Just joined and met my 3 post requirement, so I thought my first new topic would be to introduce myself.
My name is Kirk Iwasaki. By profession, I am a Senior Product Developer for an educational materials company. I work on everything from classroom furniture to educational games and plastic molded building toys. More recently Ive been working as the senior developer of STEM Educational Materials for my company. While I love the company i work for and the great feeling of creating products that will further a child's education, my passion lies in the adventure/outdoor industry.
How I ended up in the education company is a whole other story, but for me, inventing, creating, and developing are my passions. With that being said, I was born and raised in Los Angeles with a very active family. I was very lucky to have parents who loved to snow ski, camp, fish and hike, so winters were spent in the Sierra Nevadas, and summers were spent on the colorado river.
After 5+ years of educational materials, and learning professional development skills, Im interested in possibly turning some of the ideas i have for outdoor gear into reality. (Dont worry, i dont plan on leaving my current job, i love it there)
2 years ago my wife and I rescued our dog Cooper from the Santa Monica Shelter. We were looking for a dog to bring with us on our weekend outings. He was perfect, and even inspired me to create my first independently-backed product. That summer was awesome! We hit dog shows every weekend and got lots of great feedback, but there was 1 improvement I needed to make for it to be perfect, but cant afford it...and so...here i am! =)
This whole thing has been totally in-house (literally just my wife and I) we are finishing up the video, and some final graphics, then we will be launching our campaign sometime in mid-March.
I joined the forum for 2 reasons:
1- to do research on kickstarter and to learn as much as i can before launching
and 2- to network and possibly spread the word about my project!
Im looking forward to sharing with you guys over the next few months as we prep, launch, conduct, close and execute our kickstarter campaign!
If youre sitting there wondering why I didnt tell you right off the bat what my product is...dont worry, i didnt forget to...i just want to build the suspense. Dont want you guys getting bored of it already, we still have a month until launch!
Anyways, thats me in under 500 words...thanks for making it this far
Best regards,
Kirk