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Hi everyone,

So today we finally launched on watch company on Kickstarter. It has been a really difficult but awesome journey up to this point, and I want to share my experience with you guys and give you guys some advice in terms of starting a watch/fashion company that sources from China.

Now I don't really know where to start haha, so I'll be hanging around and answering any questions you may have for me. I can answers a variety of questions like starting a company in Canada, tips on using Alibaba, dealing with Chinese suppliers, etc.

Here's a link to our campaign page for those of you that are interested:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/va ... m-valachio

Jack

Hi Jack,

I took a look at the project - the Valachio looks great, it's huge!

Probably my questions would be what makes your watch stand out from the others, the precision of tracking time (I don't remember reading this info) and probably, who did you market this watch to before your pre-launch.

--

Not sure if you're looking for a review of your campaign, but I'll give you one anyway haha.

The quality images of this page stand out, it makes people connect with the product. I like the different environments and colours used, I think that's great.

In terms of the text, I think you could make use of more bolds, italics and headings to make it a bit easier to read.

The Timeline is good, but the graphic could look better - but would of been nice to see the timeline *before* the January launch so people can get a perspective on how long it took from the concept to now > to the future.

I'm also unsure of the pricing of your reward tiers. The price of a $25 early bird watch is very attractive, but that same watch is usually priced at over $100+. I know the incentive is to get backers early and quickly on the cheaper prices, but backers later buying at the $100+ should have some minor annoyance at not getting a cheaper watch (even if it's their fault for not buying early).

I'd also say focus less on China but more on it being manufactured in Canada/US...not sure if people think of Quality + China hand-in-hand.

The Twitter graphic didn't link up to your account either.

Hope this helps! If you want any help with this campaign, let me know as I'm interested and have worked on fully funded Watch campaign's before + can give you references. All the best!

hyperstarter wrote:Hi Jack,

I took a look at the project - the Valachio looks great, it's huge!

Probably my questions would be what makes your watch stand out from the others, the precision of tracking time (I don't remember reading this info) and probably, who did you market this watch to before your pre-launch.

--

Not sure if you're looking for a review of your campaign, but I'll give you one anyway haha.

The quality images of this page stand out, it makes people connect with the product. I like the different environments and colours used, I think that's great.

In terms of the text, I think you could make use of more bolds, italics and headings to make it a bit easier to read.

The Timeline is good, but the graphic could look better - but would of been nice to see the timeline *before* the January launch so people can get a perspective on how long it took from the concept to now > to the future.

I'm also unsure of the pricing of your reward tiers. The price of a $25 early bird watch is very attractive, but that same watch is usually priced at over $100+. I know the incentive is to get backers early and quickly on the cheaper prices, but backers later buying at the $100+ should have some minor annoyance at not getting a cheaper watch (even if it's their fault for not buying early).

I'd also say focus less on China but more on it being manufactured in Canada/US...not sure if people think of Quality + China hand-in-hand.

The Twitter graphic didn't link up to your account either.

Hope this helps! If you want any help with this campaign, let me know as I'm interested and have worked on fully funded Watch campaign's before + can give you references. All the best!

Hi there,

Thanks for taking the time to check out our project!

The main differentiating point would be our design, which is a 3 watch hand design, powered by a high-end quartz movement. Usually watches in this price range use low-end to mid-range quartz movements.

Great feedback, I fixed the Twitter link and am now looking into using more bold and italics.

About the $25 reward tier. It only gives you a Italian leather strap, not a watch. Should've made our pictorial more clear about that.

Also I mentioned China mainly to help answer any questions anyone on this forum may have about manufacturing/sourcing in China. I avoided talking about where we manufactured the watches on the Kickstarter campaign. (Although Chinese watch manufacturing isn't as bad as you think haha)

Thanks for your support!
Jack

Ok cool, thanks for clearing that up! I've lived in HK for 6 years and China for 7 years myself, so it's not too bad but depends on who you use

Also who did you market this too? Connect with any influencers in your niche before you launched?

If you need help, feel free to PM me. I was involved in the Sasqwatch Watch campaign as well as a couple of watch strap ones, so have experience on who you should be connecting with.

I do have a quick question though...I saw you're in Toronto. There's *alot* of projects coming out of this city, how come? There's a tech hub or it's a Crowdfunding-friendly city?

hyperstarter wrote:Ok cool, thanks for clearing that up! I've lived in HK for 6 years and China for 7 years myself, so it's not too bad but depends on who you use

Also who did you market this too? Connect with any influencers in your niche before you launched?

If you need help, feel free to PM me. I was involved in the Sasqwatch Watch campaign as well as a couple of watch strap ones, so have experience on who you should be connecting with.

I do have a quick question though...I saw you're in Toronto. There's *alot* of projects coming out of this city, how come? There's a tech hub or it's a Crowdfunding-friendly city?

Sorry! Forgot to answer your second question.

We mostly marketed on social media before we launched. I admit we didn't do a spectacular job at it, got just over 100 likes on Facebook. We didn't connect with any influencers unfortunately.

I actually don't live in Toronto but rather than GTA (Greater Toronto Area), which is slightly north of Toronto). Toronto is definitely known for its entrepreneurship. University of Toronto is one of the most entrepreneurial universities in Canada, and a lot of startups that happen in Canada happen in Toronto.

Ok! Let me know if you'd want my help,

I'm guessing you should reach your goal but "influencers" do help alot and if you connect in the write way then it hopefully should lead to more backers.

This is an article I wrote on Influencers, but it's pretty general:
http://www.linkedin.com/pulse/100-crowd ... giles-dawe - LinkedIn post on the Top 100 Crowdfunding Influencers.

hyperstarter wrote:Ok! Let me know if you'd want my help,

I'm guessing you should reach your goal but "influencers" do help alot and if you connect in the write way then it hopefully should lead to more backers.

This is an article I wrote on Influencers, but it's pretty general:
http://www.linkedin.com/pulse/100-crowd ... giles-dawe - LinkedIn post on the Top 100 Crowdfunding Influencers.

You're absolutely right. We definitely need to expand our horizons in terms of the connections we have. I'll definitely contact you soon, would be stupid of me not to

This post has been moved to the General Chat + Introduce Yourself section.