Unagi throws in the towel on his $700,000 Model Eleven scooter Indiegogo campaign

345 backers have dipped into their pockets to the tune of over $700,000, but the scooter they supported, the Model Eleven, will never see the light of day. The company offers its backers three options to compensate, including a full refund or a different model electric scooter.

Hardware can be extremely difficult - I should know, I ran a $500,000 Kickstarter project that I very publicly failed to complete - and crowdfunding projects have a dark side: manufacturing and business models never match the models you build at the beginning of a product development cycle. In the case of Unagi, the company's CEO, David Hyman, told me that he found his subscription model performed much better than his intended "build 'em then sell 'em" model. /p>

We wrote about the scooter when it was first announced.

Da vid Hyman, Co-Founder and CEO of Unagi, speaking during a panel at Micro Mobility America

"With the incredible wind in our sails around our subscription offering, and how it's working as a superior business model for us as well as consumer adoption (where our daily subscriber count wins out of our 20 to 1 sales), the Model Eleven, the price of a subscription would have been prohibitive for hardware adoption,” Hyman told me in an email. “We always viewed the Eleven as a project low-margin enthusiast that we would only sell direct, not through retailers. But since we don't think it will work under subscription at this high price, we've made the very difficult decision to discontinue it." /p>

The company offers its backers three choices to satisfy them, which shows that the company cares deeply about its customers (and its reputation). The company's Indiegogo backers have backed the project with an average of around $2,000 each. They have the choice between:

A full refund A 3-year All-Access subscription to the Model One Voyager, with choice of colors, guaranteed new scooter and theft insurance included. The scooter arrives in November. One month before the official release. (Valued at $2,412) Two Voyager scooters to own, including its standard one-year warranty. (Valued at $2,390)

Indiegogo backers can expect to receive an email today from the company outlining the options above.