business is a startup venture that presumably needs seed money even for an established company. The issue becomes whether the seed money should come from banks or from "us".
I don't like pre-order uncertainty any more than anyone else (442 days and counting for my BFL order, I think), but I also don't like the idea of my ASIC supplier being under the thumb of banking interests.
If it's coming from us they should be more than capable to explain all aspects of their model/plans, much like you would if you were going to a bank for a loan or going in front of investors--they want to know what's going on to see how much risk there is vs reward. When these companies are hesitant to do that, buyers should take extra care with their decision.
Not to mention in most real-life scenarios, you're not using 100% of the crowdfunding as your required capital--it's usually part of it, or, you're limiting sales quantities the first run and only requiring partial payment from the crowd. IE get in on this big mining machine, it's retail cost is $5000. Pay $2000 now and when we're entering the final phase of building, you'll be required to remit the remainder of payment. And you constantly let folks know about milestones met. This builds trust super quickly.
I like the idea of where blackarrow is going, but they're dodging basic questions. To make claims against a competitor and then try to use the same math to put themselves in a better light, without providing the support for it, is kindof unprofessional. Directly asked about it at least 3 times, dodged all of them, dancing around the issue. That makes me wonder.
I mean if you're going to say "my system will ROI but my competitor's wont" and then someone runs the math and calls BS, you should respond to that.
The positives going for them are previous product delivery and Paypal. Bigger positive would be offering refunds like KNC does, that would overcome some issues.
I'm definitely interested but right now, this isn't a serious choice to toss money at.