I explained Kickstarter to a friend recently:

Friend: "So you don't actually get a share in their company?"

Me: "That's right. You're just proving that the thing they're proposing to make is worth making."

Friend: "And they're contractually obliged to manufacture that thing within a certain timeframe, right?"

Me: "Well, no, not really. The timeline they propose in their pitch is more of a best-case scenario."

Friend: "I see. So let's say they build the thing you're paying for on time. If they become the next Apple down the line, the warm fuzzy feeling for knowing that you helped to 'kickstart' them is enough for you, is it?"

There's definitely a market for equity-style crowdfunding, and FundedByMe looks promising.

I tried signing up as an entrepreneur: after doing Twitter login, the modal form does nothing when I click the submit button. No waiting spinner, nothing from the browser. Just sits there. Perhaps your back-end is getting hammered? At least give me some feedback if it's AJAX. I waited, gave up, returned to HN, and there's a pretty good chance I'll forget about the site unless it gets huge (not that I matter, but pretty sure I'm typical)

How do you get 4 points and 2 positive comments within 29 minutes of submit?

Hacker News 1st page seems reserved to orchestrated maneuvers...

(nothing against the actual post here, but just saying)

You do see the same blogs over and over on this site, so maybe. However, there are a good number of people who browse the new page, so perhaps that explains it.

How do you know that "a good number of people who browse the new page" ?

I would guess the 'new' page gets 1% of traffic compared to the Main page. So on a slow day like today, such a quick feedback looked organized... but that seems to be the way to go to get on HN I read.

I like this much better than the old one.

big step in the right direction!