The Future is Bright (and Sustainable) With Hemp Eyewear

For this episode of Art of the Kickstart, we caught up with Sam Whitten, founder of Hemp Eyewear, the world’s first sustainable hemp sunglass line. Tune in to learn more about how Sam set out to create a product with a positive global impact, how he approached design and development when building a “world’s first” product, and how he flipped the script on your average crowdfunding campaign video. Topics Discussed and Key Crowdfunding Takeaways How to approach designing and testing a “world’s first” product Capitalizing on the virality of their past crowdfunding campaign in 2014 How the crowdfunding landscape has changed in the past five years Their process of vetting the right crowdfunding agency for their needs and what caused them to choose Enventys Partners How they made their crowdfunding video and overall branding different from the industry standard to make them stand out The importance of pre-launch preparation before you hit the launch button Links Hemp Eyewear on Kickstarter Time Management for Dummies Sponsors Art of the Kickstart is honored to be sponsored by The Gadget Flow, a product discovery platform that helps you discover, save, and buy awesome products. The Gadget Flow is the ultimate buyer's guide for cool luxury gadgets and creative gifts. Click here to learn more and list your product - use coupon code ATOKK16 for 20% off! Transcript View this episode's transcript Roy Morejon: Welcome to art of the Kickstart, your source for crowdfunding campaign success. I’m your host, Roy Morejon, president of Enventys Partners, the top full service turnkey product development and crowdfunding marketing agency in the world. We have helped startups raise over a hundred billion dollars for our clients since 2010. Each week, I’ll interview a crowdfunding success story, an inspirational entrepreneur, or a business expert in order to help you take your startup to the next level with crowdfunding. Art of the Kickstart is honored to be sponsored by BackerKit and the Gadget Flow. BackerKit makes software that crowdfunding project creators use to survey backers, organize data, and manage orders for fulfillment by automating your operations and helping you print and ship faster. The Gadget Flow is a product discovery platform that helps you discover, save, and buy awesome products. It is the ultimate buyer’s guide for luxury gadgets and creative gifts. Now let’s get on with the show. Welcome to another edition of art of the Kickstart. Today I am talking with Sam Whitten, the founder of Hemp Eyewear. Sam, thank you so much for joining us today on the show. Sam Whitten: Thank you for having me. Roy Morejon: So, I’m really excited about this innovation. Hemp Eyewear is going to be the world’s first sustainable sunglass line developed entirely from hemp fiber and water. And no of course you can’t smoke them. So, I’m really interested to hear where this innovation started from and what inspired you to create Hemp Eyewear. Sam Whitten: So, I created the world’s first hemp sunglasses whilst I was at university. It was actually my final year project. So, I studied product design. I’ve always been passionate about sustainability and innovative design. So, I get bored of seeing the same products everywhere. And on the sustainability side, I discovered the great Pacific garbage patch whilst researching online. An area of 12 times the size of the UK in the middle of the Pacific ocean was just littered with plastic from the surface to about 12 foot underneath the ocean. It was just full of floating plastic. And I thought, wow, this is a massive problem. Why doesn’t everyone know about this? This was five years ago. So I asked the question, “What is the most sustainable material on earth?” And hands down, the answer was industrial hemp because it’s the most sustainable, eco-friendly, and diverse resource on earth. We can use it to make anything and it usually has beneficial properties than other...