In September, Jamie Siminoff and Edison Junior raised $139,170 on Kickstarter to support the creation of POP, a minimalist multi-device charging station. Today, in the largest Kickstarter refund yet, they're giving that money back.
Through an announcement posted on the site, Siminoff let backers know that the problem is with Apple's Lightning adapter. With new rules to be announced shortly, Apple is forbidding the inclusion of non-Lightning adapters alongside their newest connector. That means no micro-USB and not even the classic 30 pin iPod/iPhone adapter.
"If you promise four of something and now you deliver two it's not the same product that someone bought," Siminoff told Wired. He says that the change was too big to justify keeping their backers' money. "We didn't feel all right keeping the money anymore."
Edison Junior will refund 100 percent of the money that backers contributed, which means they are absorbing the 3 percent fee that credit cards take and Kickstarter's 5 percent cut for a total of over $11,000.
The twist is that the mechanism that Siminoff will use to refund backers' money will be through his new industrial-design-focused crowdfunding site Christie Street, which Wired covered previously. Siminoff says that Christie Street is crowdfunding redesigned from the ground up for physical products. The project-creation process involves audits before the projects launch and a system for refunding backers a portion of their funds if a project fails along the way to completion.
"Part of why we started Christie Street was our experience doing Kickstarter with POP," he says. As their licensing discussions with Apple reached an impasse, "we realized 'woah, we might have to refund the money.' There's no mechanism for that in Kickstarter."
Comments on the update were mixed. Some commenters thanked Edison Junior for being honorable. Others, who had never had any intention of connecting an iPhone 5 to the hub, expressed outrage and dismay.
Siminoff says he sees a silver lining in this cloud. First, because it's an opportunity to prove out Christie Street's refund mechanism, "selfishly this is a great way to test the system and get feedback on the system as well." Second, because it proves that people are passionate about the product. "People are pissed but they are pissed because they wanted the product. I'm happy about that."
Though Siminoff pitches Christie Street's pre-launch audits as a way of protecting consumers, he admits that they would not have been able to catch this issue. "We would not have been able to pick it up because Apple changed the rules afterward. People knew there was a new adapter but why would anyone assume that Apple would have locked it down more than the 30-pin?"
Instead, Siminoff says that they handle these kinds of risks with a clear and open refund policy (as well as the ability for backers to buy insurance on their pledges).
"I think that refunding is not a bad part of the process if it's because you have to compromise on something you promise. I'd rather see refunds happening than shitty products being built," he says, "We wanted a mechanism for customers having a expectation of what would happen if it failed."
As for Apple, Siminoff says he is disappointed in their decision. "Personally I think it's an awful on the consumer side," he says. "I understand why they make some of their harsh decisions, but limiting where the charger can be, I don't get it."
Siminoff says that given the number of people expressing a desire for the device sans Lightning connector, the team is considering revisiting the design with a more limited feature set. "The ones that are disappointed are saying 'I would take it with USB,' that's great if we are Etsy, the problem is we're making a manufactured product," he says.
One of the considerations that the team has to make is the potential of a redesigned POP at retail. "We knew retails was very excited about the current product I don't know how they'll react to an Android only device so that's what we need to figure out."
"We would have loved to have made the product," he says, "It would have been one of the few on time products on Kickstarter if this Apple stuff hadn't boiled up. Everything was ready to go."
