I’m not sure why Tindie is being compared to Kickstarter, because it is a marketplace and not a place to fund other projects. Regardless, what a fantastic idea for techie makers. “The tech cognescenti love talking about Kickstarter as a place for bootstrapping hardware projects. But the less-glamorous Tindie could prove just as important to the evolution of hardware design. Where Kickstarter is all about funding slick and shiny products that haven’t been built yet, Tindie is a straightforward marketplace for cruder devices that already exist, devices often built in small batches with limited amounts of capital. The result is a community of indie hardware makers who can feed off each other, a place that can help bootstrap a much wider revolution in hardware design.” From Wired.
Workplace Learning in the Digital Age 