#BETTER THAN CONNECTIFY SOFTWARE#
#BETTER THAN CONNECTIFY CODE#

What seemed to work better: posting new videos that showed the software at work in real scenarios, like at a coffee shop. In the original Kickstarter video, Gizis himself described Dispatch with a whiteboard and nifty animations.

So the Connectify team revised its pitch. вЂњThere was a moment of sheer terror,вЂќ Gizis said.В The support of friends and family is a whole lot different than market validation. But then, on day two, he checked the list of the backers - and saw the biggest one was the best man in his wedding. The Kickstarter campaign had a nice quick kickoff in early August, Gizis said. It was about getting a significant number of early adopters to say theyвЂ™d pay $50.В вЂњWeВ wonвЂ™t take any profit on this, but hopefully will end up with a product that sells like hotcakes,вЂќ Gizis said. In that respect, it wasnвЂ™t really about the money. Gizis said the number came from a calculation of вЂњthe minimal consistent monthly revenue for the Connectify Dispatch project to pay itself off in an acceptable time frame.вЂќ I asked Gizis to share a bit more about the lessons he learned from the Kickstarter process.ДЇirst off, ConnectifyвЂ™s original goal of $50,000 was set low, per other peopleвЂ™s advice. вЂњYour venture funding can go a lot further if your Kickstarter backers are telling you which features they will pay for, and which they have no interest in.вЂќ вЂњI think that the savvy venture-backed company should still launch at least some of their products through Kickstarter,вЂќ Gizis said. Good Kickstarter backers provide feedback. Good venture capitalists provide advice and contacts.

Gizis said he sees VC and Kickstarter funding as complementary. And Connectify doesnвЂ™t mention its VC funding in its Kickstarter pitch.ДЄsked to be more specific about the funding, a Connectify spokeswoman gave this explanation: вЂњThe previous investment paid for the core technology, but the funding from our backers was crucial for us to develop the Dispatch consumer product.вЂќ To be sure, some Kickstarter users may not feel great about giving their money to a company that has been able to use more traditional methods in the recent past. WeвЂ™re starting to see Kickstarter used as a testing ground by traditionally funded start-ups, rather than a primary funding source, but not always with success, since Kickstarter doesnвЂ™t pay out any money to projects that donвЂ™t meet their funding goals. What Connectify did wasnвЂ™t necessarily a first. The Kickstarter campaign was a way to test if consumers wanted a slice of that technology, and to fail fast if they didnвЂ™t, Gizis said.

#BETTER THAN CONNECTIFY CODE#

That money was enough to pay for a 15-person company to develop a whole bunch of cool technology - вЂњtoo much code and too many features,вЂќ as Gizis put it - but not necessarily to arrive at a clear product. Department of Defense, raised funding for Connectify last year from In-Q-Tel, the VC firm affiliated with the CIA. Gizis, who previously built robots for the U.S. So why Kickstarter? Mainly to get customer feedback and validation, according to CEOВ Alex Gizis, whom I spoke with shortly after Connectify completed its campaign with $107,623 raised from 1,708 backers. Philadelphia-basedВ Connectify was already a venture-backed company, and it had already built much of the software for Dispatch before posting the project in August. Or someone making a massive BitTorrent transfer could speed it up by linking to multiple networks.Дispatch was not exactly a zero-to-Kickstarter-in-30-days project. So, a user at a coffee shop using Connectify Dispatch could combine access from spotty Wi-Fi and a mobile Internet dongle. The companyвЂ™s tantalizing premise is that its software will make Internet access faster and more reliable by using more than one connection at the same time. Networking start-up Connectify finished a successful Kickstarter campaign last week, having raised slightly more than double its goal of $50,000, the majority of which came in the form of preorders for its new product.

Better than connectify