Hi,

The back story:

About ten years ago I was part of running a startup in the consumer electronics category. All in all we sold products for maybe $1M until we for different reasons could not continue with the venture.

There was quite the following and our old customers are still asking for a successor to the product we sold.

I’m now thinking about creating a successor product and relaunch as a sole D2C business (previously we sold directly but also through retailers and distributors). We were profitable on direct sales but not through the other channels, the latter also drew a lot of personnel and travel costs that I’d like to slash this time around.

I’m confident in the new product and that I can make it fly. The last years I’ve launched a new consumer brand from a employee position and managed to get out in top tier media (through professional PR services) and gotten recognition for the product as best in show at CES.

So, what I’m thinking about is if it would be possible to fund development of the new generation of product through Patreon. I don’t know if this would be seen as an naive request or if it would be accepted as a means to make the product a reality.

After a certain amount of recurring incoming funds I guess part of the pledge could be returned as payment for the finished product in the future.

I know that Kickstarter and Indiegogo exist but they require a finished product and I’m not at that stage just yet.

This is my first time reaching out in this community, any thoughts and recommendations to guide me forward are highly appreciated!

TLDR: I want to relaunch my old consumer electronics brand by funding product development via Patreon - good or stupid idea?