invisaWear: Building Traction With Crowdfunding

Abstract

While attending a networking event hosted by The Capital Network in the Summer of 2017, a rather innocuous conversation with an investor put invisaWear co-founders Rajia Abdelaziz and Ray Hamilton on an uncharted course. Despite a lot of interest in their new product, investors were hesitant to write them a check. However, during their discussion with an investor, they learned that if a company could prove, through crowdfunding, that people were willing to back their campaign, then that would help validate that there was a real market opportunity for their product. Having learned that investors viewed crowdfunding as an important milestone for demonstrating the validity of a company’s business model when making investment decisions, otherwise known as traction, Rajia and Ray went to work crafting a crowdfunding campaign. Looking to leverage the extensive media attention that invisaWear had garnered in recent months to direct attention to their crowdfunding campaign and build traction, to their dismay, Rajia and Ray found that mainstream media outlets had no interest in covering their crowdfunding campaign. Having hit this roadblock, Rajia and Ray now considered their options. How could their crowdfunding campaign build traction if they couldn’t get the word out to customers?