Ep. 013: How to Launch a Wearable Tech Brand — The Andrea Perdomo Interview

Be inspired by this young female entrepreneur, and her co-founder, and how they’re blazing a revolutionary new trail in wearable technology. Hear her describe the challenges (and opportunities) of raising capital, learning fast, creating a high-performing team and proving skeptics wrong. Leave a Rating & Review in iTunes for the Product Launch Rebel Podcast Podcast Timeline: 0:43 – Introduction to Andrea Perdomo, Co-Founder and President of Revolar, the wearable tech safety-device company. 2:52 – Start of the “Give Me the Basics” Segment 3:15 – Andrea talks about what makes the Revolar so unique compared to other personal safety options that are available. (Revolar offers different alerts based on a user’s level of discomfort.) 4:52 – Andrea talks about the original idea behind Revolar, and how her co-founder, Jackie Ros, came up with the idea based on an incident that happened to her sister. 7:31 – Andrea describes how a fateful opportunity led her to meeting her business partner and co-founder, Jackie Ros. Andrea talks about her early career (and pre-Revolar) motivations to make a difference in the world and how she drove from Atlanta to Denver to work as an intern for a non-profit (which is how she originally met her co-founder, Jackie Ros). 8:46 – Andrea describes how, early on, the company aimed to learn from consumers, friends and family to understand user safety needs and to help sharpen their brand message. They learned that the concept of safety is different for different people. 11:22 – Start of the “Tell Me How” Podcast Segment 11:40 – Andrea describes the process and challenge of raising capital, after going through a bootstrapping phase, and living a frugal lifestyle eating ramen and potatoes. One of their key approaches was to talk to investors as advisors. She talks about the challenge of needing to prove consumer demand for the product before anyone invests in the company. Andrea talks about how they originally did pitch competitions to raise money, and how they proceeded to use Kickstarter to prove demand for the product, which eventually led them to raise an additional $3 million from The Foundry Group. She talks about how they learned that raising money is all about relationships – building relationship with investors, like marriage or dating. “You have to get to know them as people.” 16:50 – Andrea talks about some hiccups along the way to raising capital (i.e. learning the financial terms). 18:24 – Andrea describes how she would have done things differently when raising capital. She advises others to start raising money early, and to figure out the brand story needed to tell investors, and the importance of painting that picture of where the company will be in 5 to 10 years. 19:26 – Andrea talks about finding a manufacturer for their highly technical product, and the challenges of doing so with very little experience in working with manufacturers and engineers. “Manufacturing: it’s difficult.” “The big thing was trying to learn how it all works.” Andrea describes the challenges of sourcing all of the different components and finding the best price, making sure the product was environmentally friendly, and finding a source that was as close to home as possible. Andreas goes on to offer key advice: “Don’t be afraid to hire people or get advice from people that know more than you. “It’s okay to not know all the answers.” 24:15 – Andrea talks about the many trade-offs when it comes to...