We are receiving a lot of mails from people who ask us where or when they can buy one of our “R2B2”. Unfortunately we are not on the market yet but we are getting closer and closer. We are working together with team of engineers, which is more than twice as high as our own team ;). Everything we still need is a little bit more money to speed things up. We already are in talks with investors and also evaluate other funding possibilities, again. One major issue is that the money guys don’t believe in YOU and can not imagine that there are people out there who would actually really buy our product. So if you are interested in buying one you would do us a huge favour by sending us a letter of your intent (LOI) saying how many “R2B2” you would like to buy as soon as we are ready. The more official it looks ( Logo, etc.) the better. You can also add addtional information e.g. the purpose of use (private or business). Please send us your letter as PDF @ order@areyouwheel.com. Thanks a lot for your support!
*These “Pre-orders” are non-binding for you neither for us. It is just to confirm a general interest!
The first weeks of 2012 were very “educational” for us. First we were invited to Munich, where some students of the “European University” developed new ideas for business models for “ARE YOU WHEEL?”. It is always good to get an outside view on what you are doing and we are very thankful for some fresh thoughts and new ideas.
A few days later Christoph headed to France where he was invited by the “Lycée Leonardo da Vinci” in Nice. There he was leading a workshop about sustainability and our project. The aim was to make the students aware of what they are doing and buying and even more important to show them that they can play a role as individuals to make the world a little bit better.
“ I had a very nice and warm welcome with lots of interesting and exited people. It was a great experience to see young students exited about our project. They came up with lots of new ideas during the workshop. They will develop these first ideas further now. I am very curious about the final results. I hope I was abled show them that it can be fun to work on the topic “sustainability” and that it is important for the future to come up with new concepts. But one thing is for sure: I had a great stay with a lot of fun. The only thing that could have been a little bit better was the weather”, Christoph summarizes his trip to Nice.
More Pictures from France you can find on our FB-Page!
Da wir in letzter Zeit auch zunehmend Anfragen aus dem deutschsprachigen Raum erhalten, gibt es den aktuellen Stand dieses mal zuerst auf Deutsch.
Crowdfunding
Unsere im Sommer gestartete Crowdfundingkampagne ist mittlerweile beendet und wir konnten unser Ziel leider nicht erreichen. Letztendlich haben wir (immerhin) 1700$ erhalten und freuen uns natürlich über jeden Cent. Die Weiterentwicklung des Prototyps lässt sich dadurch aber selbstverständlich noch nicht finanzieren.
Weiterentwicklung „R2B2“
Für die Weiterentwicklung von R2B2 konnten wir mittlerweile verschiedene kompetente Partner gewinnen. Sobald die Finanzierungsfrage gelöst ist, wird R2B2 in innerhalb einiger Monate zur Marktreife entwickelt werden. Des weiteren haben wir auch schon Abnahmezusagen für die ersten R2B2‘s erhalten. Es bewegt sich also Einiges und wir sind auf die nächsten Wochen und Monate gespannt.
Unterstützung!
Wir sind immer auf Suche nach Unterstützung in den verschiedensten Bereichen. Momentan suchen wir insbesondere ein(e) Texter(in) und jemanden, der uns im Bereich der Öffentlichkeitsarbeit tatkräftig zur Seite steht. Mehr Infos gibt‘s hier.
Wer uns finanziell unterstützen möchte, hat hierzu selbstverständlich auch die Möglichkeit. Über den „Donatebutton“ (Startseite rechts) ist es möglich uns Spenden zukommen zu lassen. Hier haben wir uns auch noch etwas Besonderes für euch ausgedacht: Unter allen Spendern ab 100€ verlosen wir ein Exemplar von R2B2 der ersten Serie (inkl. Versandkosten weltweit). Die Aktion dauert bis zum 31.10. 2011 und wir werden hier im Blog über den Verlauf der Aktion regelmäßig berichten.
Nächste Termine
Im November sind wir mit R2B2 gleich doppelt unterwegs. Christoph wird auf Einladung des Rat für Formgebung an den YDMI Days 2011 in Hong Kong teilnehmen und Edgar parallel unser Projekt auf dem Thüringer Innovationstag vertreten. Wir werden bald ausführlicher darüber berichten.
Für Fragen und Antworten stehen wir euch auch weiterhin selbstverständlich jederzeit zur Verfügung!
Be real - be wheel!
Today Christoph explains R2B2 on Galileo/Pro7 (german only). The show starts at 7.10PM (CET). There gonna be an online version too.
A couple of weeks ago a team from the German Television Show „Galileo“ visited Christoph at the Bauhaus University Weimar, to make a feature about R2B2 and its development during his studies. Christoph and the team spend a funny and productive day together and we are really looking forward to watch the result. We uploaded some pictures of the day on Facebook. The feature will be on air in october or november. We gonna inform you as soon as we know the exactly date.
Stay tuned!
First of all, we want to thank everybody for their support. We got a lot of emails from people all over the world offering us their help and encouraging us to go on with our project. Thank you! Thaaaaank you!
Join the „R2B2“ lottery!
Our crowdfunding campaign is now on air for over five weeks and we received financial support from a few dozens funders who perked our project on indiegogo.com with 1.300$.
Not bad but not enough!
For the last days of our funding campaign we bring to you the ultimate „R2B2“ lottery.
How does it work?
Contribute 100$ (or more) on our crowdfunding page and you will automatically take part in our lottery, having the chance to win the first R2B2 on the market ever. Free shipping worldwide included. Between all participants one lucky winner will be chosen by an independent third party.
This is your chance to get your own R2B2 for just 100$ - don‘t miss your opportunity!
Good Luck!
As for every great idea or product the success and the future of our project relies on the little thing called money. This is what it takes (not only and not always) to move on and sometimes to get serious .
The more idealistic and complex your product is the more complicated it can be to raise money as „traditional“ funding and investment instruments might not be the perfect fit.
A few months ago we were in a paradox situation that everybody was fascinated by our product but nobody wanted to give us financial support or produce R2B2.
But we believe in what we do and we found the perfect solution.
Today we launched our crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo.com with the intend to raise enough money during the next weeks to develop R2B2 further into a ready to market product. We are happy and and we are excited! Super excited!!!
How does it work?
Crowdfunding is a funding mechanisms that allows projects or start-ups to raise money from different people all over the world. It is not really an investment tool as far as you are not giving away any stakes or rights but your supporters will be rewarded in other and more creative ways. There are different online platforms out there which can be used to launch a campaign. Raising money by crowdfunding is a challenging venture because the success depends on you, your strategy and the (media) attention your campaign gets. Crowdfunding also means all or nothing: either you raise your funding goal or you go home with empty pockets.
Coming up next: What do we want? & What do you get? & How can you help?
Our campaign on Indiegogo.com
We are very happy to pronounce todays official launch of ‘ARE YOU WHEEL?’. Before participating in the milan design week in April we set up a temporally site to inform some of you about the future plans regarding R2B2. What we did not expect was the overwhelming feedback and huge attention we already received since then. Over 4000 visitors on our site and around 500 subscribers to our newsletter is much more than we ever expected before even getting public. Your continue support confirms our believe that the world is ready for R2B2, now!
During the last months we developed our strategy how do transform R2B2 into a ready to produce product, created our new website and already negotiated with partners who would be able to support our further technical developments. We also set up a crowd funding campaign to raise some money to realize our dream: bringing R2B2 in your household as soon as possible. We are super excited about it and happy that things finally move on which would not have been possible without the great support from our friends.
Special thanks goes to Stephan, Mandy, Emu and Matt. You are the best :)!
Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and on our blog to stay informed!
Be real - be wheel!
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