Launching oKickstarter: A premium dress sock that can confidently be worn from the office to the gym

[powderhound100]

After considerable product development, I'm excited to launch say we'll be launching soon (March 5th). We've developed a premium dress sock that's designed to be worn all day, from the office to the gym. They're designed to make life that much easier for the active professional.

You can check out our video and page preview here:
Introducing the Pro-Formance Sock by ALMI

I've been sharing product development etc. on an INSIDERS thread, but figured I'd put the kickstarter launch info out here.



Excited to get it there and start testing to see what works. We are working with an agency to help with prelaunch and facebook ads for the campaign. Have a press strategy setup and are looking at some other strategies and partners. I'll share here what ends up working out...or no working out.
Any questions, feedback or suggestions, let me know.

-Jonas

 

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[powderhound100]

And we're live, nervous, excited, lets see what happens.

Email I just sent out to our close friends and family list.

Hey All,

By the time you finish reading this email, we are going to be live.
We officially go live at 9am PST, but as promised, have opened it up early for you.

Just a reminder that purchases early in the campaign have the biggest impact. There are also some early bird deals that won’t last throughout the campaign and we’d prefer if they went to you.

You are helping us get a great start and we are eternally grateful for the support.

• Buy 5 socks or more ->40% discount code… for life. (Works for the earlybird discount to)
• Additionally, for any purchases within that first 24 hours, we’ll be adding to your order:
  • 3 pack + 1 (total of 4)
  • 5 pack + 2 (total of 7)
  • 10 pack + 5 (total of 15)
  • 30 pack + a surprise

Introducing the Pro-Formance Sock by ALMI
Thanks for being an early supporter. We are excited for you to experience the product of our hard work.

-Jonas & Conrad


For non-friends and family, (facebook lead gen emails etc.) had to buy 10 to get discounts and didn't give away all those Freebies. This community has been awesome, so counting you all as family. Send me a note if you purchase so I can be sure to hook you all up.

 

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[Eskil]

I was really impressed by the video you showed me at the meetup a few weeks ago. Stellar job on that!

As I mentioned earlier though, the page loads pretty slow on mobile so you might want to reduce the number of heavy gifs and images and see if you can replace at least some of it with text.

 

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[MTF]

There's a typo here - should be "domestic." Also, if your social and environmental beliefs are so important, why not mention it in the main sales copy? Your target audience is probably wealthier people, many of whom are probably interested in supporting ethical companies.

Another typo - should be "targeted."

I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not sure. Are you allowed to use the logos of other companies when mentioning that the Swiss silver you use is used by Mammut and Prana?

Why only $10,000 as a goal?

 

[BigRomeDawg]

Super stoked to see the launch Jonas. The socks looked and felt great in person and I'm sure if you can get the right eyeballs on it, it will be a winner.

Roman

 

[powderhound100]

Sent some emails out to our list from facebook ads:

Hey Everyone,

We are super excited to be launching this Tuesday.
We wanted to give you an exclusive look into the Pro-Formance sock.
Time to roll out the red carpet because here comes the world premiere of our Kickstarter video..

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9O9x6Ry2wrg&feature=youtu.be


We’ve also landed on our early backer promotions for this pre-launch group, which will include, but not be limited to, access to a 25% lifetime discount code.

Be sure to open our next email for those details. Stay tuned.

Best,

Jonas & Conrad



To our close friends and family, we had a little different email. Including you all for that :


Hey All,

Really appreciate all the love, feedback, and support from friends and family. We’ve gotten some great suggestions are looking forward to what the future holds.

Launch day is this Tuesday at 9:00am and we couldn’t be more excited. We are launching a business and every purchase made gets us one step closer to reaching our goal, so we appreciate the support, but also want to make sure we’re taking care of you, too.

Purchases early in the campaign - first 12 to 24 hours - have the biggest impact. Something to keep in mind when reading through this:

• For any purhases within that first 24 hours, we’ll be adding to your order:
  
  
  • 3 pack + 1 (total of 4)
    
    
  • 5 pack + 2 (total of 7)
    
    
  • 10 pack + 5 (total of 15)
    
    
  • 30 pack + Something awesome (surprise)
    

Tuesday at 9:00am we launch.

I'll shoot through an email in the morning with our Kickstarter page link. And if you're one of those super organized types, here are some handy calendar links to make it easy

Apple Google Outlook Outlook.com Yahoo

Thanks so much,

Jonas & Conrad

 

[powderhound100]

Really close now 96% funded. Really hoping to wake up to goal. I think hitting it in 48 hours would be nice....
Made a few small changes and added the order now buttons. Might try some different header images as well.

Introducing the Pro-Formance Sock by ALMI

I'll definitely consider retail more thanks to all the suggestions from you all, wasn't part of the original strategy. We were thinking of a subscription model and e-commerce. Also plan on developing more products and work on developing the brand.
Bombas does millions of dollars a year online with no retail so of course there are multiple ways to skin a cat, however, agreed that no channels that should be overlooked and that there's some great potential there.

 

[Scot]

Here a line I use for my business.

“A healthcare company cleverly disguised as a food brand”

Maybe try..

“A gym sock cleverly disguised as a dress sock” ?

 

[c4n]

There is defenitely a market for $22+ performance socks, I'm a regular buyer.

I've been using socks made of two fabric layers daily for years (Wrightsock brand) as I spend a good part of the day in boots. I love it and am interested to see how yours compare.

The main issue I have with the current brand I'm using is they tear up rather quickly - either below the heel or near the toes, where two types of fabric are stiched together.

 

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[ZCP]

@powderhound100 i think we all just keep coming back to it seems like you 'hope this will work' instead of you are 'going to make this work'.

You seem to continually want to sit around and wait for sales instead of taking action. Which is why I originally questioned your belief in the product.

What makes you want to keep the parking brake on? Fear of what? Making too much money? Being too successful?

Why not sell EVERY channel until the market tells you what to do?

 

[million$$$smile]

Glad your KS hit your milestone and can't wait to receive my order!

I've been wearing them for over a month now and can attest that they are a good pair of socks.

Jonas, I think you have a viable product, but I agree that you need to up your marketing game.

Focus on creating your market prior to receiving all of your product.
If you develop your customer base needing your product, it will force you to up your reorders and quicker to accommodate re-ups. I agree on focusing a large part on the B&M boutique market. Create a plan for marketing to small independent stores so that it is more controllable on the outset. Perhaps look into garment buying groups: Buying Groups for the apparel clothing industry

The difference between an 'Entrepreneur' and an 'entrepreneur' is how aggressive they work to create their business.
It literally can be the difference between creating a job with a product and a business creating jobs selling multiple products.

Will be watching for more updates.

Good luck and stay aggressive.

R

 

[ZCP]

Chop F*cking chop!!

 

[Greg R]

"Dear Retail Store,

Do you want to be part of something awesome?

Well, we would love for the opportunity tell you about our new sock technology that you can wear with dress shoes and at the gym.

We recently launched a KickStarter and reached half our goal in two days.

Here is a link to a short video of our product and attached is our sell sheet.

You're not going to want to miss out on this.

Let me know when you are ready to order.

~ @powderhound100 "

 

[powderhound100]

Got a new banner up which will hopefully be more engaging.

Old:


Still trying to figure out positioning. We go back and forth on calling it a dress sock. Looking forward to doing more testing.. Gonna run with this for now:
New:


Making some more tweaks to the page as well:
Introducing the Pro-Formance Sock by ALMI

 

[Greg R]

Congrats man! Rep+ and bookmarked.

Can't wait to see how things turn out.

 

[Envision]

Looking forward to it man! Thanks the pair of socks, wearing em on my business trip tomorrow.

 

[AgainstAllOdds]

"Why only a $10,000 goal?" That is the minimum amount to hit, not the maximum.

The faster you hit your goal the better for the kickstarter algorithm. We decided $10k because it sounds like a good, realistic number.
Honestly, I'd prefer to put $5,000 or something so we could hit the goal really quick.

If anyone has thoughts on that matter, would love to hear them.

Look at stats of previous projects.

Setting a lower goal is the appropriate direction for a product like yours. Once you hit $10k, you have the social proof to go forward. The last thing you'd want is a $100k goal and to raise $91k -- meaning that you get none of it.

$10k goal is appropriate, after which you can rake in as much as possible on Kickstarter and have a solid basis for manufacturing and distributing to retailers (honestly that's where I think the easier money is vs ecommerce for something like socks).

Good luck.

 

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[Eskil]

Yup. I had a relatively low goal (35k) on my Kickstarter too, which definitely helped because of how their algorithm for exposure works. Once the goal was met, it just went upwards from there.


Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

 

[MTF]

Good luck! Looking pretty good so far, already crossed $1,000!

 

[Greg R]

I've wore these socks three times now and I can personally say that they are my favorite socks in my sock drawer. I wear them with work boots and dress shoes, they hold up great. The quality is excellent and even though I have not wore them yet cycling or working out, I'm confident that they are exactly what I need.

@powderhound100, I just backed you on Kickstarter.

When the Kickstarter is over, we need to have a chop chop chat about how you are going to sell 100,000 of these. @ZCP

 

[amp0193]

Congrats on an almost funded kickstarter here Jonas.

Hopefully you shoot way past the 8k, and knock it way out of the park.

This will be great social proof that you can share to retailers.

Speaking of retailers... you gotta figure out the long-term strategy here. Subscription boxes are nice, and again, great social proof... however, it's one-off sales that are not repeatable. Retail is what's going to bring you recurring revenue.

 

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[powderhound100]

@powderhound100 now that we hit goal ..... can we stop dicking around with kickstarter and start making some real money?

Contacted a guy that went to my college that went to my college whose a shoe buyer at Nordstroms, he's going to find the right sock person for me.

 

[MTF]

@powderhound100, what is your goal now that you've hit the minimum target?

 

[Zcott]

Really interested to see how this plays out.

Are you marketing to high end professionals? $22 for one pair of socks seems really expensive, but I trust you've done research.

Good luck to you!

 

[powderhound100]

I was really impressed by the video you showed me at the meetup a few weeks ago. Stellar job on that!

As I mentioned earlier though, the page loads pretty slow on mobile so you might want to reduce the number of heavy gifs and images and see if you can replace at least some of it with text.

Greatly appreciate that Eskil, just want to confirm, is it the gifs or the whole page?
Thinking most people will watch the video first, but maybe that's wishful thinking.

Got our press release all prepped:
Anyone know if larger packages are worth the investment: Home - Online PR Media
Here's our press release: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DsYYvmEb6AMt4MwrhnV-5ERPQ_Wwhk3U2YSrbsnZG1c/edit

 

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[Eskil]

Greatly appreciate that Eskil, just want to confirm, is it the gifs or the whole page?
Thinking most people will watch the video first, but maybe that's wishful thinking.

The images are the main cause of it:
PageSpeed Insights

 

[SYK]

Anyone know if larger packages are worth the investment: Home - Online PR Media

They can be worth it if you’re looking for backlinks, google news indexing and some obscure automated news site pick up. The latter can be used as social proof by including their logos on your Kickstarter page. Don’t expect any major cut through with the mass blast service; individual pitching will be more effective.

I’d also look to bulk out your press release with more detail/stronger angle. And if you haven’t already, get a press kit filled with images, video, graphics and bios hosted online to go with your press release.

All the best with it, will be watching!

 

[ZCP]

sell before the socks get here! push all channels at all times
quit waiting on kickstarter

 

[powderhound100]

We're working with Backerclub to try and sell to their audience and they made this post to try and get some buy-in, thought the giveaway was a pretty good idea, Got a few good suggestions from there:

The Two Functional Fibers (TFF) Sock by ALMI Apparel - Feedback for Giveaways (Valid till March 5th, 2019) - BackerClub Forums
Curious to see how much comes in from backerclub.

 

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[SYK]

Thanks, appreciate your feedback.
Any suggestions for what type of detail or stronger angle's to go after?

Without knowing everything about you/your backstory I couldn’t say specifically. But from a PR philosophical stand point, think beyond the product itself.

What’s your unique story? What led you to create the company? What’s different about it’s mission? Look for any kind of hook that’ll make for a good story. Media don’t just want to be a mouthpiece for a company, they want to tell an interesting story. (Disclaimer: some trade/product focused outlets will focus more on the product itself, esp. if it’s new/unique).

To better explain, here’s an example using a startup I work with.

Original pitch: A tech platform that is the safest way to adopt and rehome pets

Meh.

Here’s how it looks after more delving and angle crafting:
25-year-old serial entrepreneur is using technology to stamp out the scourge of puppy farms after his own traumatic experience adopting a puppy online.

See the difference? Think deeply about what story you can tell so you’re not just relying on someone to write about the socks themselves.

Go get ‘em.

 

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