For this episode of Art of the Kickstart, we spoke with the two founders of Slide, Thijs Olthof and Kaj Beetstra, about how they created a new smart home product and quickly hit their funding goal. Tune in to learn more about how to develop and launch a new product on Kickstarter! Slide: Make Your Existing Curtains Smart!

Key Crowdfunding Takeaways

How to build use cases around a new product to help further design and development How to get user feedback when running a project on Kickstarter How to build trust and credibility with your backers during a Kickstarter project Why transparency is key to a successful crowdfunding campaign How to leverage personal networks to quickly fund a project

Links

Slide on Kickstarter http://goslide.io/ Gary Vaynerchuk’s Blog Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries

Connect with Slide

Slide on Facebook @Innov_In_Motion on Twitter

Sponsors Art of the Kickstart is honored to be sponsored by The Gadget Flow, a product discovery platform that helps you discover, save, and buy awesome products. The Gadget Flow is the ultimate buyer's guide for cool luxury gadgets and creative gifts. Click here to learn more and list your product - use coupon code ATOKK16 for 25% off!

Art of the Kickstart is honored to be sponsored by BackerKit. BackerKit makes software that crowdfunding project creators use to survey backers, organize data, raise additional funds with add-ons and manage orders for fulfillment, saving creators hundreds of hours. To learn more and get started, click here. Transcript View this episode's transcript

Roy Morejon:

This episode of Art of the Kickstart is sponsored by BackerKit. BackerKit makes software that crowdfunding project creators use to survey backers, organize data, and manage orders for fulfillment by automating your operations and helping you print and ship faster. Plus, if you want to create and send surveys, offer add-ons, and pledge upgrades, or begin accepting pre-orders, BackerKit makes it simple. Over 2,000 projects and 4 million backers have used BackerKit, including many of the projects featured on Art of the Kickstart. Ready to try Backer Kit? Visit backerkit.com and sign up today.

Welcome to Art of the Kickstart, your source for crowdfunding campaign success. I’m your host, Roy Morejon, President of Command Partners, the top full-service crowdfunding marketing agency in the world. We have helped raise over $70 million for our clients since 2010. Each week, I’ll interview a crowdfunding success story, an inspirational entrepreneur, or a business expert in order to help take your startup to the next level with crowdfunding. Art of the Kickstart is honored to be sponsored by the Gadget Flow, a product discovery platform that helps you discover, save, and buy awesome products. The Gadget Flow is the ultimate buyer’s guide for cool luxury gadgets and creative gifts. To learn more, visit thegadgetflow.com. Now let’s get on with the show.

Welcome to another edition of Art of the Kickstart. Today, I am joined by the two founders of Slide, Thijs Olthof and Kaj Beetstra. Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us.

Kaj Beetstra:

Thank you for having us.

Roy Morejon:

Slide, this product is really cool, and I think it’s really, really interesting. It’s the world’s first retrofit smart curtain system. Tell our backers and our community all about your product and where it all started.

Kaj Beetstra:

It started a couple of years ago with an idea of mine to actually automate your existing interior, not just adding new interior, but automating movement from your existing interior. The initial idea was actually to have a universal thing that could control anything. It just was difficult to make,