We interviewed Oscar Chang of ALCHEMA, a kitchen device that makes it easy to brew craft cider at home. Tune into this episode to learn more about why you need to pick a manufacturer early, how to line up journalists to cover your Kickstarter project and how crowdfunding can help you get in with big box retailers.
ALCHEMA: Turn Fruit into Personalized Craft Cider
Key Crowdfunding Takeaways
How long product development actually takes How working with an accelerator can help you take your product to market How to build a buzz around your project through events and exhibitions How to get journalists interested in your product when you can’t meet with them in person How to decide between launching on Kickstarter and Indiegogo Why you need to pick a manufacturer and shipping partner early in the product development process
Links
ALCHEMA on Kickstarter http://www.alchema.com/ HAX Boost How to Start a Startup: The Silicon Valley Playbook for Entrepreneurs by ThinkApps and BeckyCruze
Connect with ALCHEMA
ALCHEMA on Facebook @Alchema21 on Twitter @alchema21 on Instagram
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! Transcript View this episode's transcript
Roy:
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 seventy million dollars for our clients since 2010. Each week I’ll interview a crowdfunding success story, and 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. Let’s get on with the show.
Welcome to another edition of Art of the Kickstart. Today I’m joined by Oscar Chang with the Alchema device. Oscar, thank you so much for joining us.
Oscar:
Yeah, thank you. Thank you for inviting me.
Roy:
Alchema, the ability to turn fruit into a personalized craft cider. Tell me, where did this idea come from?
Oscar:
Okay, I always want to start my own company so I want to find a niche market, which is being [inaudible 00:01:19] by a big company. One day one of my friend’s mom want to home brew but always failed. You find out it’s a problem [inaudible 00:01:30] so we’re jumping to this problem and try to solve it.
Roy:
It’s truly impressive, I mean, the ability to … It’s almost as simple as making a pot of coffee except it takes a little bit longer, right?
Oscar:
Yeah.
Roy:
The product also has the ability to make wine. How have you guys, the process to get a working prototype and the development of this product itself? Talk about a little bit of how long it started and what the back story is there.
Oscar:
Okay. The whole process takes about almost two years from an idea to a working sample. At the beginning I learned how to home brew from a professor in the college. He host a class for beginners to learn how to home brew. My background is electronical engineering. I figure out what kind of sensor can detect parameters and I use this data to focus the brewing status. We used this idea to join a competition held by Taiwan government and we won championship. At a point I decide to set up a company to use the idea and launch a Kickstarter campaign. I need an expert who knows about home brew,