Having experienced the era when the music industry shifted from analog to digital, I can tell you that what you're hearing now out of cell phones and ear buds is markedly different from what was originally recorded by the artist. In just a few years, we've gone from relatively high-quality sound to "just good enough," and increasingly, it isn't.

A unique response to this has been created by an award-winning team of professional recording producers and engineers, that have tackled the issue on the TV side with their product, AfterMaster TV.

It is designed to bring out the dialogue in movies and TV shows, and keep the other audio sounding fantastic. It also reduces the volume of those commercials, that seem to be getting louder and louder all the time - which keeps you from having to fiddle with the remote every time one comes on.

My guest on this episode is Larry Ryckman, who utilized Kickstarter to gather a little market research and feedback on his product prior to locking in the design specs. He also sings the praises of BackerClub (featured in episode 10), which has been responsible for 10% of his total backers to date.

With popular waterways and marinas getting more and more crowded, there's a move toward getting out into more remote lakes, rivers and streams. The issue with these is the lack of launching facilities and infrastructure, and getting your boat into these off-road areas in the first place.

Today's campaign might just be the first crowdfunded boat! It's called the Flycraft Stealth, and it's specifically designed to be transported in the bed of a pickup truck, or in the trunk of a small car (no trailers!). At 98 lbs., it can be carried by one or two people, and it's strength and maneuverability allow you to explore extremely shallow and remote waterways.

In this episode, I speak with Ben Scribner, who is the creator of the Flycraft Stealth, about how he took his life-long passion for boating onto Kickstarter to create a successful 6-figure campaign.

One of the great things about crowdfunding is the disruption. If there is a better way to design or make something, crowdfunding entrepreneurs will be the first to get out there and really re-think the current state of things and come up with a better solution.

On today's show, we're featuring an innovative product from a couple of veteran advertising executives that totally disrupts the existing niche. It's a fresh take on the travel pillow, called the BullRest. It's not only 80% smaller than traditional travel pillows, but is also designed to provide much better support for your vertebrae and head, and its sleek lines and form-factor are more reminiscent of a Ferrari versus a mini-van.

Listen in as founder Sean O'Meara describes how his partnerships with Carlsbad, CA design firm, MindFlow Design, Seattle manufacturer, RAM Technologies, as well as crowdfunding social media experts BackerClub and Funded.Today, helped him and his business partner, Glenn Maddocks, design and create the potentially game changing product they're bringing to market through Kickstarter.

Sometimes, a message is best delivered through pen and paper. Whether it's a simple note, or a fancy illustration, a tangible expression often stands apart in these days of overflowing inboxes.

Our guest on today's episode met his co-founder while studying for his PhD at Colorado State, and while their colleagues were focused on more industrial uses for the cutting-edge bio-technology they were working on, Scott Fulbright and Steve Albers saw a more whimsical application (not unlike a modern day Chia Pet!).

Their product is called Living Ink - the world's first time-lapse bio ink, which allows you to create invisible drawings and messages that reveal themselves over a period of days. I can see a ton of potential uses for this technology, including character licensing and greeting cards, and it looks like they've received great attention in the press, as is evidenced by the mentions they've received from the likes of ABC, TED, The Huffington Post, GizMag, and more.

Listen in as Scott Fulbright talks about how their Kickstarter video (produced by v3 Media Marketing), was instrumental in getting the press attention that helped make their campaign a success.

We're seeing more and more crowdfunding creators utilizing a global structure for their businesses - just as the major players do. Design and development in one country, manufacturing in another, and sales and marketing in yet another. Our guest today has built such a structure, and it's worked for him across 4 Kickstarter campaigns.

The product is the Vis Hummer, and it's the third iteration of a flashlight-based power bank, that you can use to charge all your mobile devices, as well as jumpstart your car!

The campaign is fully funded, but was not without hiccups, as you'll hear in this episode how Kickstarter suspended his campaign based on someone flagging it as selling an existing product - which Kickstarter does not allow.

Listen in as my guest, Derek Saldsman, tells how he was able to provide Kickstarter with all the documentation necessary to prove he truly created an original product, and was able to get the campaign reinstated and fully funded. He also utilized ShipStation to handle shipping logistics for his products, allowing them to be fulfilled on-time to customers all over the world.

When my guest on today's episode asked me why I picked his product (The Hologram Pyramid) to feature on the show, I realized it was due to 2 things:

I'd recently seen a commercial display at Best Buy that used this same technology, and it was absolutely captivating - with a life-like almost 3-D holographic image.

His "percentage funded" on Kickstarter was 163,400% - something I'd never seen before or since.

The creator I interview on this episode, Joe Yatsko, was excited to tell me that he'd recently received calls from a number of "big" companies, regarding implementing his Hologram Pyramid technology. So, I knew that aside from me seeing it first hand at Best Buy, this was something that was very interesting. He also partnered with BackerClub, to help boost the number of backers for his product.

This product allows you to create holographic (3-D looking) images that appear to float in mid-air. A previous version was designed for smartphones, and this campaign is for the tablet version.

Regarding the second point, I had never seen a funding goal exceeded by such a huge percentage on Kickstarter, and was intrigued to hear how Joe was able to pull this off -

Learn how he did it in this episode...

Crowdfunding is definitely a personally-inspired environment. Nowhere else in the world of goods and services do you see more products being created from the personal needs of their creators. Many of these creators tend to be engineers, and engineers like to make things that serve their own needs. It's when these creators decide to make their inventions available to the community at large, we start to see success from the best of them.

My guest today is the perfect example. Garrett Lommatsch is an engineer from Montana, who moved to Utah, and found that he and his roommates needed tough outdoor gear. They decided that nothing was tougher than seatbelt-type, mil-spec nylon webbing, so Garrett took it upon himself to sew (yes, he sews!) a gear bag made exclusively from this webbing and super-tough YKK zippers.

He launched his first Kickstarter campaign with this bag, called the "Alpha," and he saw enough success from it to launch his second campaign, featuring the "Gravity" and "Grendel" duffel bags, which is the subject of this week's episode.

Listen in as Garrett describes how he set out to build the best bag he could, using locally sourced materials and labor, and is creating a high-quality brand (Draggin Bags), one bag at a time.

You've already got an iPhone, with its high-grade camera and its expansive touchscreen/viewfinder. Why spend another $500+ on an "action cam," that doesn't have all the features you're already carrying with you?

That's the question that inspired Andrew Laird and his partners to design and create a super-tough, multi-mountable, waterproof case for the iPhone 6 and 6s, that pretty much turns it into a GoPro.

The ProShot Case is waterproof to 90 feet, and comes with an app that allows you to operate the camera functions from the volume buttons (it also includes a touchscreen back, which allows full touchscreen functionality to a depth of 6 feet. It's also priced at under $100 on Kickstarter, which makes it just slightly more expensive than a typical phone case and about 5 times less costly than a GoPro.

Check out today's episode, to hear how Andrew's unique Instagram strategy allowed his team to reach far more Instagram users than would a traditional approach.

It's the little things that add up in life - the number of cups of coffee you drink every year, the number of times you brush your teeth, etc. What if you could skip one a repetitive task in the name of comfort and efficiency? Well, maybe you can...

Our product today is the Xpand Lacing System - which is an aesthetically-styled set of elastic laces that allows you to never have to tie your shoes again! The laces come in a ton of colors, and look just like regular laces, but allow you to set and lock in the fit for everyday comfort, without the hassles of having your laces come loose.

My guest  in this episode is Charles Harris, a serial entrepreneur, who has launched 5 previous Kickstarter campaigns. The Xpand campaign has secured more than 25,000 backers, who have contributed more than $735,000, with 4 days left to go in the campaign, making it one of the most successful campaigns on Kickstarter.

Listen in as Charles describes how he partnered with Pillar Product Design to help design and execute his vision, and also with Funded.Today, to handle the social media side of his campaign. He's got some very valuable insight into running campaigns and offers a story about a previous product he discovered was potentially hazardous, and how he was able to directly and honestly communicate with his backers, resulting in a successful pivot, which led to the launch of his most recent success.

Picking the right partners can be the difference between a straightforward path to success and a disastrous time/money sinkhole. On today's show, I speak with Jeremy Wall, who founded his company Lumenus to bring advanced LED lighting technology to active wear - providing safety, style and utility to motorcyclists, bicyclists and runners all over the world.

The thing that sets apart Jeremy's products are their ability to pair with smart devices. By using the smart device's onboard GPS and accelerometer technology, Lumenus products automatically signal turns, braking and visibility flashing at intersections.

What sets Jeremy's company apart from many others is his partnership with Outdoor Tech - one of the Inc. magazine's 10 Fastest Growing Companies in Los Angeles - which enabled him to immediately scale by tapping into their product manufacturing and press/marketing expertise, resulting in reduced time and labor factors, and a successful Kickstarter campaign that will surely see follow-on products to the Lumenus line.

Be sure to listen in as Jeremy relates how he used a creative business tactic to attract the attention of non-profits (and their email lists), by creating an affiliate structure with them that put dollars into their coffers, and made customers out of their donors.