crowdfunding

Karla Lemmon has done it. She’s left a successful corporate career as a product manager to pursue her dream of becoming a tech entrepreneur and marketing her own app — an app for which she’s convinced there’s a big need.

Little Peanut on the Go is a personal-assistant mobile app for parents to help them stay organized and connected when they or their children are away from home. It lets parents create packing lists and to-do lists, build care schedules to share with caregivers, and connect with their children while they’re away with updates and photos. Little Peanut on the Go just became available this month, first in the Google Play App Store for Android devices. It’s expected to be available very soon in the iOS App Store. (UPDATE: it’s there!)

This month was also Karla’s official start date for taking the reins of her own firm, Karimack Productions LLC, on a fulltime basis — and beginning the process of marketing her new app. She says she’s had several business ideas over the years, “but Little Peanut on the Go is the idea that gave me the passion to actually pursue entrepreneurship.” Read more about Karla’s story in her own words on her blog.

Previously, Karla was employed by Honeywell for a dozen years in a variety of progressively responsible positions. Most recently, she was a program manager, where she managed all aspects of a SaaS communications application, including product design and development, marketing, pricing, usability and quality testing, and deployment. Karla has a mechanical engineering degree and also holds an MBA from the University of Saint Thomas. Read more about her background on her LinkedIn profile.

I first learned about Karla’s new venture last fall when I attended and reported on the 2014 “MobCon” mobile conference in Minneapolis. In my recap of the event, I wrote about how she took first prize in the startup pitch competition — going up against some pretty smart guys! — winning $25,000 in cash and services in the process. As I said at the time, I was pretty blown away with the quality of her pitch and her app.

While Karla was self-funding the development and testing of her app, she realized she’d need to raise some funds to begin the marketing process once the app was available for download. But how? After considering various options, she chose to do a crowdfunding campaign — but not on Kickstarter or IndieGoGo, where it can be hard to get noticed. Rather, Karla decided to use a site designed specifically for women entrepreneurs: Plum Alley. Her campaign to raise just a modest $7500 is underway there, and it’s doing well in the short time it’s been live. Read about Karla’s decision to go with Plum Alley in a recent blog post she wrote.

So, tell your mommy friends — and grandparents, too! Have them download the app. And, let’s see if we can help Karla reach her funding goal. You can support her project right here on Plum Alley. Creative, smart, hard-working Minnesota women entrepreneurs like Karla deserve our support!

Also, be sure to follow Little Peanut On the Go on Twitter, and Like the app here on Facebook.

MCAD has a really cool event coming up on Tuesday evening, September 11. The best thing of all? It’s free and open to public. Here are the details: Visiting-Artist Lecture: Tom Gerhardt and Dan Provost, Cofounders of Studio Neat, New York City, Tuesday, September 11, 2012, 6:30 p.m., Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Auditorium 150 (Map: Getting to MCAD.)

Tom Gerhardt (at right in photo) is an internationally recognized artist and designer who works across a broad range of disciplines. As a hardware and software developer at Potion, Gerhardt helped to create interactive installations for some of the nation’s most prestigious museums and retail spaces. And as an artist, his work seeks to reconcile modern man’s dual citizenship in the physical and digital worlds through projects like The Mud Tub, an organic interface that allows people to control a computer while playing in the mud. Gerhardt and his design partner, Dan Provost (left), created the “Glif,” one of the world’s first crowd-funded commercial products. Gerhardt and Provost also founded Studio Neat, a design practice based in New York City.

The two just published an ebook on their experience and philosophy of designing and launching crowd-funded products: “It Will Be Exhilarating: Indie Capitalism and Design Entrepreneurship in the 21st Century, As Observed by StudioNeat.” (Download a DRM-free copy of the ebook at that link, in a bundle of ePub, Mobi, and PDF formats. Also available in the iBookstore and on Amazon.)

Founded in 2010, Studio Neat launched its first of two successful Kickstarter projects late that year, helping pave the way for a new era of independent hardware manufacturing. It also recently entered the software world with its first iPhone app. “We’ve learned a lot in a short period of time,” say the cofounders, “and we wanted to share this information with the world. So we wrote a book. ”

The book was written to offer guidance and inspiration for those charting a similar path. It covers topics such as running a small business, creating hardware products independently, launching a Kickstarter project, and tips for promoting your products. “Everything is told through the lens of our own experience,” the authors said.

It’s a short read, and I found it very readable and inspiring. “It provides the needed ‘kick’ to start making stuff. There isn’t a better time than now,” say the authors. Here’s how one famous Internet luminary endorsed the book:

“There is no recipe for passion, no 5-step guide to making your idea real, but there is good, solid advice, and this book is filled with it.” – Clay Shirky, author

Last week, BoingBoing published an excellent post by Glenn Fleishman, a Seattle-based writer, that captures the passion of Tom and Dan: “Indie Capitalism relies on crowds — and you can do it, too.”

Tom and Dan describe themselves simply as “two designers who enjoy making simple things and making things simple.” The Glif, the duo’s first product, represents a new way of approaching consumer products, and it wouldn’t have been possible without a few thousand people who believed in the designers. “Not too long ago, the Glif was just an idea with nowhere to go,” they said. “We knew it was going to be something people might like, but we needed a way to share it with the world. Typically, if you want to make a physical product (especially an electronics accessory) you have to be, or sell to, a large company — but we didn’t like that idea. We wanted to stay close to the Glif and, more importantly, to our customers. So, after much thought, we decided to put the Glif’s fate into the hands of the masses and begin a Kickstarter campaign to raise the money required to make it a reality.” (Kickstarter is a web site that connects creators with people who are interested in helping them out.)

“Our contributors on Kickstarter pledged money towards our goal with no guarantee that we would ever be successful,” Studio Neat’s cofounders said. “They took a leap of faith, backed our project, and $137,417 and 5273 backers later, here we are. The Glif became a full-fledged, crowd-funded product.” It was one of the first successful launches of a consumer product on Kickstarter, and, at the time, #3 on the list of most funds raised.

Here are the products of Studio Neat to date:

1) The Glip Tripod Mount & Stand For iPhone 4 and 4S