Less than 3 weeks left

There is less than three weeks left in the fundraising campaign. Almost half-way through and not quite 5% of the funds raised - I wonder if not many people want these cars or if the word isn't getting out quickly enough?

Thirty days seems like a pretty short time for a new company to raise funds using a method not typically (ever?) used by a model railroad manufacturer.

What are you actually testing?

Dear pw,

You've asked the question

and I would reply by respectfully asking

What are you actually seeking to "test"?

- The ability for Crowd-Funding to produce (any given) model RR item

OR

- The interest level from the Model RR community in late-40s era rollingstock
(in RTR and Kit form, irrespective of it may be made available)? 

Given the Title of the thread 

I could see a lot of "cruising by" Forum-browsers basically thinking:

"...right, Crowd-funding,
- barely know what it is,
- don't know how it relates to me and my model RRing interests
- and (known-era/prototype/RR) "HO box and auto cars" are already widely available via the methods and sources I'm already familiar with..."

...and that's just what they are thinking as they see the Thread Title in the list-view of the "Recent Posts" page!!!
(Hint: as a "click on and read-more on the thread" hook, it's arguably pretty weak).

Lets assume for a moment that the readers have clicked to read the thread,
(as, as-of this posting 445 people in-total have,
which is a long way shy of the daily-passing-traffic qty on this site IIRC...
I'm sure Joe F would have the stats to hand....),

there is no mention of:
- The Era of the cars in question (Year?)
- Whether the prototypes are Wood, Steel, or "composite"
- and, I gotta admit, I got confused when I read "Pratt Truss", and started thinking 
"what does bridges have to do with rollingstock?"
(speaks more to my level of familiarity with pre-transition rollingstock than the proposed model)

which again, does little to encourage them to "click thru" (further) to the IndieGogo page...
(...the thread title has to hook the passerby, not the other way around...)

May I respectfully suggest:

- If the Focus is to test the appeal of 1940s/pre-transition-era rollingstock with the wider Model RRing community, lead with a Thread Title mentioning "1940s-60s era HO boxcars",
and let the "Crowd Funding" thing settle to it's natural level in the conversation.

- If however, the Focus is on the "Crowd Funding aspect" of model production,
then pick a "no-brainer" offering which is known to be a "can't keep in on the shelves if it's even half-way reasonable" model, (I'd be tempted to suggest a more-modern-era RBOX, ABOX, or FBOX railbox boxcar),
and eliminate the "...what the model is, and how many people will want it..." variable from the test-equation...
(Hint: check back thru the "MRH Survey" results, the % of pre-transition modellers as a factor of "the wider model RR community" may be a limiting factor, skewing the test results?)

I wish you and the backing Production Team well with your Indie test,..
I hope this helps...

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

crowd funding?  is this where

crowd funding?  is this where one gives money expecting nothing in return?

ak: as in give me money so i can pay my bills. and all you get is knowing you helped me pay my bills?

is  this the way it works?

crowd funding?  is this where

If that's how it goes, why would anyone participate?  

I don't think that's the way it is supposed to work, but I don't know what the success rate is.  I've only heard about crowd funding projects on the radio a few times.

The idea of crowdfunding is to leverage popularity-

Into a product that we the crowd need. I believe the highest percentage of American modelers are transition era. That number is changing as they pass away and the modern/current era is most popular among younger modelers.

The target market is probably correct but that market is flooded with choices and existing options. You already have different cost and quality choices.

I would think this could possibly work if you offer a product that targets younger modelers with something that isn’t currently available. 

There seems to be logic to

There seems to be logic to the notion that transition (steam to diesel) era has been the most popular but it would be waning as fewer and fewer modelers are left who had a personal connection to it; of course there are some much younger modelers who opt for periods long before they were born but is there enough of them to sustain a large selection of produced models?  Only time will tell.

However, with regard to the models being crowd funded, being older wooden box cars, they do seem to represent a period where there are fewer choices; I've heard a number of complaints of modelers from early periods lamenting the lack of models, so this is likely aimed at that crowd.  If there are enough of them, this project may be a success. OTOH, modern models aimed at the younger crowd are seeing more and more choices on the market all the time it seems.

. . .

Why not follow the link and read what they have to say instead of what is currently going on in thread.

I read the full INDIEGOGO page and unfortunately have no interest. The page goes into great detail.

The project is currently at 4% (12K)  of the 250K they need and Paul Krueger  is a registered backer, so he is clearly trying to drum up some interest.

Marc

2018 survey ... and some anecdotal evidence

In our 2018 survey, steam-to-diesel transition era interest remains strong as ever.

One of our staff, Richard Bale, belongs to a large model railroad club in Southern California that has many members under 40. That means they were born after 1980 now! The most popular era among that group? Steam-to diesel transition. When asked why, the answer most often given is ... I like steam or that’s the most fascinating time for railroads.

It’s like military modeling. WWII remains the most popular era, even though most never ever saw the prototypes in active service. These days, the younger generation spends a lot of their life viewing media — and if it’s cool on media, then that’s enough to generate a strong interest in the prototypes.

they were born after 1980

It just goes to show that many people don't think like we (I) do.  While I can understand the interesting aspects to transition era, I am still not drawn to it, nor was I when i was in the under 40 crowd. 

But that should give the "hobby is dying as old people age out" crowd something to chew on.

So the relevant question here is, is this crowd funded project going to reach those people.  With only 4% of goal reached and 3 weeks to go, it's looking like a long shot.

is this crowd funded project going to reach those people

" is this crowd funded project going to reach those people?"

Well, the answer seems to be obvious. The prototype cars proposed are indeed interesting ones for people modelling this era. But as prof K. said, the project in described in the most obscure words, even for modelers familiar with this era boxcars. A wall of text, going too far into minute details await you instead of attractive 3D rendering of said cars. Many boxcar variations are proposed, but about two or three at best are shown with historic pictures. Some cool pictures to share online would have helped a lot.

The second point is the word didn't get out at all. If you're are doing crowd funding, you've got to have a presence on social media. Talk about the projects on popular podcasts, be active on relevant platforms and groups. I feel the approach in this regard was a little bit parochial even if the nuts and bolts of the projects seem to be done rather well. Given the time limit and number of backers, it seems the proponent's circle of friends have already pledged their money. It would be unlikely to fill 95% of required investment in less than a couple of weeks.

That said, I don't believe this project would mean crowd funding as no future for model railroading. Given Joe's stats about young people's interest in the transition era, it should work well if the word goes out... which seems didn't. But it raises a relevant question... when trying to reach younger folks with social media, maybe teams such as Prototype Junction would do themselves a favor to have such young peoples handle that aspect of public relations. In that regards, we are ourselves products of our era and we can't keep on with and on...

As for liking only what existed in your own life, it's a little bit restricting the human intelligence. Most people are attracted by what they didn't now. It has a mystic era. Why the most popular video games are mainly inspired by medieval tropes and not current ones? Maybe the connection is completely lost, that's sure. And what we see is no longer the reality but a far-fetched re-imagination of the thing, but it still survives. Steam locomotives are fascinating and the era too, I don't expect the interest dying soon at all.

So, at the end of the day, crowd funding must speak to the crowd. And I feel this current project, even if well-managed in the design department, underestimated how their present on social media would have helped a lot. Also, maybe the project in itself is far too complicated for a first try. I wish them this experiment, succesful or not, will be an occasion to learn and be ready to continue proposing projects.

I sincerely wish them the best.

"Historical experience"

For a very large segment of model railroaders the hobby is a "historical experience". This is why the transition era is so popular and why earlier time are growing in popularity.

No.

I'm interested in these cars, but I'm not going to back a crowdfund campaign. I have no clue who you are and you have no actual product to show. I've seen too many of these crowdfunding campaigns go through and the person making the item run off with the cash. It happens in the video game world and table top community fairly often. Also people like me don't like to throw money into a pit and wonder if it went somewhere. Why not make resin models? It can be done cheaper than 250k and you wouldn't need a factory to do it. This is destined to fail because it's too ambitious. You don't just jump into the RTR world for niche short run products.

My personal philosophy has

My personal philosophy has long been, "Do not gamble if you cannot afford to lose." At my point in my life I cannot afford to lose so I will not "invest" my money in such an adventure. Besides, I have all of the freight cars I need and then some. I will be selling or trading models in the future.

Jim

...

Quite frankly put, the big manufacturers have been crowdfunding through the pre-reservation model since the 2000s...and it works well for them.

With one large difference

There is one large difference: The end customer doesn't have to pay the item up-front with the reservation.
Regards, Volker

Hello from Prototype Junction

This seems like as good a place to jump into the discussion as any.

To start, I'll introduce myself - I'm Randy Hammill, and one of the two guys behind Prototype Junction. We greatly appreciate your perspective and ideas, along with the rest of the posts in this thread. While I've been involved in manufacturing model trains for about a decade, this is a new approach, born both of necessity and because it has worked so well in other hobbies and we think it will for model railroading too.

I'm available to answer any questions folks have as we work through this first project. I admit that I often have the tendency to say too much, even when I edit things down, because I try to answer all the questions up front. I'll try to keep this concise, and I'll answer other questions as they come up.

Description

Very interesting thoughts, and I'll have to see how I can correct that. We struggled with just what to call the project as a whole, because there are really two core aspects to it. One is the ATSF Bx-11, -12, and -13 class single sheathed box cars, and we originally focused on that. But it doesn't describe the fact that we are also doing auto cars that share a similar design, but aren't of that road or class. I figured the pictures and descriptions would make things clearer. It appears I may have some work to do...

Many of the minute details are specifically because the modelers we think that will most appreciate these cars are those that care about the minute details being correct for each prototype, rather than us making a car that's either generic, or correct for one prototype, and simply repainted for similar prototypes. On the flip side, we didn't want the page to be any longer by including pictures of all the different ends, roofs, and other specific details. We will elaborate on all of those things on our blog, however.

Getting the Word Out

We were in the Announcements of the current MRH, and we been posting in multiple groups on Facebook, numerous forums online (where we are allowed to announce a new product, which many forums and groups restrict), and were at Prototype Rails in Cocoa Beach, and at the Amherst Railroad Hobby Show this weekend where there were more than 20,000 people present. While there we did an interview with Otto Vondrak, the editor for RMC, and sat down with Lionel Strang of A Modeler's Life podcast, although I'm not sure when he'll post that. I was also on Crew Call with Mike Rose last week. 

What we are finding, though, is that despite all that, there doesn't seem to be a central place where we can make such an announcement, and/or not as many people are seeing them as we thought would in the places we have. The challenge with social media like Facebook is that posts can come and go fairly quickly. So we continue to work that because this is by far the most important aspect of the project.

Getting the Pledges

This, of course, is the biggest challenge, and one we anticipated. It is a different approach, and it's also clear that it's misunderstood too. That's expected since it's new.

It's similar to pre-orders, although most companies don't require money up front. That's more common for things like brass models. However, it's not uncommon for dealers to require a deposit, and that has it's own risks for different reasons.

Risks

Yes it is a risk to pledge. The initial risk is addressed by using IndieGoGo, since we don't have access to the money unless we fully fund the project. If not, they refund it automatically. 

The long-term risk is that we fail to deliver the products for whatever reason. In the crowdfunding world, this tends to happen for one reason, with a few exceptions.

he primary reason is that the Creator doesn't have the expertise in what they are attempting to do, and they run out of money before they can complete the project. Sometimes they are able to complete part of the project, but not all of it.

The reason we will not move forward unless we fully fund the project, is that the number one reason why projects I've been involved with have been delayed or failed is that they run out of money. It's often due to a reliance of one project generating enough cash flow to fund the next. I have no interest in attempting a project without having the entire funding available at the start. There are far too many things that can interrupt cash flow, so it's either have the money first, or we don't do it. Our responsibility is to ensure that if we raise the capital, that the models are delivered no matter what. Having the full funding up front is the only way I can think of to do that.

There have been a few crowdfunded projects that failed because the Creator(s) was dishonest and simply took the money. While trying to recover money from a project that failed after they did their best to make it happen, and simply ran out of money has not been successful, there have been multiple cases where those engaging in criminal (take the money and run) campaigns have been successfully taken to court. As they should.

--

In our opinion, and I have no idea if this is shared with other Creators, we are not entitled to any money from the project until after we deliver the models to the Backers. 

We think crowd funding is part of the future of the model railroad hobby, just as 3D printing has taken hold. We hope we'll be one of the first (there have been several in the UK/Europe), not because we're special, but because we think it makes sense. Aside from that, it's currently the only way we're able to manufacture model trains. 

Yes, we're asking for some faith on the part of the modelers to jump in with $47 or more to help us do it. We see this as a community thing, and that community includes those that choose not to participate as well. We're happy to answer any questions and want to be as transparent as we can through the process. You can go through the twelve years or so of my blog (http://newbritainstation.com) to see my approach to things.

I was an active member of Joe Fugate's blog for some time before he launched MRH, and we had a lot of email discussions regarding that too. We've met a couple of times in person, but he probably remembers me primarily as a guy who sent him an MRC Prodigy so he could test and experiment with it during the many discussions about the merits of various systems on his old blog, as well as numerous discussions and helping develop the approach of using CVMW tie strips as a template for handlaying turnouts. My partner John doesn't have a blog or large online presence, so you won't be able do the same for him.

If I haven't addressed any questions, thoughts, ideas, concerns, etc., just ask. Shoot me a PM. Or an email. Or on the forum here or elsewhere. We don't expect everybody to participate, although we'd love to hear why you choose not to if you don't. But we're looking for the group of folks that are willing to try something new, have some faith in us, and what we're trying to accomplish, and won't have to subsist on mac'n'cheese to participate. 

Thanks -

Randy

--

I've signed on for a "package"

I've jumped on the funding by signing up for a four car "package" from a Groups IO list that I belong to.  IF this flies, and I certainly hope it does, I will get access to a bunch of cars that fit my modeling era perfectly (1952), and will be very high quality. I can purchase additional cars at this price if I choose.  I'm sure I will.

Here is Prototype Junction's web site if you want to read more about the people, the company, and the project: 

https://www.prototypejunction.com/

I do not know the individuals personally, but they are known to, and have the backing of, several people whose modeling I have followed for years.  I'm quite fine risking a minimal amount of funds to see if these projects can get off the ground. 

Regards,

Jerry Zeman

Quite frankly put, the big

Generally so, although it also requires the company to have the cash to fund the project up front.

There are many projects that are cancelled due to lack of orders, or worse, leave the company with a significant amount of inventory. That's generally not a good thing, because ties up money that is often needed for the next project, and that can easily snowball (especially when combined with delays for later projects).

It all depends on the company, and their financial strength and their ability to absorb such an event/loss.

Randy

This isn’t a test

This is in response to the post by @prof_klyzer

This isn’t a test, nor was the original post associated with Prototype Junction or our project.

He was asking what the group thought of our idea of crowd funding freight cars. Specifically, our first project that is under way.

—

In response to some of your more specific comments:

I’m not sure how else to describe our project in one line. They are single sheathed box and auto cars. i can try to add “composite” to the title of the project, but I think we are already at the character limit, and “composite” doesn’t differentiate it from any other single sheathed box cars. They happen to be of a Pratt truss design, which was a less common design used at the time (most were Howe truss). I don’t expect everybody else to know that, of course, but I can’t think of another option right now. But you can learn more by checking out our site. The pictures pretty much cover it.

As for the best era to choose, we started with these because while they were built from 1929-1931, they ran in significant quantities into the ‘60s, and a number of them even into the ‘70s. So it just sneaks into pre-depression era modelers, all the way to the post-steam era. In addition, the number of variations increased in time, with 16 different options from this project if you model 1950 to at least the mid-‘60s.

Accurate single sheathed cars are very underrepresented in plastic, yet instantly stand out in trains because of their construction. Some of the rebuilt cars are even easier to spot because of the modifications that were made. So this looked to us to be a very solid option for a first project with a reasonably wide appeal. 

Since I don’t have any experience with the modern rolling stock, it’s tough for me to pick such a prototype. We hope that once we’ve completed our first project that we can help somebody knowledgeable in a letter era produce a project of their own.

—

So I’m not sure the original poster is concerned about the number of folks reading the thread, he was just wondering what you all thought about us.

As for us, we aren’t interested in, nor conducting a test. We’ve already spent a lot of time and money getting to the point where we are ready to move forward with our project, should we secure the funding. 

Randy

Needs more time.

I think ultimately trying to raise a quarter of a million dollars in 30 or so days is unfeasible. Most campaigns that I have seen that have tried to raise such large amounts took years. A lot of us have money tied up in other preorders etc. This campaign happening as we are coming off all the holiday seasons makes it worse, as alot of us are tapped out of cash. It would be months before I could donate to a project such as this and I'm sure it's the same way with a lot of others. I want this to succeed, but the price point and the slim time limit makes it almost impossible. While I'm sure those involved in the project put months or years into research (which is hard work) there is no actual product to be shown. We need a demo product, or a mock up or something physical. 3D renderings, drawings or anything else just won't do it. Especially if there is a slim possibility that this could fail and we wouldn't get our money back. The deadline needs to be extended at the very least.

Needs more time.

All good thoughts, Skeleton - 

Time

We debated the amount of time to allocate quite a bit. Both Kickstarter and IndieGoGo have limits on the amount of time you can choose, and with IndieGoGo it's a maximum of 60 days. According to their research, shorter periods have a better success rate, with 30 days being 80% more likely to fund than 60 days for some reason. They used to allow 90 days, but found the success rate was very low, so they dropped it.

We don't even begin to think that we'll have this type of success, but many of the RPG and board game projects fund in 24 hours, and the last one I participated in raised $2.5 million (of $75,000 needed) within that 30 days.

The basic concept behind the funding approach is that either you want it or you don't, and the sense of urgency that creates is supposed to help drive the project. Having said that, as I mentioned before we're finding that getting the word out has been tougher than we expected. So a longer period might help address that issue. Regardless, due to the terms of the platform, 60 days is the maximum.

Timing

Yes, it's coming off the holiday season, but that didn't seem to make much of a difference at the Springfield show (and never does). I can certainly understand that folks may not have the free cash, though. The main reason for launching now was that we knew we could be in front of 20,000 people at the Springfield show, and can't think of any better opportunity at any other time of the year, two weeks after Prototype Rails at Cocoa Beach, which is our target audience of prototype modelers.

While our price is among the higher priced models, it's not the most expensive and $47 isn't much more than a tank of gas for many of us. That's not trivial, but it seems doable.

Regardless, the price is what the price has to be to make the project viable. We knew we would have to offer discounts, so the average price is lower than the $50 SRP, and lowering the price would significantly increase the minimum number of units to make the project viable.

But our average pledge so far is about $150, which seems to indicate that our attempt to put together a project where folks would want multiple cars seems to be working. Only 5 people have opted for only a single car. On the other hand, you may be quite right and we're missing a lot more single car orders.Time will tell.

Samples

Since the tooling is tens of thousands of dollars, there is no way to have a sample until we fund. That's no different than any other project, so it's always a question of how much money a company chooses (or can) spend before they make their announcement. Some are fortunate enough (and confident enough in their choice of prototype) to fund the project all the way to delivery before making their announcement. Until I win the Powerball, that's not an option for us.

But we did have samples at Springfield of earlier projects that were produced at the same factory to show the quality of the work that they are capable of. It's a factory I've worked with on many projects in the last decade. That's the best we can do prior to the funding of the project.

IndieGoGo holds the money, we don't have access to it unless we fully fund. If we don't make that goal, then it's automatically refunded. So then it's a question of whether a Backer feels that we've done our homework and will be able to produce the project as promised without running out of money.

--

We appreciate your desire to see us succeed, and totally understand that it may not fit your budget right now. We already have several dealers who have pledged as well and, assuming we fund, you can always choose to order a car after we do have physical samples to show.

In the end, we've done everything we could think of to give the project the best opportunity to succeed, and at some point we had to pull the trigger and move ahead. That doesn't mean we were right or thought of everything, and we really appreciate the insight of others. We'll continue to make adjustments and try to address the concerns that you and others raise.

Thanks again!

Randy

Too Niche Perhaps?

Randy,

I have just jumped in on your project, but more because I want to see this funding model succeed, rather than because I really am interested in these prototypes. I have seen a lot of these campaigns succeed for other fandoms (especially independent comics and professional fan films), but I think this new (to model railroading at least) funding model is a tough sell for many reasons, some of which have been already discussed, but not all.

The one thing that I have not seen mentioned specifically is that in addition to this being the first time out for anyone in model railroading using this funding model, to most of us, you are a new name/player in the market. Because of that, trust has not been established yet, and this funding model is very reliant on trust that the organizer will come through. For most of the campaigns I have seen succeed, it was being run by someone who already had a name in the fandom. Unfortunately, background work at companies doesn't exactly translate here unless the company had put your name out there prominently in its media (Rapido's spotlight on many of its employees is a good example of this). You certainly had to start somewhere, but to better appeal to a broad base of modelers and to develop name recognition, I would have suggested starting with a more mass produced prototype. One that covers more than 6 road names and one that more model railroaders can see running on their pikes. Then, with a successful campaign under your belt, you could have moved on to more niche products like this.

In a similar vein, another route would have been to determine a prototype that younger modelers, who may be more familiar with IndeGogo campaigns, would gravitate to, again just as a first time out model for your company. I am sure joef has a better feel for stats like this than anyone on this forum, but for myself, I just know that I have found few modelers around my age (I am only in my late 20's) that would be interested in the prototypes you chose, especially in bulk numbers like you need. 

From what I know of the hobby's history, it has been resistant to change on many fronts over the years, and it often took a long time for solutions to complicated problems to catch on. DCC is probably the easiest example of this. However, once it took hold with bigger names in the model railroading world and press, it became fairly standard.

I believe that this funding model can and should be a solution to getting niche prototypes like the ones you started with on the market, but without you and your company having name recognition, or much planned advertising running during your campaign, I fear it will not be able to succeed this time around with such a niche prototype.

-John F.

It may be the models chosen.

I just heard about this funding thing today, and even though I have zero interest in the model they wish to make, I still wish them all the luck in the world to be a big success! That said, I wonder where the total might be had the model chosen been something with a broader appeal; something that a lot of people would buy several of?  Not to say steam era is not a good thing, as all markets with "US OLDER" modelers is definitely shrinking, my contention was to raise big money on the initial project, get it made fast and sell a bunch and use the generated capital to build the less popular or more rare prototypes that the principles are obviously interested in. That is my only question really. I voiced this on FB and was told they had a different business model in mind, my idea was old school so I stopped participating until I saw a question about box cars using Transco siding in their construction. Not that I'd think these cars were a good first choice either, but that is the direction that the FB group is moving in. CHEERS!

The Models Chosen

Hi, there -

We actually spent a lot of time debating what models would be the best option for the first project, and thought that single sheathed cars, being very under-represented, but very visible, would be a great starting point. The raised roof variations are quite distinct, a ATSF is generally a very good seller, and the auto cars aren’t even available in brass or resin. We expected the PM/C&O cars to have a wide appeal as well. That appears to have been true for the PM cars, not as much for the C&O cars. The other one with the most interest has been L&N.

The fact that the cars ran from 1929-‘60s, and in some cases the ‘70s, also widens the appeal considerably. We do also have to work with what we know best, and my library/expertise largely ends at about 1955 in terms of freight cars. For the prototypes we chose, the widest variety of cars on the road were 1950-mid ‘60s where there were 17 variations of these cars in interchange. Other potential products seemed much more niche.

I think the Transco sides cars are quite interesting, and the reality is that should we get the funding, we wouldn’t need that much more to add them to the project. Right now, obviously, we aren’t close. So we’re working on some adjustments to see what we can do.

While I wouldn’t call myself famous, I do have a lot of visitors to my site, which I’ve been writing for over a decade at http://newbritainstation.comand still find it interesting how many people approach me about that. I’ve also been producing and writing most of the stuff at True Line Trains for the last decade as well. Obviously we had a bigger name in Canada but our MP-36s were popular across the country. And I was the prominent one since I did most of the writing/promotion. But I’ve also found that the hobby is surprisingly regional in regard to their knowledge and recognition of smaller companies (and more folks seem to recognize our old name of Life Like of Canada that TLT).  The fact that we haven’t shipped anything in several years doesn’t help (lack of cash flow). But it’s not my company, and I don’t get to call the shots as they say. One of several reasons I was ready to try something new.

Anyway, we really appreciate the input, and we are taking all the suggestions seriously as we try to tweak the approach.

Stay tuned!

Randy