Category Archives: Kickstarter

Big News! Our fundraising project is moving to indiegogo (launches Sept. 27th)

By admin
Posted on Thursday - 19 September 2013

Due to problems and technical issues dealing with Kickstarter, we felt, even at this late moment in our ramp up to launch time, it was in our best interest to switch gears and launch our fundraising project on Indiegogo. Indiegogo is a similar crowd-sourced funding platform. They are almost as popular now as Kickstarter, and they are more startup business friendly. We are in the process of changing all our information to reflect this move, and believe me it’s no small task. Thankfully I have some great people helping me accomplish this who has been amazing helping me get us up to speed for our launch.

Indiegogo has the same type of “fixed” funding, where it’s “all or nothing”, meaning if we don’t reach our funding goal we get nothing and you contribute nothing. However, they offer an additional funding model that Kickstarter does not. Specifically, it’s called a “flexible” platform. While the “fixed” platform is a “all or nothing” this one allows the project creator to collect whatever they raise even if they don’t make their funding goal. The cost to do this type of platform is a bit higher with a higher commission to Indiegogo if we don’t make our goal, and the big question is what do we do with the money if we don’t make our funding goal. Well, we thought about it, and at first we were concerned that if we didn’t meet our funding goal we wouldn’t be able to do what we needed with the money and we wanted to make sure we could fulfill the rewards (perks) for backers. Well, the good news is two-fold. Because of the way we calculated the cost of the rewards vs. the contributions, and that fact that we already have the mold of our mascot manufactured we will be able to fulfill the rewards (perks) even with less than our funding goal. Also, even if we don’t make our funding goal, we still will be able to find ways to use whatever funds we receive to get us closer to clearing our first stage of the business.

When the project launches you can either go to: www.indiegogo.com or when our project goes live, you can go directly to our project page by using this shortcut: www.emoc.info

10 Days Till Kickstarter Launch! Lots Done and Lots To Do.

By admin
Posted on Tuesday - 17 September 2013

It still seems so far away, but we are now down to the last 10 days before we launch our project on Kickstarter.  It’s been an exciting, stressful, and mind blowing time.  We are at the final stages of completing our project video.  it’s really looking great.  We also created a couple of short “concept” videos that will be included in the project, that I hope will help demonstrate what we can do.

Additionally, our press released has been approved for distribution.  It will go out to the media at large early Friday morning.  Also, our project has been submitted to the Kickstarter staff, and we should hear back any day now on our approval status.

I also had the opportunity to talk with people about our project and our new business at a dog training event recently called the Jubilee and handed out some samples.  We had an amazing response.  At the last minute, we decided to put together a little video of the experience, and will put it on the project page as well.  We also finalized our rewards, and put together a few weekly surprise rewards that we’ll announce once a week, every week the project runs.  These surprise rewards will be in limited supply.  So keep your ears, eyes, and email open for the announcements.

 

We are now less than 30 days from our Kickstarter Launch!

By admin
Posted on Wednesday - 4 September 2013

Wow!  Where does all the time go.  I was thinking the other day, that it has now been a little over a year since I first considered fundraising to get this business off the ground, and specifically to consider using Kickstarter.  We are in the home stretch!  The video is being edited this week, Eric and I worked on a press release that we will be pushing out to the media on launch day (September 27th), the animation of the logo for the video is almost done, and we are also working hard at getting the project page up and ready to go.  One important thing we got out of the way that almost would have bitten us in the butt is Amazon Payments.  In order to process payments for a Kickstarter project, you need to setup a business account with Amazon Payments (like Paypal, but Amazon’s version).  Kickstarter warns you that you need at least 7 days to get your account approved and ready for use.  We had a few issues getting the account up and running, but thankfully we are now good to go.

Additionally we are continuing to build our network to get the word out as far and fast as we can.

Let the countdown begin:

Countdown to the launch of our Kickstarter Project!!

 

Shooting for the Kickstarter Video Is Complete.

By admin
Posted on Tuesday - 27 August 2013

Wow!  What a weekend!  Well, it was a long day of shooting (with a break in between to catch my son’s championship basketball game – which they won! Go Hoosiers!).  Anyway, the perfectionist I am, I keep thinking there is something more we could have done, but alas, I’m sure the final product will be great.  A big thank you for everyone who helped: Alec, Eric, Melanie and her husband Tony, Joe, and of course my wife and son (Fabi and Diego – Oh and our dog Malo – she has a cameo).  An extra special thank you to Alec for not only shooting the video, but also allowing us to use his wonderful home.

Well, I can happily say that we can now check off one more milestone on the road to Kickstarter.  So, you may be asking…what’s next?  Well, we shipped the footage off to Jon (my cousin and editor extraordinaire).  He will probably start editing sometime next week.  We also were lucky enough to get a professional voice over artist to help us with the intro.  I’m looking forward to hearing how that came out.

As we crawl into September, Eric, and I will be preparing the Kickstarter project page, and finalizing our rewards!  We will also finally start our advertising and spreading the word campaign to get everyone ready for the big launch.  Dariush is also putting together some nice concept designs that we will be including in the project, and Aziz is hard at work animating our logo for the intro to the video.

Thanks for listening.

-Brian

We are shooting our Kickstarter Video This Weekend

By admin
Posted on Monday - 19 August 2013

We are making more progress, and bringing our Kickstarter project a little bit closer to reality.  This weekend we will be shooting our video.  We are happy to welcome Alec Tuckman (experienced filmmaker) to our team.  With his experience, and support I know we will have a great and entertaining video for all of you to watch.

As we build up to the final climax of our Kickstarter launch, I started to reflect a bit on what we’ve done up to this point, and realized how much work it truely is to get our project off the ground.  We could have probably done a lot less work, put a lot less time in, and just “let it happen”, but my feeling is that we want to guarantee as much as possible a successful funding project, and I believe the more you put in to something, the more you will get out of it.

We do still have lots to do, but I’m starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel…

More updates still to come.

Our Start Date For Our Kickstarter Project Is Announced!

By admin
Posted on Wednesday - 24 July 2013

We’ve selected the start date for our Kickstarter project.  We plan to launch Friday, September 27th.  We will run for 30 days, and will end either on Saturday, September 26th or we may and try to stretch to end on Sunday, September 27th, just to get that extra day on the weekend.

We’re very excited as things are starting to come together.  We’ve just decided on our “stretch” rewards and a few “add-ons”.  We are still sorting out our weekly (limited) “surprise” awards.  These awards will be announced by the end of each week of our project, and will be something that will go above and beyond what we will normally be offering as rewards.  Because of the “above and beyond” part, we will only be offering a few of these, and each week will be something different.

We will also be offering some special “bonus” awards that will be totally FREE!  We will be announcing those in the near future.

Eric Bram and Dariush Derakhshani Added To Our Advisory Board

By admin
Posted on Tuesday - 23 July 2013

This is a little belated, but I want to put a shout out to our other advisory members: Eric Bram and Dariush who’s invaluable help has really gotten this business to our current “turning point” with our Kickstarter project just a few short months away.  Eric’s creative writing skills and Dariush’s business and computer graphics experience have brought incredibly valuable skills and experience to us, and we are thankful for their undying support.

Jon Emmet Just Added To Our Advisory Board

By admin
Posted on Sunday - 21 July 2013

I am happy to announce the latest member of our advisory board.  Jon Emmet is an experienced avid editor for television entertainment, and all around great guy.  His enthusiasm, support and encouragement for our new venture is both inspiring and appreciated.  We believe his participation on our advisory board will bring great insight and great energy and look forward to working with him.

On a separate note; he is gracious enough to help us edit our Kickstarter video.

Our First Mold Design Is In Production (For Kickstarter)

By admin
Posted on Friday - 19 July 2013

We are excited to report that our first mold design is officially in production.  The manufacturer that we will be purchasing our equipment from will be building our first mold design for us.  This mold is of our mascot, and will be used for our rewards for Kickstarter.  We should have them done and delivered in a few weeks.

Here’s a sneak peak of what the mold will look like when it’s done (the test mold):

Negative Mold of 3d Mascot

Negative Mold of 3d Mascot

Meetings, Videographer, and 1st Version Of Animated Logo

By admin
Posted on Tuesday - 16 July 2013

We had a very productive week this week.  To start, we had a meeting with a business consultant, setup by our business advisor.  This gentleman works with large corporations, and startups to guide them towards success.  He’s also an angel investor.  Today’s meeting was not about looking for money (right now that’s what our Kickstarter project is for), but rather to see if our business is on the right track.  I’m happy to say that he feels we are, and that we are right to focus on our upcoming Kickstarter project.  We have several goals attached to the project.  The obvious one is to raise the funds needed to buy equipment so we can produce a product.  The other goal is to show demand.  This is investing and business 101.  If we can fund successfully we can show that our product has a demand (investors love to see this).  This gives us a base to grow our business from.  Besides Kickstarter, he had some other great suggestions that we will be incorporating into our business plan.  We are looking to hire him on as another consultant and look forward to the experience and knowledge he can bring to the table.  More on that later.

We are also happy to announce that we have secured a videographer to help film out video for the project.  I don’t have details yet, as this was arranged by one of our advisory board members, and I have yet to meet with him.  We also were able to see early versions of our animated logo.  It’s a great start!  Our artist is hard at work moving it along to a “final” product for us to use in the video!