Inspired by the archetypal super-spy, Maison Impeccable set out to create the perfect sock to get you through the day, from the office to the gym and everywhere in between. Learn more about how to test the waters with crowdfunding in this week’s episode of Art of the Kickstart. Stealth Socks - Covertly Fresh, Impeccably Styled

Key Crowdfunding Takeaways

How to get started with prototypes What needs to happen before you launch in order to make the first few days a success Why Facebook ads are a necessary part of every crowdfunding campaign Why you need good press outreach Why launching on Kickstarter works well for product-based companies How launching on Kickstarter can help minimize the risk that can come with minimum order quantities What it looks like to test the waters with crowdfunding How to take feedback from your backers and respond to it with new products

Links

Stealth Socks on Kickstarter http://www.impeccable.maison/ The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss

Connect with Maison Impeccable

Maison Impeccable on Facebook @stayimpeccable on Twitter @maison.impeccable on Instagram

Transcript View this episode's transcript

Roy Morejon:

Welcome to Art of the Kickstart, your source for crowdfunding campaign success. I’m your host Roy Morejon, President of Command Partners, the top crowdfunding marketing agency in the world. Each week, I interview a crowdfunding success story, an inspirational entrepreneur, or a business expert in order to help you take your startup to the next level with crowdfunding. Now, let’s get on with the show.

Welcome to another edition of Art of the Kickstart. Today, I’m honored to be joined by Ben Yelian with Maison Impeccable. Ben, thank you for joining us.

Ben Yelian:

Roy, great to be here.

Roy Morejon:

Ben, you’ve got this awesome Kickstarter campaign, the Stealth Socks. Tell us what it’s all about.

Ben Yelian:

Sure. Where to begin? The Stealth Sock is basically about as good as you can make socks. We took every problem you could conceivably have with such a simple garment, and over-engineered them. The core of this really, we have two unique fibers. One is bacteriostatic silver, and one is activated carbon. What they do is they find odor through two different mechanisms. One of them, the silver prevents the growth of microbes that cause odor, and then the carbon kind of sucks away anything else. If you can imagine charcoal, and it helps to wick moisture.

We paired those with a number of construction features that help with breathability, help with durability, like cushioned or added nylon reinforcement. In the end, you have a super stellar sock. It never smells. It’s super durable, super comfortable, never [falls 00:01:36]. It’s pretty much everything you’d ask for.

Roy Morejon:

It sounds amazing, Ben. Is it too good to be true? I mean, where did this all start?

Ben Yelian:

Sure. We hear that question a lot. My background is in consulting. I used to do a lot of business travel. I was living out of suitcase, running through airports, working 80 hour weeks. What I quickly came to realize through all of that was the clothes that we normally wear for work especially aren’t really great. They’re not breathable. They’re not comfortable. They tend to pick up smells. They’ve kind of gotten left behind, because we’ve had so much technological change in the past few years, but the clothes that we wear are pretty much the same as they’ve been for decades. We thought we could change all that.

There has been a number of other players who have made similar products bringing in new fabrics to the market, and we tried a lot and those have been great, but we’ve always had some things that weren’t quite right. We always had ideas for how we could change something or how we could make it better. Instead of sitting on the sidelines and waiting for other companies to figure out what we wanted,