Several weeks ago, Jeanne Pi of AppsBlogger did some research on the failed Kickstarter projects that are rarely mentioned among the shining successes. Her piece and the infographic that visualized the research caused quite a stir. Kickstarter came under some fire and responded by posting a statistics page, which it updates daily. Pi was also criticized, however, for taking a simplistic approach to a set of rather complex data.

Pi acknowledged her mistakes and teamed up with one of her detractors, professor Ethan Mollick of UPenn’s Wharton School, to offer a more nuanced analysis of the failed projects. The duo scraped more data, this time accounting for the size of the projects, their locations, and the network that the project founders were able to tap into. Again, the results are very interesting and insightful.

Pi and Mollick claim, for example, that only 25 percent of the products are delivered on time, and the larger the project, the higher the likelihood of it being delayed. The team only looked at Design and Technology categories, however, which have delivered some visible successes, but account for only five percent of the total number of Kickstarter projects. The research still provides a more sober look at Kickstarter and crowdfunding as a whole. The infographic visualizing Pi and Mollick’s findings is below. Let us know what you think of the research in the comments!