McNelly: How long
did it take you to come up with the idea and what was the process of deciding
to go with Kickstarter?
Hock: The idea for
the Simple Hydration Water Bottle struck me on a brutally hot July run as I was
preparing for the Louisville Ironman Triathlon. I was trying to simulate the
hot conditions of that race and the late mid-day start of the marathon. I was
running a 5-mile loop around a local airport and needed some water in between
my car stops for fuel and hydration. I hate to carry bottles or wear a bulky
hydration belt so I would stick an Aquafina Water Bottle (with some air pressed
out of it) into the back of my shorts. It would kind of stay in place but would
ultimately slip down due to the sweat and movement. So I thought: “What if
there was a hook to keep it on the waistband?”
LM: How’d the
campaign go? What do you feel worked well? What could you have done better?
Anytime you meet
your goal it’s good. We raised $21,180 over the 60 day period of the campaign. Note
that this was also the largest Kickstarter funded campaign in Cincinnati back
at that time.
The one common
characteristic of the successful Kickstarter campaigns was a well-developed and
professionally-produced video. So the one thing that I put quite a bit of time
against was the video concept and working with a professional firm to produce
it. The unique dual personalities of me in the video I feel reinforced the
unique design of the product, while injecting some fun.
I could have spent
more time upfront planning a better outreach program for both consumers and
media. While I had decent social networks on Facebook, Dailymile (running
community), Twitter and LinkedIn I found that I was being more reactive than
proactive. I also wonder if different rewards at the various pledge levels
would have yielded stronger results.
LM: It looks like
the campaign generated a lot of press. Was that helpful in attempting to get
the product in retail spaces? Or is the plan to stay mostly on-line? How is
that transition going?
BH: There’s no doubt
that having the bottle funded through Kickstarter was a nice and unique
conversation starter with media outlets. We were able to get great reviews in
the LA Times, New York Daily News, The Washington Times, The Cincinnati
Enquirer and Women’s Running Magazine to name a few. The press was helpful in
validating the idea and adding credibility to the product but it really wasn’t
helpful with getting the Simple Hydration Bottle into retail stores. We do want
to be in retail stores of all sizes but the challenge that we encountered is
that our bottle doesn’t fit an established hydration category (handheld, belt
or pack) so there is a bit of education that needs to happen both for the
retailer as well as the consumer.
View The Full Story By Noah J Nelson At turnstyle news
