How many times have you walked into a store and left underwhelmed with the options at hand? Most of us would accept the limited offerings and live with it. But, that's not the entrepreneurial response - or one that many crowdfunders would settle with.

My guest on today's show didn't settle - she went about creating a solution that solved her needs - and then looked to crowdfunding to fund the endeavor, when she found out the costs to produce one unit were prohibitive. Her name is Kate Matsudaira, and her product is called the Spark Planner, which is a follow-on to her very successful Kickstarter project, the Spark Notebook.

Listen in, as Kate tells us about some real-world issues she's had to overcome in her quest to deliver to her backers on time - like the time Amazon lost 1,000 of her already sold notebooks. Using third parties like Funded.Today (featured in Episode 009), have helped her multiply her reach and increase new backers on her second campaign. Kate is very thankful to the crowdfunding community for their support and is interested in helping fellow campaigners in any way she can.

Analytics and data are beginning to creep into our everyday lives in ways never before seen. Today's product is a great example of this - it's called the Waylens, and it's a camera system designed for the serious driver, interested in recording the performance parameters of the car he or she is driving. It taps into the OBD-II port in your car, and displays real-time performance data directly, as well as recording it with other g-force, weather and GPS data, over HD video and audio. Tech-geek speak? You bet!

The Kickstarter campaign has done very well - more than 5 times it's initial funding goal, but that's not where most of the funding has come from - like a growing number of others,  the company has recently raised $2.2M from an investment round that will be used to properly design, engineer and manufacture the product - so it's clearly well-funded and backers can be more confident that they will be getting a very well-designed and engineered product. Crowdfunding has become a serious platform for product development, and the proof is in the investment dollars that are starting to back creators prior to going to market on platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo.

In this episode, I talk with co-founder and CMO Michael Schmidt about using these investment dollars to build a robust product and at the same time,  backer confidence, and how he used a Boston-based company called Social Fulcrum as a resource to help build his social media footprint in a more efficient manner than he could in-house.

Anyone who's spent a lot of time in cold locales knows he value of staying warm. While today's high tech fabrics employ many coatings and are great at cutting the wind, nothing beats actual heat generation. There are a few heated jacket options outer, but they are generally suited for polar expeditions and aren't well-suited for everyday use in the office or out on the town. Ravean has changed that, and has developed a product line that features a couple of fashionable heated down jackets, a heated vest and a heated hoodie.

This is one of my best episodes in terms of resources - co-founder Bryce Fisher outlines some of the third-party partners he works with in bringing his product to market. Listen in as he tells how he initially built his email list through Untorch.com, used KickBooster to continue building his backer base, and is also taking advantage of the services of PRMediaNow (featured in Episode 046) to get the word out to major press outlets. Bryce also describes how he carefully validates all his new product ideas with a 3 page "funnel" page to gauge real interest and product demand before sinking further time and resources into the concept.

You knew it was only a matter of time - technology now gives you the ability to cook your meat to a 1 degree temperature accuracy, and send you an alert when it's done! What would you call it? The MEATER, of course! Gone are those days of tough, overcooked steaks or undercooked chicken. Spawned from a couple of guys who admittedly suffered from a lack of grill-skills, the MEATER can make anyone look (and taste) like an expert griller.

On today's episode, I talk with Joseph Cruz and Teemu Nivala, who are the co-founders of Apption Labs, and creators of the MEATER. Their background working together for many years in creating and delivering electronic devices for a major electronics manufacturer gave them the contacts and knowledge to bring their own product to life on Kickstarter, where they've raised more than $650,000 from about 5,300 backers.

They accomplished this all without major press coverage and attribute much of their success to their time zone differential (Joseph is in LA, while Teemu is in the UK), so they can bring the hustle 24/7. They've also recently brought on online marketing firm, Funded.Today (featured in Episode 009), to help them ramp up their campaign.

Listen in, as Joseph and Teemu explain how their relationships helped them through the manufacturing process, and how much preparation they took in setting up their Kickstarter page to launch their successful campaign.

Seamless audio. High-quality sound that can follow you around your home or office. That's been the goal of a few high-end audio companies of late, but the results so far, have been either very expensive and very complicated or very inexpensive and toy-like. The stage has been set for a product like the HiddenHub - which combines the design aesthetic and intuitive operation of Apple products with lossless, CD-quality audio reproduction and technology that analyzes and adapts to acoustical environments, delivering top quality audio at a very reasonable (about $390) price point.

Our guest today is John Van Den Nieuwenhuizen, who is the co-founder of Hidden, and a veteran of 3 successful Kickstarter campaigns. His first two (HiddenRadioI, HiddenRadioII) did very well, and are now joined by the HiddenHub, which has already raised more than $700,000 from 1,600+ backers.

Listen in, as John describes how the crowdfunding environment has changed over the last 3 years, and how he has partnered with hardware accelerator PCH, to provide manufacturing and distribution structure, and with Jellop (featured in Episode 26) to assist with social media reach and conversion.

Sit happens! You sit down for meals, you sit in your car, you sit down at your desk, and then you come home, and sit some more... We all know the sedentary lifestyle is bad for us, but what to do?

Enter the Perch Sit-Stand Desk. Designed to be super-functional as well as super-affordable, so you can enjoy better health without breaking the bank.

My guest today is Nick Salisbury, who created the Perch desk when he realized that all the sitting he was doing was not helping his back. He put together a small team to help him bring his idea to life, and his campaign on Kickstarter has done very well - more than 10 times his original goal, from about 1,000 backers - and there's still more than 20 days to go!

Listen in, as Nick outlines his social media strategy, using Facebook ads, as well as campaign promoter, FundedToday (whom I featured in Episode #009), to build his email list prior to the campaign launch, and found the key to lower shipping costs through enterprise logistics company ShipWire, which allowed him to reduce shipping costs by about 400%, making his product viable.

Ahhhh... the bigger, the better, right? That's definitely the trend with displays - when you see Apple launch the iPhone 6 Plus and now, the upcoming iPad Pro, you know that size does matter!

The biggest displays we own are typically our TV screens, and with all that screen real estate, why not turn that 80" flatscreen into an 80" touchscreen tablet?

Our product today does just that - it's called the TouchJet Wave, and it turns any flatscreen  into a touchscreen at a price point below $150! Imagine being able to access and use all the apps on your smartphone or tablet on a huge scale - browse the internet, create presentations, play games - all on a scale that let's you sit back and share with others at home, in your office or in the classroom.

My guest today is the CEO of TouchJet, Helen Thomas, and she tells us how her team lugged their product and a 55" TV down the streets of San Francisco - to the TechCrunch offices, resulting in some amazing media coverage, as well as her reasons for choosing Indiegogo over KickStarter. Her campaign has reached more than 660% of its original funding goal, with more than 4.600 backers, and 4 days left to go. Be sure to listen to her story in the episode below.

The internet of things needs a UI! What's better than being able to use your voice to control and activate your devices - think lights, temperature, appliances - even checking the weather or ordering an Uber!

Our product today is called ivee, and it's really a voice activated assistant for your home. It's priced under $100, which makes it affordable to have units in multiple rooms around your house for seamless coverage. Simply say, "Okay, ivee..." and it's ready to accept your commands.

In this episode, I speak with CEO Jonathon Nostrant about setting up his product development strategy, including partnering with accelerator lab 500 Startups,  building an email list with a squeeze page from KickoffLabs, and utilizing NY PR firm, astrskpr for a boost in the press.

Tired of the same old overhead shots of your house from your typical drone? Why not live a little and explore that lake down the street or that shipwreck you've been reading about?

Today's product, is not only the coolest underwater drone you've ever seen, it's also part of a growing movement that's allowing students and people all over the world to explore and experience the mysteries of the deep at tiny fractions of what this capability cost even a few years ago.

The Trident OpenROV is democratizing underwater exploration, and putting cutting-edge technology into the hands of many, that can only deepen our knowledge and level of pure fun, exponentially.

My guest on this episode is Eric Stackpole, co-founder of OpenROV, who is a real rocket scientist, turned underwater explorer. His passion for this technology is visceral, and he's even creating opportunities for high school students to participate through an innovative program on their Kickstarter campaign. Listen in as Eric tells us how his team developed the Trident, and how an appearance on TED Talks attracted attention from the likes of the New York Times, which set their campaign on fire...

Sometimes, you run across a product that almost seems too simple. However, the more you look at it, the more value and usefulness you see, and these products, many times, become the things that we rely on and use heavily in daily life.

The Qliplet is one of these, and once you start imagining some of the uses for it, tons of new uses pop up, and soon, you don't know how you ever got by without it. It handles everything from hanging water bottles or bags from your bike or stroller to clipping your luggage together when you travel or hanging lights when you're camping - even keeping your backpack or purse off the bathroom floor.

On today's show, I speak with a successful crowdfunder who holds 2 doctorates, has grown up all over the world, and has had projects on both Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Listen as Lulabop founder and entrepreneur, Mina Yoo , relates some of the differences she found between the two crowdfunding platforms, how she used a secret agent for getting her manufacturing set up in Asia (email her for more details) as well as how she got her product on the shelves of REI and other retailers.