In the magazine's online blog, Hawaii Business Magazine's Jason Ubay discusses how Laurens Laudowicz and crew were able to fundraise (and exceed) the $5,000 needed to fund the production of the sustainable and colorful iPhone, iPad, and iPod chargers. The article in its entirety can be found here.
The goal was to raise $5,000 in 30 days. It took only 3.
Juicies, a Hawaii-based company producing colorful charger cords for Apple’s ubiquitous hand-held products, started a
Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign on Friday, April 22. (Kickstarter presents a creative project on its site and individuals pledge money to get the project off the ground. Pledges can be as low as $1. Basically, the social media crowd funds the project.)
By Friday afternoon, Juicies had raised more than $1,500. By 11 p.m. on Sunday, April 24, it was over the $5,000 mark. Michael Sorenson (
@RECreateHI), a business partner in the venture, says they’re excited about hitting their goal and credits strong support from Hawaii residents. “A lot of it went viral locally,” he says. (If you’d like to see for yourself, there’s plenty of buzz on the
#Juicies Twitter hashtag.)
The goal now is to get as many Juicies chargers into people’s hands as they can.
Apple’s iPhone, iPod and iPad products all have accessories in myriad designs to personalize the gadgets, but local entrepreneur Laurens Laudowicz (
@laudowicz) has tapped a previously untouched concept – multicolor charger cords. Until now, the
chargers only came in white.
After a few home test trials coloring existing chargers with dyes and spray paint, Laudowicz decided to use a manufacturer. The product has been designed locally and will be produced at an undisclosed offshore location. All rubber and plastic parts will come from recycled materials like plastic bottles, and the wiring and 30-pin connector comes from the same manufacturer that Apple uses. (Check out
Juicies Facebook page to see the difference between using the original equipment manufacturer, or OEM, and a cheap knockoff.)
Sorenson says they used Kickstarter instead of a traditional bank loan because they wanted to engage the local community and give them the ability to be part of the project. Aside from a media appearance locally on KHON, the story has only appeared on blogs locally and nationally. No money has been spent on “traditional” advertising.
Last Friday, Sorenson said the company believes it can raise much more than its $5,000 goal. Worldwide, there are around 450 million iPods, iPhones and iPad owners. The ultimate goal for the company is to have the product alongside other accessory products at Apple’s retail stores.
All current pledges will be fulfilled, but, because Juicies wants to produce the charger cords in a sustainable way, the manufacturing costs will be high. Sorenson says they’d like to fulfill the remaining pledges to get as many Juicies cords in people’s hands as possible.
Pledges have come from Hawaii, across the United States from California to New York, and internationally in places like Australia, Hong Kong, Italy, Canada, Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
The cords come in 9 different colors and a 10th mystery color. There’s an incentive with each pledge, depending on the amount. A pledge of $1 or more gets a Juicie cable. (The Juicies Kickstarter page says a fair retail price would be $19. As of April 26, 1,800 pledges – and 1,800 cables – were available.) For a pledge of $200, the buyer gets all 10 colors plus a box of pineapples, which can be shipped internationally. And two people can pledge $5,000 each and receive a table-top version of
Kasey McMahon’s Connected art piece.
The Juicie cable is compatible with all iPhone, iPod and iPad products using the 30-pin connector.
