My knife design [ pics ] - is it worth to start a Kickstarter?

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Liberty_Knives

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Hello friends,
I had designed an automatic folding knife as a hobby project and now am thinking if it would be a good idea to make some prototypes and start a Kickstarter campaign...
What do you think - is it a worthy design or is the market already saturated with such knifes? If so, what kind of a knife you would like to see, what kind of a knife would you back on kickstarter?

Thanks!

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Looked up EX-A01, yes, looks pretty much similar. :(
I had placed the safety on the back of the knife so it won't snag on anything and get disarmed by accident.
 
TRfromMT said:
Due to the limited audience for anything automatic, my guess is a Kickstarter campaign will struggle to fully fund. Purely a guess.
Click to expand...
I was thinking the other way, i.e. that an automatic might be an interesting novelty, that people might be interested in just playing with its mechanism, opening and closing it.
 
Please don't even think of a kickstarter unless you are sure that you have the skill set and capabilities to get a finished and fully working product into peoples hands in a timely fashion. Manufacturing and running a business is far more complex than being able to create CAD drawings.
 
Pomsbz said:
Please don't even think of a kickstarter unless you are sure that you have the skill set and capabilities to get a finished and fully working product into peoples hands in a timely fashion. Manufacturing and running a business is far more complex than being able to create CAD drawings.
Click to expand...
I did work with manufacturers in China on previous occasions. I am sure I can get this one done, too. At this point I am trying to understand if there would be enough market demand for such design...
 
Local laws against auto knives might impact the ability of your Kickstarter to win broad appeal. Do you have an idea on blade length for you project? That could have an impact also on potential market areas.
 
I would buy your knife and not look back. For one, it's an automatic that doesn't look like a stiletto. I like the way the spine of the knife smoothly segues into the handle, and the jimping is perfect for applying your thumb.

What were your thoughts on the alloy for the blade?
 
Does the prototype have to be metal?

If your first goal is to get a working model put together, you could try talking to one of these outfits that 3D prints things to-order.

I don't know how that works, but you should be able to find one that can translate your design directly to plastic. Such a service is not likely to be cheap, but this is not the sort of thing you want to rush in to.

Kickstarter is for challenge coins and other side projects, once you have name recognition. You send people to KS, from your website, and that's where you park things like moral patches, custom standoffs and backspacers, pocket clips, and so on.
 
You may run into import issues with auto knives, I'm not sure.

This is less an engineering issue and more of a business issue. Honestly a decent Kickstarter campaign seems to be not too hard to get funded for a halfway decent design. Kickstarter is full of knives, most of which I would consider fairly low end, but which still fund fully. The problem is - can you design, produce, and deliver in the Kickstarter timeframe? Can you scale to match your success? Do you know what your breakeven point is?
 
This looks decent, but there are just way too many variables to 'predict' anything. You could try keyword search in Kickstarter about knife projects, there are about 500+ of them and after browsing first 100-200, I still haven't seen an auto project.(Not saying you can't be the first...), and most majority seems unfunded.

Unless there is something truly unique about the design/material/price, and it is from a reputable knife maker. I doubt the interest will be there since Auto is more complicated, and backers will worry about prompt delivery, issues and warranty.
 
hiya! so you say that you require
a start up funding?! great!
so now i m just trying to understand
what exactly is there with this knife
(besides its design) which makes it
far unique and different from
what is already available in the market
that it should warrant a mass manufacture?
as i understand it, the aim of
any investment is to hopefully
see some eventual pay off.
 
GIRLYmann said:
hiya! so you say that you require
a start up funding?! great!
so now i m just trying to understand
what exactly is there with this knife
(besides its design) which makes it
far unique and different from
what is already available in the market
that it should warrant a mass manufacture?
as i understand it, the aim of
any investment is to hopefully
see some eventual pay off.
Click to expand...
It's not even an investment. Kickstarters are akin to taking donations in the hope that you will be able to give donors back something at a later date.

What OP should be doing is meeting with some established OEM and seeing if anyone will take up his design and agree to a licensing deal. The problem is, this just looks like any other automatic knife, so there'd be little incentive for an OEM to agree to produce it.
 
I would worry about the 1) the price point and 2) the design. I don't see much that (after the fact it is an automatic) that distinguishes it from other knife designs.

It has the "banana handle" from my old Kershaw Tremor, the heavy jimping from my ZT 0909, and the blades is direct cousin to the Eafengrow EF67 Pocket Knife (look that up on the jungle site) with a little less belly. And the Eafengrow is a knock off of another well known maker already in manufacture, the name escaping me at this moment.

There are so many similar designs out there these days that I think it would be nearly impossible (nearly) to come up with some kind of new design that be considered groundbreaking or even unusual. You at least need some unusual features. I would be more like if in your shoes to make a working prototype, then shop it to a couple of manufacturers (where it would go into the cue with the hundreds of other submissions they get a year from people looking to be the next Carson/Onion/Pardue) and work on another design.

Who knows, you might even be able to find a smaller maker that doesn't have your design/drafting skills that would be interested in some of your work if you have a few designs (and working protos) to offer. That would be pretty cool!

Kudos for a really clean looking design.

Robert
 
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