Some companies use a successful Kickstarter campaign as a positive signal to attract investment. If they set a low but reasonable goal and achieve it, it is os

Some companies use a successful Kickstarter campaign as a positive signal to attract investment. If they set a low but reasonable goal and achieve it, it is ostensibly a positive signal that a market exists for whatever niche product they are building. While the capital acquired through is almost always not sufficient to fulfil the orders, investment helps to. This model fails when investment dries up and the second part of the plan does not work out. This is probably what happened to gest. They had most certainly had a working prototype and were definitely not vaporware in the true sense of the word. It could be that the only way to create a market for such a product is through an inferior product and less creative founders who have had successful exits in the past and can self fund.