INVESTMENT
are genuinely interested in your product. What you learn from this community as a product develops is invaluable. Do you have any advice for other would-be crowdfunders? The most important advice is to plan well in advance. Crowdfunding typically requires six to 12 months of preparation. You not only have to ensure your product is well developed with as many kinks ironed out as possible, but you need to ensure you have a community of people who are interested in what you are doing. This requires a lot of outreach and relationship building, which is worthwhile and will help ensure you are heading down the right path. You will know you are on the right track if you have a positive reception when you launch. After that, the trick is to maintain your early momentum by getting the word out so other people can see how excited you and your backers are by
what you are working on. For us, this has involved a lot of time on the road doing test rides and answering questions, but also reaching out to the press and organisations who can help us spread the message. What’s next? Our Kickstarter campaign closed on 7 September and we raised £136,246 – more than 544% times our funding goal! This was while we were over in Germany for the Eurobike trade show. We timed it well, as Eurobike is one of the biggest bike trade shows in Europe, and we were also pitching for the prestigious Startups Award. Now that our Kickstarter campaign has finished, we are going into production with our first batch of FLIT-16 e-bikes, which is exciting. Our e-bike is still available on Indiegogo InDemand, with the price gradually increasing as we get closer to delivering the FLIT-16 to customers in spring 2020.
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ISSUE 03
cambridgecatalyst.co.uk
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