We’re about to launch a “friends and family” round to ask relatives and friends to invest in this project. We need to raise $100,000 to pay for multiple rounds of prototype development and testing, as well as for the production setup to make a small run of watches. We will sell these watches as part of a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter or Indiegogo.
The production setup will include preparing the molds for the plastic components, the die for stamping the metal back plate, etc. The idea is to launch the crowdfunding campaign when – and only when – we have everything lined up. This way, people who participate in the crowdfunding campaign are putting their money in a sure thing and don’t have to wait too long to get their watches.
Why launch a crowdfunding campaign? Why not just go big and ask venture capitalists for $500,000–$1 million? There are three reasons: first, as a startup, I can benefit from the power of Kickstarter’s or Indiegogo’s platform to spread the word; second, crowdfunding is good for validating the market; and third, I’m not looking for big investors, at least early on. Instead, I want to create a great product, as part of a brand that thinks long-term; I don’t want explosive growth to the detriment of the brand.
Please reach out to me if you're interested in putting money into this round.