We all encounter it. That everyday issue that drives us bonkers. Power. Or lack thereof. How often to you check the power on your device? Plan your next visit to the charging station? Gather your cables and plugs before leaving the house and ensure you have an extra charger with you? God forbid (I'm not religious; it's simply an expression), you should be caught with no way to tweet, text or post!
"Discontent is the first necessity of progress." -- Thomas A. Edison
An entrepreneur is driven to create change and often dives into a project or creates a startup with enough passion to sustain themselves to a point, not anticipating the twists and turns or the unexpected.
Laurens Laudowic began with a basic problem. He ran out of power frequently and was tired of lugging around chargers. He repeatedly lost his generic white charging cable for his iPhone/iPad to others who mistook it for their own. On occasion software updates to devices rendered a power cable useless, or the wires would break at the worst possible time. He was on the brink.
In a middle management job, Laurens wasn't realizing dreams and yearned for a life in the tech space. The power cable was a logical fit. Sure, there were other products he could've done. Phone cases, headphones, but the real pain, in his experience, was charging cables. If you've ever lived in a home with more than one device, you've experienced that pain. The disappearing plugs, the vanishing cables, the arguments over whose is whose. It doesn't matter if you're iPhone or Android the power pain is universal.
All power cables look pretty much the same. Usually white or a dingy off-white. Even Apple, with all its innovation, treated the cable like an unwanted stepchild. Laurens recognized the opportunity and loved the idea of sexing up the cable by infusing it with a rainbow of bright color and using high-quality materials found in top devices and audio products. The other challenge to overcome was tangle. When cables get repeatedly tangled their internal wires break and become useless. He gave himself 30 days to do it. Thirty days away from his management job to get this project done. Now, two years later he acknowledges the 30 days was a pipe dream and the financial requirements far exceeded what he anticipated. In the final weeks of his second Kickstarter campaign, he is well on his way. He solved the tangle problem by creating a high-tech weave to protect wires and strengthen the cable.
The product? JUICIES+. Today JUICIES+ has been featured in TechCrunch, CNET, and Cult of Mac. Laurens and his partner Hannes have realized more than $200,000 in funding from Kickstarter.
One of the biggest bonuses? Because of the foresight in their product development, your power cables won't be outdated simply because of a software update. They come in Apple's new Lightning standard30-pin cables, micro USB and USB extensions with anodized aluminum for protection.
While the process has been exciting, it's also been a big learning experience. In order to find success sooner and reduce the barrier to entry Laurens shares his tips for other entrepreneurs:
1) Use the Nike slogan: "Just Do It."
2) Be really serious. Treat the project like its your baby.
3) Spend 80 percent of your time planning (research, problem solve, consider sourcing, getting to a place where you know what you are doing); 20 percent of the time on actual execution.
4) Have fun with it! It's going to be a pain in the a$$ so you have to have fun with it. When you're having fun create excitement with prospects. They see your drive and determination and get caught up in the passion you have for the product..
The great thing about the Juicies team? They're proving geo barriers no longer exist. Partner Laudowicz is based in Honolulu and Reichelt is based in Germany.