Sounds awesome, but I have a few comments I'm going to braindump:
$750k seems really ambitious for a kickstarter project with such a niche audience. Is that realistic for 29 days, considering you need to sell 7500 units of the $99 pledge amount? At the end of day 7, Leapmotion had 15,000 applications for a free leap motion device and SDK, and that is a device with a much larger audience.
Do you have any investor lined up that would be willing to maybe match a Kickstarter total pledge amount of something realistic like $375k?
Have you considered approaching a fund like In-Q-Tel? This seems like the kind of project they would fund, since I imagine a lot of the best parallel computing work is being done in government-funded agencies and labs. I also imagine the government is probably the biggest employer of people working on parallel processing devices. With that in mind, getting a device like this into the hands of many, allows more people to get hands on exposure to parallel computing.
Overall, it feels like the funding strategy needs to be diversified, because I imagine it will be difficult to get $750k all from one source, with the exception of a VC fund whose thesis aligns with your goals.
Lastly, it feels like a project like this would be a bit too soon. Many developers who are playing with hardware have been playing around with the arduino for a few years, some are now graduating to the Raspberry Pi, which offers clear benefits over the Arduino because you can run tons of stuff simply not possible on the Arduino. However as the Raspberry Pi just came out, I imagine that most developers are still trying to get their hands on something like it and still don't feel the pain of trying to solve problems with it, that could only be solved with something like the parallella.
As a hobbyist, besides exploring parallel computing for its own sake, what other kinds of problems can I explore/solve with the parallella which simply wouldn't be possible on the raspberry pi? Sell a dream and possibilities here. I'm personally not familiar with what would only be possible on a parallella and I might feel more interested in this project if I know why I'd want it (besides learning pp for its own sake).
I've been seeing more Kickstarters after funding lately. I guess it's a good way to test demand and get the word out. But it feels like it's against the spirit of the thing.
I like this model. Basically if it is not funded no risk for the consumer. If it is funded the company can provide volume discount without having to give up equity via a VC. Basically you cut out the middleman (the VC or bank).
When I first saw this, my comment is wow... this looks cool. Its almost like a validation that the product ($99 development board) is a secondary function of Kickstarter.
My biggest concern is Step 2. Will the Epiphany chips be easily obtained in small quantities? I've been following the A13-OLinuXino development, an improvement (LQFP processor, open board design etc.) and a geat idea, but the Allwinner A13 chip isn't available through normal distributor channels.
$750k seems really ambitious for a kickstarter project with such a niche audience. Is that realistic for 29 days, considering you need to sell 7500 units of the $99 pledge amount? At the end of day 7, Leapmotion had 15,000 applications for a free leap motion device and SDK, and that is a device with a much larger audience.
Do you have any investor lined up that would be willing to maybe match a Kickstarter total pledge amount of something realistic like $375k?
Have you considered approaching a fund like In-Q-Tel? This seems like the kind of project they would fund, since I imagine a lot of the best parallel computing work is being done in government-funded agencies and labs. I also imagine the government is probably the biggest employer of people working on parallel processing devices. With that in mind, getting a device like this into the hands of many, allows more people to get hands on exposure to parallel computing.
Overall, it feels like the funding strategy needs to be diversified, because I imagine it will be difficult to get $750k all from one source, with the exception of a VC fund whose thesis aligns with your goals.
Lastly, it feels like a project like this would be a bit too soon. Many developers who are playing with hardware have been playing around with the arduino for a few years, some are now graduating to the Raspberry Pi, which offers clear benefits over the Arduino because you can run tons of stuff simply not possible on the Arduino. However as the Raspberry Pi just came out, I imagine that most developers are still trying to get their hands on something like it and still don't feel the pain of trying to solve problems with it, that could only be solved with something like the parallella.
As a hobbyist, besides exploring parallel computing for its own sake, what other kinds of problems can I explore/solve with the parallella which simply wouldn't be possible on the raspberry pi? Sell a dream and possibilities here. I'm personally not familiar with what would only be possible on a parallella and I might feel more interested in this project if I know why I'd want it (besides learning pp for its own sake).