The Kiwi creators of meMINI are preparing to manufacture the wearable camera as soon as the Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign ends.
So far more than US$87,000 has been raised on Kickstarter with more than 530 financial backers – enabling meMINI creators Sam Lee, of Wanaka, and Ben Bodley, of Auckland, to turn their concept into a reality.
As mentioned in Kickstarter, The original founder of Snow Park in Cardrona Valley, New Zealand, Lee has always had an entrepreneurial streak.
Having been at the epicenter of freestyle snow sports for over a decade, Lee has witnessed many innovations in camera technology, and been involved in the production of cutting edge skiing and snowboard films.
When Lee moved on from Snow Park, he realised he had endless hours of video, but he hadn’t captured the ‘stand out’ personal moments or hadn’t done anything with the tapes, which had since been lost or damaged.
It was out of this frustration that Sam started dreaming… What if he could create a product that would enable him to capture the moments he experienced, without creating excesses of digital content, and protect that content forever?
It wasn’t long before Sam came across Ben Bodley and the team at Teknique, who helped to really bring the meMINI idea to life.
As well as reputable skills in product design and development, Teknique have built a reputation for manufacturing high quality, high volume camera systems for specialised filming environments, with it’s camera designs having been awarded CES Honoree, and Red Dot Design awards.
The next step is to manufacture the product and arrange national and international distribution channels.
“Kickstarter backers will receive their meMINI cameras in the mail first, by late June, and we’re hoping it will be available for general retail by late August,” Lee says.
The 30-day Kickstarter campaign, which ends tomorrow (Thursday, February 6 at 4pm New Zealand-time), allows meMINI supporters the chance to pay the early-bird price of US$169 – and receive their WiFi-enabled wearable camera weeks before other buyers. After Kickstarter, meMINI will retail for US$199.
Lee and Bodley, who launched meMINI’s crowd-finding campaign at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last month, say Kickstarter has been a great platform for engaging with customers.
“It’s like communication on steroids with your customers. You’re able to receive feedback on what people like, what they don’t like, what they want and don’t want,” Lee says.
“To get that before you even make a product is fantastic. You can engage with wide demographic of customers before you completely finalise your product.”
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