The Vincero Collective has had two successful Kickstarter campaigns. One, for the Lexell Stone Watches which raised $220,000+ from over 1,000 backers. The second, for Vincero – Mechanical Timepieces, which raised $130,ooo+ from over 300 backers.
Both of these campaigns were monumental both in terms of the number of backers/pledges accumulated and the forward progress of the Vincero Collective brand. The company has now returned to crowdfunding, only this time, launching several campaigns on their own in-house crowdfunding platform, which lets customers choose which luxury items they want to see made, and which they’d like to pass on.
In this podcast interview, we discuss the previous successful Kickstarters, how they came about, how the team managed the successes, and what’s in store for the future of the brand.
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The Campaigns Mentioned
Podcast Show Notes
This podcast episode is sponsored by Fulfillrite: Kickstarter and crowdfunding reward fulfillment services.
– The three partners behind the Vincero Collective moved to Hong Kong after university and worked in product development before starting their own brand. Their luxury watches took months of product development and prototyping before Kickstarter. They suggest that when it comes to manufacturing be prepared for success; make sure you have a plan to be able to fulfill your rewards on time.
– Early efforts with social networking got their first project featured on the Kickstarter home page, but the second time it wasn’t as easy due to competition and changes in the algorithm for choosing projects. Repeat customers and a mailing list helped them reach their goal the second time. They stress that the first few days are important. Get feedback before launching, and reach out to blogs in your niche. Asking friends to share your campaign when you launch will help build momentum.
– These projects show how strong team dynamics go a long way. The Vincero Collective mainly consists of three people who divide work based on their strengths: one works on product development, another on finance and operations, and the other on marketing.
– Remember that backers are interested in your story and brand, so craft it well. It is important for founders to be featured in videos, for example. Kickstarter backers love the feeling of community and involvement around campaigns, so they actually enjoy getting updates after a project has ended.
– Now the Vincero Collective has launched their own in-house crowdfunding platform devoted to premium menswear products. They believe this will make it easier to build their community, communicate with customers, and continuously develop new products with better prices. By doing two week campaigns they hope to ship rewards to backers sooner than the average 30 day Kickstarter project.
Conclusion
Thank you for listening to this episode of the podcast! Check out last week’s episode on how these recent high school grads raised nearly $80k.
