Dragon Innovation, which has worked with the wildly successful businesses Pebble, Coolest Cooler, and BlueSmart to estimate the actual costs of bringing their crowdfunded products to market, is expanding its offerings with Dragon Certified, a program to give companies a financial “seal of approval” before a crowdfunding campaign even begins.
“What we saw all the time was companies coming to us saying, ‘We just raised $200,000 on Kickstarter, let’s go pick a factory and start building this thing!’ and we’d look at it, do some quick analysis, and realize that $200,000 was great, but they really needed half a million, and they couldn’t even afford the tools much less the product,” Dragon Innovation CEO Scott Miller told AutoDesk.
The Dragon Certified program evaluates an idea by looking at the vendors, manufacturers, and supply chains that would be needed to bring it to market, and provides a realistic funding goal and development plan. It’s a compelling concept that could give consumers the confidence to invest in a bold hardware idea — especially at a moment when high-profile crowdfunding failures are prominent in the public consciousness.
Read more about Dragon Certified.
ADVERTISEMENT