.”
S3: “It is not the lack of updates that frustrates. It is the lack of any form of communication”
M6: “One month since last update. Updates need to happen
much more frequently so that us backers don't begin to feel neither neglected, ignored or cheated. Post an update!”
M21: “No updates for a while, haven't shown up the
samples that were due a few weeks ago.... What's going on? At least just send an update to keep us informed that things are going slower than you planned.
Weekly updates would be nice Ron, enjoyed reading the last one!”
M15: “Ron, when you first started this project, your enthusiasm kept all backers excited. The lack of
