Waydoo Kickstarter gathered $268K. Is $4K commercial eFoil realistic?

Would you share your source ?

I personally can understand why. They put lots of money and effort to make their own propulsion system and don’t want to disclose anything for now to avoid being copied.

Sure… plus KS campaign creators’ page and
https://topcarshow.com/electric-cars/waydoo-flyer-25-mph-electric-hydrofoil-surfboard-launched-at-unprecedented-price/

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Still a lot to learn about this product and brand but that sounds promising!
Flyer One has an EPS foam board and no carbon board option for now. That could explain a bit the agressive price.

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I was looking through the eFoil Facebook group and saw an interesting comment from David Trewern (Fliteboard founder) about the Pegasus eFoil:

Looks like a blatant rip off of Fliteboard unibody fuselage and Flitebox system. (Both of which are patented). The battery design is also derived from Fliteboard, and the hand controller looks like a 50/50 blend of Flite/Lift hand controller. While renders look nice, a good ride and durable system comes from endless testing and refinement.

The Waydoo eFoil is also a blatant ripoff of the Fliteboard design, so it will be interesting to see if they run into any legal trouble. I don’t know much about patents but this seems to be what David is referring to: WO2019104378A1 - Powered hydrofoil system - Google Patents

Anyone with more patent experience know if that would be enough for Fliteboard to stop sales of the new Waydoo unit?

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While I respect David’s work, I would like to underline the fact that unibody fuselage is far from being a Flite concept “as it”…

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Correct. Evolo was the first efoil with unibody fuselage in 2009, followed by Don Montague who’s first prototypes were also unibody. That was way before David and I got our DIY experiments going.

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Most patents are not worth their money and are easy to circumvent.
The only ones earning from patents are lawyers.

Greetings Frank

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What I wanted from this thread was to check the credibility of this Kickstarter campaign before pledging any money. Kickstarter does not issue refunds and does not guarantee you will get anything from campaign owners.

First, I reached out to Kevin Wade, the “verified” creator of this Kickstarter campaign, via Facebook asking to confirm he was indeed related to this project. I got no reply.

Then, I emailed to https://www.waydootech.com asking whether I can buy 2 boards directly from them via PayPal. I got a reply from CEO explaining that their business PayPal account will be ready by late July, and meanwhile he offered me to wire $9K to an account in China. I replied, insisting on paying via PayPal or any major CC, to get at least some buyer protection. Also, I offered to pick up the board in person from their distribution center in Charleston, SC. I got no reply.

I still hope this is not a scam and wish them good luck delivering a commercial $4K efoil with decent quality.

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Doesn’t sound like this is going to end well…

Ive seen some of Waydo’s gear in the shop. I think Waydo will produce an OK product at an OK price. You get what you pay for and the waydos Ive seen are not a premium product.

However, I would never ever purchase one on the Kickstarter platform! No accountability!

For what I understand … eu reseller:
No more money to put in Efoil for the moment ( but in my house ) otherwise I would have give it a try …

http://flyingfishfoils.eu/product/waydoo-flyer

I´ve seen the waydoo one as well. The board is EPP soft construction which does not look as glossy as carbon fibre, but in my opinion it has to big advantages
+super lightweight
+durable (the dealer even let it drop to the floor from 50cm on concrete… Nothing happened. The foam edge went in about 1cm and got back to original shape (teh material looks to me like the one used on protector vests)
The rest of the efoil is high quality in my opinion, Electronic looks a bit like DJI engineered and it is set together in 2minutes out of the board bags…That is super cool!

yes the above shop in Amsterdam/netherlands www.flyingfishfoils.eu has it for demo and the german distributor www.waydoo.one has it already as well for demo.

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I must admit I never bought anything on Kickstarter:
1 - are Kickstarter and Paypal incompatible ?
2 - are the Kickstarter pledgers usually considered as beta testers ? A price discount in exchange for a (limited) Kickstarter warranty ?

Other questions since late July will be two weeks after the KS campaign end.
3 - why could be the reasons why a South Carolina so a US registered company could not open a PayPal account in a few minutes, hours, days ?
4 - what is most feared by a company of goodwill in securing its customers’ purchase with a trusted third party ? Paypal, Credit Card…Repaying the 1.5% fee on the selling price or taking the risk of having to reimburse the customer because of a malfunctioning product ?

Kickstarter pledgers have zero rights. You give someone money and then pray that they deliver what they promised. There have been lots of high profile campaigns that raised millions of dollars and never delivered anything.

Usually people are pledging small amounts like $20 so it’s not a huge deal. Throwing $4,000+ at Kickstarter is just crazy to me. Might as well blow it all at the casino.

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I’m backer #2. Here’s how I see it:

  • They have shipped a carbon version of their eFoil - called just the “Flyer”, looks similar to Lift with a battery compartment and prop above fuselage (doesn’t look like in large quantities, but there are people using them)

  • They wanted to use the Kickstarter platform to guage pre-order interest and ramp up production. Interestingly Kickstarter takes 5% of the funds raised by July 16. Plus another 2-3% for Credit Card processing fees

  • Kickstarter doesn’t provide any guarantee - technically you have your credit card protection through it but I’m not sure how that works if the KS backer doesn’t deliver. I don’t think you can charge back

  • Waydoo is using their affiliation with DJI to build goodwill. I think this has been effective.

  • They have shipped pre-production Flyer ONE’s (EPP foam, no battery compartment, prop inline in fuselage) to various “brand ambassadors / affiliates” around the world - they are effectively the beta testers. Again some good footage of them in use out there but no long term reliability reports yet

  • Waydoo has hired a company that specializes in launching and marketing new products via crowd-funding platforms like Kickstarter. They are about to clear $1mm USD in presales in less than a week. It’s possible they’ll do $2mm by the time the campaign closes July 16.

  • You can always pledge and then cancel your pledge before the July 16 deadline if you change your mind. No money is charged to your card until then

  • Kickstarter is a gamble yes, but this is a company with a track-record. I backed a $1500 self-inflating Paddleboard on Kickstarter 3+ years ago that still hasn’t shipped widely to it’s backers. I was fortunate enough to get one of the first ones, but it has reliability issues

  • If you aren’t sure, then wait until the campaign is over and buy one at full MSRP, I suspect via a credit card with all the protection that offers. Personally I’m willing to take a bit of risk, knowing it has a 1 year warranty (plus technically additional warranty coverage via my credit card) to hopefully receive it this season (or possibly early next if they end up having production delays…)

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Oh oh, someone needs an advocate.
It doesn’t make things more serious.
Greetings Frank

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I am backer #51. I have been following Waydoo for some time. I met the team at CES 2020 in Vegas and saw the carbon board and a prototype of the Flyer One. The team seems serious. They have been selective in choosing their partners, they have set up distribution via a 3PL company in the US and they have boards on the water. The ship date of August 2020 seems aggressive unless they already have begun production. The Kickstarter campaign clearly validates the market for a more affordable mass produced eFoil. I am optimistic and look forward to doing a full review once I receive mine hopefully in August.

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I’d be interested to read your review. Keep us posted then, thx !

I just spoke with an owner of a surf shop. He has a Fliteboard. He said he had a chance to ride the waydoo recently and stated that it’s not up to par. Plus it failed when he was riding it. He said to save your money and build one.

I’m glad my build worked out well…:call_me_hand:

Who cares about the foil? The training wheels is genius!