For this episode of Art of the Kickstart, we spoke with Caleb Light of Power Practical about running six Kickstarter campaigns. Tune in to learn more about how to build a team for your startup and how to use crowdsourcing to create new products.

Luminoodle COLOR & BASECAMP: Versatile & Portable Lighting

Key Crowdfunding Takeaways

* Why it’s beneficial to get your company started through crowdfunding

* Why every startup needs a diversified team

* How to use your backers to develop new products and grow your company

* How to turn your backers into brand ambassadors

* How Kickstarter can lead to a Shark Tank appearance

* How pitching on Shark Tank differs from the traditional investment pitch

* Why it’s important to respond to your backers quickly

* Why you need relationships with key media targets

Links

* Luminoodle Color and Basecamp on Kickstarter

* https://powerpractical.com/

* Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World

Connect with Power Practical

* Power Practical on Facebook

* @PowerPractical on Twitter

* @powerpractical on Instagram

Transcript

View this episode's transcript

Roy Morejon:

Welcome to Art of the Kickstart, your source for crowdfunding campaign success. I’m your host, Roy Morejon, president of Command Partners, the top crowdfunding marketing agency in the world. Each week, I interview a crowdfunding success story, an inspirational entrepreneur, or a business expert in order to help you take your startup to the next level with crowdfunding. Now let’s get on with the show.

Welcome to another edition of Art of the Kickstart. Today I am joined by Caleb Light with the Luminoodle. Caleb, thank you so much for joining us.

Caleb Light:

Thanks, Roy. I appreciate the opportunity.

Roy Morejon:

Absolutely. So the Luminoodle. This is your sixth campaign now on Kickstarter, is that right?

Caleb Light:

Yeah, that is correct. This is our sixth Kickstarter campaign and it’s been an exciting journey thus far.

Roy Morejon:

Awesome. Tell us about the project and the journey that you guys have taken to get here.

Caleb Light:

Yeah. We launched our company back in 2012 by doing a Kickstarter project around a product called the Power Pot and that was a thirty day campaign and we were able to raise about a hundred and thirty grand roughly, which for a lack of a better way of putting it, kickstarted our business. We’d seen so much success given all the benefits of crowdfunding that any time we do a product launch, we try to take it to the crowds first because there’s a bunch of inherent values of doing that.

Roy Morejon:

Awesome. So what got you started then first and foremost thinking that crowdfunding and Kickstarter was a means to launch your company?

Caleb Light:

I was part of an incubator. I was in a previous startup before this one and a couple of my buddies had been doing crowdfunding campaigns and it had been working well for them and I met these two engineers that invented the Power Pot and I thought there would be a real opportunity to take that to the crowds.

Given we were all in our twenties, young guys,

This week we spoke with David Rabie of Tovala, the smart oven that makes it easy to create delicious meals at home. Learn more about how his team developed their product, how they prepared for the Kickstarter project and how they quickly hit their $100,000 goal.

Tovala: The Smart Oven That Makes Home Cooking Easy

Key Crowdfunding Takeaways

* How to include a subscription model for products that backers will buy later in your rewards

* How to utilize the crowd after your crowdfunding campaign ends

* How accelerator programs can help with crowdfunding and product development

* How to build up a community before launching a crowdfunding campaign

* How to ramp up press coverage before your campaign begins

* Why it’s important to test your messaging before your crowdfunding campaign

Links

* Tovala on Kickstarter

* Good to Great by Jim Collins

* https://tovala.com/

Connect with Tovala

* Tovala on Facebook

* @TovalaFood on Twitter

* @TovalaFood on Instagram

Transcript

View this episode's transcript

Roy Morejon:

Welcome to Art of the Kickstart, your source for crowdfunding campaign success. I’m your host, Roy Morejon, president of Command Partners, the top crowdfunding marketing agency in the world. Each week I interview a crowdfunding success story, an inspirational entrepreneur, or a business expert in order to help you take your startup to the next level with crowdfunding. Now let’s get on with the show.

Welcome to another edition of Art of the Kickstart. Today I am with David Rabie with Tovala. David, thank you for joining us.

David Rabie:

Well, it’s my pleasure, Roy. Thanks for having me.

Roy Morejon:

The smart oven that makes home cooking easy. Tell us all about the product.

David Rabie:

Sure, so Tovala is a smart counter top oven, and it’s paired with a companion meal delivery service, so it’s super simple. You buy the smart oven, it replaces your toaster oven, replaces your microwave, and then when you want to order our meals, you subscribe to our service. Meals get delivered once a week, totally fresh and pre-prepped and ready to cook. When you’re ready to eat, all you do is take the meal, scan a label that’s on the meal under the barcode reader on the appliance, and just push start. The appliance knows exactly how to cook that meal.

Let’s say it’s a miso-glazed salmon with forbidden rice and broccoli. It will steam and bake that meal for 3 minutes at 350° Fahrenheit, and then finish it with a broil for 10 minutes at 550 to crisp and char the salmon and broccoli just right. Every meal has it’s own unique recipe profile to cook it to perfection every single time, and there’s no clean up that’s required.

Roy Morejon:

It sounds too good to be true, David.

David Rabie:

It works. We have many units out in the wild in people’s homes being tested. We’ve served over 2,000 meals to this point, and we have 1 final production ready unit already that we’re testing and is working.

Roy Morejon:

That’s great. Yeah, we were able to watch, there’s a great interview, or article with you guys on TechCrunch. I saw you brought the product into their offices.

In October 2014, Gareth Everard raised almost $150,000 on Kickstarter with a razor. Within a few months, he’d shipped a bad product to 2,500 people who backed his campaign. In this week’s podcast we learn how he overcame manufacturing problems to make his backers happy again, how he’s crowdfunding an even better razor now, and what lessons he’s learned in the process.

Rockwell Model T Razor and Razor Blades - Shaving, Perfected

Key Crowdfunding Takeaways

* How crowdfunding can launch you into a full-time business overnight

* Effectively using Reddit to market your campaign

* Getting a following and growing your email list

* Determining how much time to dedicate to the pre-launch portion of your campaign

* Getting your project ready for manufacturing and production

* How to deal with issues in production, manufacturing and logistics

* Making a product even better after a successful crowdfunding campaign

Links

* The Obstacle is the Way

* The Rockwell Model T on Kickstarter

* The Rockwell 6S on Kickstarter

* https://rockwellrazors.com/

Connect with Rockwell Razors

* @RockwellRazors on Twitter

* Rockwell Razors on Facebook

* @rockwellrazors on Instagram

* Rockwell Razors on LinkedIn

Transcript

View this episode's transcript

Roy Morejon:

Welcome to Art of the Kickstart, your source for crowdfunding campaign success. I’m your host Roy Morejon, President of Command Partners, the top crowdfunding marketing agency in the world. Each week I interview a crowdfunding success story, an inspirational entrepreneur, or a business expert in order to help you take your startup to the next level with crowdfunding. Now let’s get on with the show.

Welcome to another edition of Art of the Kickstart. Today I’m honored to be joined by Gareth Everard with the Rockwell Razors. Gareth, thank you for joining us.

Gareth Everard:

Thanks, Roy. Excited to be here.

Roy Morejon:

Awesome. We’re excited to have you. Listen, you ran a campaign in the Fall of 2014 for the Rockwell Razor. You kicked butt on it. You ran into some issues. What I’d like to do is kind of learn about your previous campaign, what you’re up to now, and let the conversation flow from there.

Gareth Everard:

Awesome. I’d be happy to share some of the ups and downs. I know a lot of the listeners are hopeful Kickstarter-prenuers or people who have run campaigns so I’ll try to draw an end to this that I can in terms of tips.

You’re right, the Rockwell 6S campaign went live, that’s 6S, not success. The razor went live on Kickstarter in September 2014. It was my senior year of college, so I kind of just jumped right into it. A friend of mine and I launched the campaign and had a goal of $12,000. We put it live on a Tuesday night and overnight it raised $18,000, and we woke up the next morning with a full-time business on our hands. There have been some crazy ups and downs since then. I guess we’ll probably dive a little bit more into the specific lessons from the downs in later bit on in this interview. Yeah,

On this week’s episode of Art of the Kickstart we interview Anthony Pu of Mighty, the device that makes it easy to stream music on-the-go without using a smartphone. Join us as we learn what inspired him, how his team prepared for the campaign, how they decided on a funding goal and what he’s learned from his first Kickstarter campaign.

Mighty - Streaming Music Without Your Phone

Key Crowdfunding Takeaways

* What the process of prepping for a crowdfunding campaign looks like

* How to make a splash on day one of your campaign

* The importance of relying on friends, family and your personal network

* How to do a soft launch for your personal network

* How to land press coverage

* What it looks like to work with social media influencers

* Why it’s important to reach out to media outlets and influential bloggers in your niche or industry

* Why you need to expect backer cancellations

* How setting a high funding goal, especially for hardware, can help ensure that you meet your delivery date

Links

* Mighty on Kickstarter

* Four Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss

* Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

* Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance

Connect with Mighty

* Mighty Audio on Facebook

* @mightyaudio on Twitter

* @mightyaudio on Instagram

Transcript

View this episode's transcript

 

Roy:

Welcome to Art of the Kickstart, your source for crowdfunding campaign success. I’m your host, Roy Morejon, President of Command Partners, the top crowdfunding marketing agency in the world. Each week I interview a crowdfunding success story, an inspirational entrepreneur, or a business expert in order to help you take you startup to the next level with crowdfunding. Now let’s get on with the show.

Welcome to another edition of Art of the Kickstart. This afternoon I’m joined by Anthony Pu with Mighty. Mighty the streaming music player so you don’t need your phone. Anthony, thank you for joining us.

Anthony:

Thanks for having me Roy.

Roy:

Tell us, what is Mighty all about.

Anthony:

I think what you alluded to, Mighty is the first and only device that lets you play your Spotify or other streaming music on the go without a smart phone. We thought it was a sort of hole in the market and a pain point for some people to right now exercise, work out, do active stuff with their smartphones when they want their Spotify or other kind of music. That experience with the smartphone isn’t great, and so we wanted to improve that and have a great experience for those types of users and that sort of personal frustration and pain point is where the product was born from.

Roy:

I think the best products always come from pain points and solving people’s issues. You guys have set a serious funding goal at a quarter of a million dollars. You’ve surpassed that now with a few days left in your campaign. What have been some of the key points or highlights of the campaign that you can share with our audience?

Anthony:

Yeah. That’s a great question. It’s been a really awesome learning experience for us as well. I think the crowdfunding space and Kickstarter in general is just this wh...

Casper Chien and the dokiWatch team created a smartwatch that’s designed for kids too young for a cell phone, then they brought it to life on Kickstarter. In this episode we learn the story behind the product and how the team encountered phenomenal success through crowdfunding.

dokiWatch: The World’s Most Advanced Smartwatch for Kids

Success Quote

“Work hard, play hard”

Key Crowdfunding Takeaways

* Challenges when creating a technology product

* When to choose Kickstarter

* What marketing and prep work is necessary leading up to a crowdfunding campaign

* How to line up press coverage before you launch

* How to assure potential backers that your product will ship

* The future of equity crowdfunding

Links

* http://www.doki.com/

* dokiWatch on Kickstarter

* dokiWatch on Indiegogo

Connect with dokiWatch

* Doki Technologies on Facebook

* @dokitec on Twitter

* @dokitec on Instagram

Transcript

View this week's transcript

Roy:

Welcome to Art of the Kickstart, your source for crowdfunding campaign success. I’m your host, Roy Morejon, president of Command Partners, the top crowdfunding marketing agency in the world.

Each week I interview a crowdfunding success story, an inspirational entrepreneur, or a business expert, in order to help you take your startup to the next level with crowdfunding.

Let’s get on with the show.

Welcome to another edition of Art of the Kickstart. Today I’m honored to be with Casper, with the dokiWatch. Casper, I appreciate you joining us today.

Casper:

Thanks for having me.

Roy:

So, the dokiWatch, the world’s most advanced smartwatch for kids. Tell us about the product and how it came to life.

Casper:

Sure. The idea really came about when we were looking at what are some of the kid’s wearable devices out there currently, in the market. We didn’t really see a device that is holistic as what we are currently offering with the dokiWatch.

We are the most advanced smartwatch for kids, like what you just mentioned, but apart from a smartwatch, what it really is is a communication device, it’s a safety device. It also is a fitness tracker. Essentially, it’s a wearable phone on your kid’s wrist.

We’re the only smartwatch for kids that runs on an Android OS, so it means that, basically, all the features that you see on there, currently, for example, video calling is one of our main, key features. We’re the first and only smartwatch to have such a feature incorporated and integrated into our device. There’s voice calling, there’s voice messaging, there’s text messaging.

On top of all the basic communication features, there’s also the safety aspect of it, whereby parents can track their child through GPS tracking, they can set geo-fences on the companion app where, whenever their child reaches a certain location, a certain proximity or area, it’ll send a notification to the parent’s smartphones.

It also has the added benefit of a fitness tracker incorporated onto the device. From a kid’s point of view, what we wanted to do was to create something that is really appealing for the kid, as well.

Note: The audio quality of this episode was compromised by a poor recording device. We were working with translators and recording over the phone, which affected the quality.

Just like many other crowdfunding projects, this one starts with a problem. When faced with a need to lose weight, Mark Wood found that there just wasn’t a weight system that suited his needs. Enter the Gripbell. In this episode you’ll get valuable tips on creating a product, prototyping and taking your project to Kickstarter!

GRIPBELL | Versatile Grip, Workout Differently

Success Quote

“Never, never, never give up.” - Winston Churchill

Key Crowdfunding Takeaways

* How to get started once you have an idea for a new product

* How the prototyping process works

* How to prepare your marketing before the campaign launches

* What marketing initiatives bring the highest return

* What conversions rates to expect on ads

* How to set up rewards and pricing

Links

* http://gripbell.com/

* Gripbell on Indiegogo

* Gripbell on Kickstarter

Connect with Gripbell

* Gripbell on Facebook

* @gripbell on Twitter

* @gripbell on Instagram

Transcript

Click here to view a transcript of this week's episode

Roy:

Welcome to Art of the Kickstart, your source for crowdfunding campaign success. I’m your host Roy Morejon, President of Command Partners, the top crowdfunding marketing agency in the world. Each week, I interview a crowdfunding success story, an inspirational entrepreneur or a business expert in order to help you take your start up to the next level with crowdfunding. Let’s get on with the show.

Welcome to another edition of Art of the Kickstart. Today, I’m honored to be joined by Mark Wood, owner and crowdfunding campaign of the Gripbell. Mark, thank you for joining us.

Mark:

It’s a pleasure. Glad to be here.

Roy:

Mark, your product came out of an injury which is always an interesting story. Tell our community how this idea came to life.

Mark:

Sure. About two years ago … Let me explain. I’ll give you a little background here. I was quite obese in the past. I was searching for a good exercise plan and I read a lot of about kettle bell and so I followed a program … It was a video tape and after doing that for a while I decided that I wanted to try and work on less muscle and just leaner and thinner and something that would be easier to use. I designed the Gripbell and it just seemed to be more user-friendly than the kettle bell.

Roy:

Interesting. After that started, once you saw the need for a new kettle bell technology, what was the process next in terms of getting started?

Mark:

I got on the computer at home and honestly I will tell you, I’m not a skilled artist. I’ll be honest. I used just a regular little program. I had MS Word and I just fooled around with the design and editing the design with what skills I had. Finally I went to a metal shop and I said, “Could you follow these dimensions, these rough dimensions?”

The welder said, “Fine. We’ll take your design and we’ll work with it.

Cutting them out, we went back and forth on that.

Keep Pursuing set out to create the ultimate duffle bag, finding inspiration in sports cars. They ended up with a product that would bring in more than half a million dollars on Kickstarter. In this episode of the Art of the Kickstart podcast, learn more about the secrets behind their success.

KP Duffle - The Ultimate Travel Bag

Key Crowdfunding Takeaways

* How one successful crowdfunding campaign can lead to another’s success

* What pre-campaign efforts look like

* The importance of video for a successful campaign

* How to get press coverage ready to go when you launch

* Why press samples are important

* Why it’s important to have press contacts before you start your campaign

* How to come up with add-ons to go along with your product

* How to come up with stretch goals for your crowdfunding campaign

* How backers from a previous campaign can help you reach your goal on day one

* What needs to happen before you launch your crowdfunding campaign

* Why crowdfunding is a great way to launch a new product

Links

* The KP Duffle on Kickstarter

* http://www.keeppursuing.com/

* Steve Jobs

Connect with Keep Pursuing

* Keep Pursuing on Facebook

* @KPbags on Twitter

* @keep_pursuing on Instagram

In this exciting episode of Art of the Kickstart we talk to Oscar Pedroso of Thimble, the monthly subscription box that teaches you how to build electronic devices. Learn about the value of launch parties, how to build up a community before you launch, how to plan for production and fulfillment and much, much more!

Thimble: Learn & Build Electronics w/ Monthly Delivered Kits

Success Quote

“Never give up.”

Key Crowdfunding Takeaways

* The value of launch parties

* How to get people engaged with your campaign before you launch

* How to find mentors and build your team

* How to decide between crowdfunding or a private online beta launch

* How much time to spend preparing to launch your campaign

* How to build up an email list through a grassroots approach

* How to begin coordinating production and fulfillment

* How to scale up when you exceed your goal by such a large amount

* How to move forward with creating your business after a Kickstarter campaign

* How to figure out pricing when you’re delivering a product monthly

Links

* thimble.io

* Thimble on Kickstarter

* Innovation and Entrepreneurship

* The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change the Way You Do Business

* The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses

* Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works

Connect with Thimble

* @thimbleio on Twitter

* Thimble.io on Facebook

In this episode of Art of the Kickstart we interview Eric Clifton of Orison, a plug-and-play home energy storage system. Join us as we learn more about the inspiration behind the project, how he launched it on Kickstarter and the future of energy.

Orison - Rethink the Power of Energy

Key Crowdfunding Takeaways

* The inspiration behind Orison

* Working through regulatory hurdles during a crowdfunding campaign

* How far in advance creators need to start PR efforts

* The importance of determining messaging and branding before your campaign begins

* Tips for preparing your campaign updates ahead of time

* How new use cases and new markets can be discovered through a crowdfunding campaign

* How to determine what comes next for your campaign

* How a campaign for a for-profit company can also lead to non-profit work

* Eric’s take on the future of crowdfunding

Links

* Orison on Kickstarter

* orison.energy

* The Art of War by Sun Tzu

* The Autobiography of George Muller by George Muller

Connect with Orison

* Orison on Facebook

* @OrisonEnergy on Twitter

* @OrisonEnergy on Instagram

On this episode we talk to the creator of three successful Kickstarter projects. Join us as we chat with Viktor Grabovskyy of ForeverSpin about his spinning tops, his crowdfunding campaigns and the community he’s built around them.

ForeverSpin - World Famous Spinning Tops

Key Crowdfunding Takeaways

* How Kickstarter can solve the problem of not having enough capital to move forward with your project

* Lessons learned from 3 campaigns

* The importance of planning well in advance of launching a project

* The most important days of a live crowdfunding campaign

* Why you need a solid press strategy

* How to find your audience when your project fits into a very specific niche

* Why you need to focus on the community around your project

* What you need to know about backer communication

* The similarities and differences between the communities on Kickstarter and Indiegogo

* How backers inspire new projects and products

* Balancing production capacity with marketing efforts

Links

* ForeverSpin on Kickstarter (and now on Indiegogo)

* ForeverSpin.com

* The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

Connect with ForeverSpin

* ForeverSpin on Facebook

* @foreverspin on Twitter

* @foreverspin on Instagram