I found Emily Brooke and her story quite interesting. She’s a young (and quite fetching) entrepreneur, who’s successfully done what many only dream of: she designed a product that people really need. A truly unique product too.
The Blaze Laserlight is a compact unit that mounts on the front of your bike, projecting a lighted image of a bicycle up to 6 meters in front of you, to warn drivers and other cyclists that you’re coming.
“Brilliant”, as the brits would say! (Note: Brooke herself is from the UK.)
Watch the video. It’s more than just a success story, the interview actually tells you exactly how you can bootstrap a business; with no money, just an idea.
Emily Brooke used KickStarter to conduct her initial market research (ie., using the KickStarter community). The results told her everything she needed to know about whether her Laserlight concept would have any traction with buyers.
After raising over $93,000 from KickStarter, she went on to have prototypes made and got enough momentum going to capture the interest of other venture capitalist firms, Richard Branson’s investment team being one of them.
Here’s the startup video Brooke and her team posted on Kickstarter to get their funding:
Let’s face it: the Laserlight is really cool; even if you’re not into cycling!
