Imagine waking up to learn you’ve just received $25,000 to help build a project you’ve dedicated your life to. Brad Holland doesn’t have to wonder what that feels like because it actually happened to him. Thanks to a collaborative effort between Arrow and Indiegogo, Brad is now able to put $25,000 towards Kordbot, an all-in-one chord generator and studio production assistant.
The first to receive funding through Indiegogo and Arrow, Brad developed an interest in music and technology early on after reading a book entitled Music & Sound for the Commodore 64 at a young age. As an adult working in the music industry, he thought up the idea for Kordbot, a device he imagined music makers could use to generate chord progressions. Once he realized, to his immense surprise, that the device didn’t exist already, he knew he had to give it a shot, saying, “I’ve always been waiting for this thing to be something that I could go and buy. And it never happened. So we made it.”
In a twist of events that Brad could hardly believe, he ended up working with the author of the book that sparked his interest in music and technology so long ago: Bill Behrendt, a software developer. The pair recognized there was a demand for Kordbot, but they needed to find a way to get it to market. They found a solution in crowdfunding.
Kordbot Takes First Steps with Crowdfunding
Brad and Bill initially received $55,000 in funds on another platform in just one day, at which point they realized they needed more resources in order to improve their product quality and offer more features to their ever-growing list of interested individuals. That’s when Arrow and Indiegogo stepped in.
They turned to Indiegogo’s InDemand, which allows users to continue raising funds even after their initial goal is met, and enrolled with Indiegogo and Arrow’s certification process in order to receive valuable insights on their development process. Brad notes that the Arrow team has been immensely helpful in offering guidance for Kordbot, and affirms that “The guys from Arrow have been proactive from the beginning, jumped on board and asked loads of questions. They’ve given tons of expert advice. They live and breathe the components, so they’re looking at our product telling what can be changed or improved.”
Arrow’s Offers Invaluable Support
The team at Arrow wanted Kordbot to succeed just as much as Brad and Bill did, and they offered comprehensive advice and addressed the team’s concerns about part quality, upgrades, and compatibility. After consulting with Arrow experts, Brad and Bill were able to completely revamp their hardware and create a more powerful and reliable device.
"At the start of the campaign, we were based around what is known as an ATMEL micro control - as we did all the upgrades, we realized it was totally underpowered. We’ve 90% changed the whole hardware. It looks the same, but inside, it’s totally different. We added a 2.8 inch TFT color LCD, which is based around the central micro controller called the STM 32 F4 series.”
Arrow also introduced them to an impressive sensor from Analog Devices that really allowed them to take their design to the next level, giving users a highly interactive experience that is also incredibly pragmatic.
“One of the key components we use from top sensitivity is an Analog Device 7147, which is a human capacity sensor – it’s a chip that Arrow connected me with. Which is a really cool chip which can convert soft finger gestures, same thing on an Apple mouse pad. It converts your fingertips to do things, like strumming a guitar by wiping a finger across it. Essentially, it’s a computer, from its design and how humans interact with it and the software inside it. It’s a computer with a human interface. The core technology are the essential chips."
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Brad is quick to affirm the vital role Arrow’s guidance has played throughout this journey, saying he couldn’t put a value on the advice from which he’s benefitted. “They [Arrow] are on hand to help us make revisions in the future, look at our plans. They are so helpful. That resource is totally invaluable to have. It’s like having extra technical staffers on your team.”
Since receiving the support and the funds from Arrow and Indiegogo, Brad and Bill have taken a sigh of relief, so to speak. Now that they’ve addressed many of their concerns associated with production (including shipping, handling, and creating packaging for the device), they can focus on creating the very best version of Kordbot possible, which is exactly what Arrow and Indiegogo want, too.
Bill can sum up the success of this journey in just a few words: “The three key words are ‘tools,’ ‘certification,’ and ‘partnership’: Arrow, with Indiegogo, bringing all that together in today's maker-entrepreneur world is a monumental step in the right direction for a new business model of the future. I feel blessed to be a part of it.”
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