Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) is well-positioned to embrace the innovators and startups, according to Ross Rubin of gigaom.com. In a recent piece, Rubin describes the challenges faced by crowd funded startups in navigating through tough waters of product development, missing the estimated original shipping windows and potential risks associated with the same.
Crowd funding has helped facilitate some of the most innovative products, including Hidden Radio and Oculus Rift, which have helped lined up all new categories. However, many technological innovations like Jorno folding keyboard and AGENT smart watch have still not shipped given the delay in product development. In case of Jorno, it raised funds back in 2012 and the delay has been so profound that the product has been overtaken by radical new innovations and crowd funded competitors.
While the Kickstarter manifesto that it is not a store led to some other startups like Prelaunch.com or Crowd Supply to capitalize on the buzz crowd funding generates, they are struggling to compete with the large traffic flow of Kickstarter.
Here Rubin advocates Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) to embrace the potential opportunities underlying at the intersection of crowd funding and product development. Amazon’s affiliate model could be a natural fit for driving preorders for crowd funding companies via the social links they utilize.
Amazon could also leverage its massive audiences to seek feedback for crowd funding innovations to determine which of the original pilots shall move unto next stage of production, as it is experimenting with crowd feedback.
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)’s distribution network could also be a great fit for crowd funding products and the company could retain “exclusives” by tapping into the product innovation pipeline. The e-retailer also has unmatched experience of engineering its own products and bringing products to market. In addition, Amazon’s strong customer service reputation could also help overcome the lack of accountability on crowd funding networks.
 is well-positioned to embrace the innovators and startups, according to Ross Rubin of gigaom.com. In a recent piece, Rubin describes the challenges faced by crowd funded){kind=link}