A Crowdfunding Success with Parkit Movement’s Steven Wilcox

Steven Wilcox: A Man focused on Bringing People Together through the Creation of Outdoor Chairs

In yet another exclusive interview with Josh Elledge, Founder and CEO of upmyinfluence, a platform dedicated to turning entrepreneurs into media celebrities, growing their authority and building partnerships with top influencers, Josh interviews Steven Wilcox, the CEO of Parkit.

In this Podcast, Steven explains quite a lot about his business, the launch on Kickstarter, which happened sometime in May, just in the middle of the pandemic. Kickstarter is Parkit outdoors associated product which was pushed into the market despite the challenges caused by the pandemic, and as surprising as it is, there was a tremendous response. They raised more than enough money (that goes above the expected target) on Kickstarter, and like every other normal company, they were excited about that.

They decided to build the ultimate outdoor recreational use chair for the company's next product, though with a little personal touch. Personal touch as in, since Steven is a big-time surfer, and the girlfriend is a big-time camper, they own their sprinter camper van that takes them around the country. According to him, when you go stargazing and chase a bunch of adventures, that's the moment you get to understand the majority of the products that exist out there. Some of these products include camping uncomfortable camping chairs and all other super dysfunctional stuff that didn't have the things that people don't want ordinarily. These camping chairs was so bad that it easily fell apart.

So, these experiences motivated Steven to make a change using his company. The company later decided to build them a more superior outdoor recreational use chair. This development prevented campers (mostly) from going back to Walmart or Costco each time and buying another chair. Unlike the conventional chair out there, the company's version is cooler than detaches, hence, it is two products in one. It is directly attached to the chair underneath your seat for easy access and has a volume of about 24 cans of your favorite beverage. It also has external pockets for your keys, wallet, phone, and then it has hannspree carry straps built into it. All these features will enable the user the use it for different purposes.

Why Planning is Important in Every Business

Before they crowdfunded the product, they spent a lot of time researching and designing the product. Steven is not a product designer, but he had the vision of what they wanted to build in his head. The company spent the first year of the business knocking on the doors of metal welders and different woodworkers just being like, “Hey, how do I build this? All of them looked at him like he was crazy.” This continued until Steven put a note on LinkedIn that said, “Hey, anybody on LinkedIn, know how to, like connect with anyone who's a product designer?”. That was it; it looked a bit desperate. Still, it is some craziness in the right dimension. With this step, he nets Jason, and shares his thoughts, and the rest is history. Steven further explained that they partnered with Clue, Onyx, and Jason and his team helped drive the design process to a tangible product and took the ideas and implemented them into what is now called the “Voyager chair.” Because of Steven's kind of team, he could focus on other business sections; he went into marketing, strategy, and implemented all the strategies needed to ensure that the Kickstarter campaign was successful.

Steven has been in the world of entrepreneurship for a long time, he has tried his hands on many other businesses, but this is the first time he is hitting it big in business. On the contrary, the company had experienced some roadblocks, one of them which the major is the prototype for a chair that they planned to sell. The cost of selling these chairs is estimated at somewhere between five and $7,000. This has become a problem on the company's side because they could not just figure out how a prototype would cost that much.

Finally, how did Steven and his team, come up with a chair so cool, yet very strong? This is it – they got similar sit with the almost same material and put it to test by breaking it to see which part of the chair will be the first to break. They tried to understand how every aspect worked. Steven's story teaches every aspiring entrepreneur out there is honor in hard work, and with the right team and proper planning, nothing is impossible.

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