Friday, December 21, 2012

The CRAZIEST Security-Related Kickstarter Project I've Ever Seen


Every now and then, I run across a few advertisements for security products that have me scratching my head.  Unfortunately, most of them are surveillance cameras.  Whether it be their shaky claims on screen resolution or storage on various media, the ads are very "sketchy" to say the least.  Today's gem comes from Kickstarter, the largest crowdsourcing site where entrepreneurs solicit average Internet users to become "angels" for their products.  They entice you with everything from prototypes to trips to their factories.  Most are really good and some aren't so good.

The product's creator made several mistakes:
  • The product is extremely outdated.  The first lesson you learn in sales is to appeal to your prospect's "pain" - the one thing that is a constant concern that will drive them to your product.  Having DVRs stolen is a concern for some businesses.  If your suspect knows what he/she is looking for, they might looking to steal the DVR.  However, if that's a true concern, most businesses will ask that the video be stored off-site or have the DVR installed somewhere secure.  Several companies in the installation/integration business already do this.  
  • The inventor claims to solve the "stolen DVR" issue by "creating a secure video stream to an off-site server, safely located far from the premises and accessible only to you." Again, that's already done by several companies and often add video surveillance inexpensively as part of their package deals.
  • They also claim if their "DVR gets stolen during a theft, you can access the video stream from anywhere in the world for up to 60days, completely FREE of charges. This is a turn-key system requiring virtually NO maintenance, securely storing video 24 hours, 7 days a week."  Why am I paying for DVR if you're storing off-site and I can access the video from anywhere?

Perhaps the worst mistake ANY entrepreneur on Kickstarter can make is offering nothing in return.  For giving them $500 or more (oh you read that right), you get:
Complete plans to setup the system, including step by step instructions that will create and store 24/7 security video coverage securely online FREE that can be retrieved from any computer for up to 60 days.
You're going to give me plans?! For $500, all I get is plans.  Folks, I already know what this was.  It was an attempt to make a really quick buck.  The duration they set for funding this little "project" was 30 days.  No worries because my fellow Netizens recognized the lunacy and criminality behind such a solicitation.  No one funded this scam.  I should have known something was up when I looked at the creator's other projects.  His latest project was a documentary on "A rather large insect-looking "Inviso-Bug" flying off of my deck. These are invisible to the naked eye, only show up under infra-red. I have hours of exclusive video of SWARMS of things around me and am unable to see them or hear them at all!" Gotta love crazy people....

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