The all in one Baserock hydration backpack launched for the premiere round of investments on Kickstarter on June 13th as they seek a second round of investments. After the prototype has been locked together, the Baserock team has created a product centered around and molded by the community. Which means nearly everything that can be jammed in to this all in one festival and outdoor hydration pack will be there for the user’s convenience and overall experience.
The hydration pack not only includes a two liter reservoir.. for water, hip-zipper pockets for cash/cards/chapstick etc., a large zipper pocket for jackets/GoPros/Gatorade etc., and last but not least a fully functioning bass sensation that vibrates while the wearer has it on. Utilizing a lithium ion battery the pack will last eight hours on a single charge which is awesome for seeing your favorite headliners in a weekend long festival.
Now festivals and the EDM community are what built the idea for this pack, but it is not limited to just that. In this interview with the co-founder of Baserock, Gannon Daynes, we will see how it is made for many outdoor activities such as hiking, mountain biking, snowboarding, and just about anything you can go out and do by yourself or with a crew of friends. Today, Kickstarter supporters can get up to 50% off the price of the pack.
Support their Kickstarter here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/baserock/base...
https://ksr-video.imgix.net/projects/2954654/video-787877-h264_high.mp4
What have you been doing recently to get this project up and running, and when did you first start?
Jared (the other co-founder) and I start working with each other in February 2016. We started working on this as our senior project for college actually. We built the prototype and took it to a few events and people lost their mind over it and wanted to buy it off our backs. At that point we got pretty excited about it and thought “we may actually have something here.” So we started diving into it and then when we graduated in June we got accepted to an accelerated program which is basically a three month fast paced start up program where you get a little bit of money and work your ass off for three months to see if this project will actually be successful. So we started full time in June 2016 and we’ve been working full time ever since, so we work all day every day on this. We’ve done a round of Beta testing where we sent out 30 beta products to our target market and they’ve taken them to a bunch of different festivals like EDC (Las Vegas), Nocturnal Wonderland, HARD and basically all of the biggest Insomniac festivals and they’ve probably been to about 100 events collectively. From all that beta testing we’ve gotten a lot of awesome feedback on the actual technical aspects of the product which has driven our building and decision making to move the product forward. Also the community has been super helpful in making decisions for the product. At the end of the day the reason we’ve built this whole product is because we want something that the music community will be happy with. So what better way than to have them be involved in the testing of it. So it is really a customer driven product that is being made.
What was your inspiration when you first came up with the product?
It was derived from Jared and my passion from going to live events. We wanted to make the experience better and from that we tried a bunch of different ideas. We went from a vest to glasses and used a bunch of ideas we brainstormed on. This one [The Baserock pack] had legs. From there we researched to see if anyone has kind of made this before. That’s when we came across Subpack. This is a really cool innovative product, but they are going after different markets and I think we may eventually help each other through tactile experiences aren’t really mainstream yet, they are on the rise. By both of us going after different markets, I see us as being a benefit for each other by building the pool of people that are interested in this and then going after different markets.
I’ve really noticed how Subpack focuses on producers. It seems like they try to get their product in the hands of producers like Snoop Dogg etc. and you guys really have the scene involved, so I mean that’s awesome!
Yeah, so, Subpack’s kind of primary market is producers and they’re heavily going in to VR (virtual reality). Kind of how we perceive what they do is their product is perfect for anything indoors, so VR, producing music, anything like that. Ours is a lot more tailored to the outdoor community of people that are going to music festivals, going snowboarding or mountain biking and all that stuff because ours is put into a versatile hydration back with a TON of features.
Is it battery powered and rechargeable?
It is powered by a lithium ion battery that lasts 8 hours on a single charge
What are all of the features functions of the pack?
2 liter hydration reservoir, ample storage space to fit a jacket and a bunch of different stuff, it also has secure zipper pockets that can fit your iPhone 7+ or carry important valuables that you don’t want to lose while at an event or anywhere you would be using our product, also it has easy access hip zipper pockets which are nice for when you don’t want to take your pack off. You can carry cash and chap stick. The vibrating component of it works for live music or can be plugged in to headphones through your phone or through a speaker. Say you’re snowboarding in the mountains. You can plug your phone straight in to the pack and feel the vibrations. If you’re hiking with friends, you can plug your portable speaker in to it. So music is being played out and whoever is “stuck” carrying the pack gets those positive vibes from it.
Do you have any additional plans right now to implement to the pack later on?
Our first and foremost plan is to roll out different colors. Our hope is based on our success in our kickstarter we will be able to roll out several different colors and that’s going to be sort of a stretch goal on kickstarter because we know that each person has a different preference for color. In this future there are other things we are working on like Bluetooth compatibility, different sizes and strengths of packs. Say you’re a smaller girl we are looking to create a smaller and more compact version or also a larger “basshead” version.
Who are some artists you like?
I actually, embarrassing as it is, my favorite right now are the Chainsmokers as mainstream as that sounds. I actually saw them at Decadence and… I had a GREAT time haha. Yeah I saw them at Snowglobe and that’s what made them my favorite. They just had an awesome show. I can give you three. Floss, Marshmello and The Chainsmokers not in that order. I mean Porter (Robinson) is always great, Bassnectar is always great, Excision is always great, it just kind of depends on the mood. Day to day those are the people that I turn on.
Is this your first experience with entrepreneurship and overall how do you think it’s going?
This is my first startup experience. Prior to this I’ve done some casual stuff like I flipped clothes a lot during college, but this is my first formal business experience. So far it has been great. There are definitively a lot of learning experiences that come with it along the way and everything is always subject to change and that is something we practice with our community who is following us on this journey. We’re all in this journey together and there’s going to be things that change, but if we keep working together everything is going to work out alright.
If you don’t know how something works, i.e. the electrical components and all that, do you outsource that to a company and they reverse engineer it or figure out what you want and build that for you?
We have a consultant on our team right now whose specialty is electrical engineering with an emphasis in audio engineering, so he’s been actually designing all of the electronic components for us. How did you get in contact with him? We actually found him through some LinkedIn headhunting. We just searched audio engineer consultant and found him through there and we’ve actually seen a lot of success in just reaching out to people through LinkedIn and really any social media platform has been the best experience. Just personal interaction by showing people a lot more value and taking the time to take some interest in who they are and that’s kind of what built our community and company to what it is today.
What have been your biggest struggles? How did you overcome them?
One good learning experience was when we don’t know how to do something, to ask for help. In the early stages when we were first making the product we tried to do a lot of things internally that we didn’t have the skillset to do so that definitely prolonged our timeline of development a little bit, but it was for the best and we learned a lot from that and now the product is going to come out rock solid based on those learning experiences. That has probably been the biggest one. Another one that hasn’t really been a mistake, but everything is going to take twice as long as you anticipate when it comes to making a business. So definitely budget that timeline in to when you’re going to launch. We were going to originally launch back in November, but once we approached that timeline we learned that we were nowhere near ready and we need more time so definitely plan for things to take more time than anticipated and listen to advice that is given to you. That was something that was huge for us. We actually went to a crowdfunding conference and they said you guys aren’t ready this is what you need to do. Although that was an extremely hard decision for us since we had prepared and spent a lot of time to launch it was the best decision we could’ve made because our product is going to be a lot more polished when we’re goin’ to kickstarter.
Like LinkedIn, what has been working out for you?
So for reaching out, kind of behind any kickstarter it is extremely important that you do a lot of preparation beforehand and get people interested in what you’re doing and be prepared to buy it when it launches. The biggest success for us was actually reaching out through different social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram and growing our social following. Actually spending the time with people that engage with your page and take the time to send a personalized message to people to get them involved. Our biggest success has been our community and they’ve been immensely helpful in growing our product, I mean we have a promotion team of 30 people that take time out of their busy schedule every week to spread the word about our company totally for free so that has been a really cool experience.
So this pack has been tailored to our community with each part designed for the convenience of the festival goer while magnifying their experience through feeling the base. It works through live music or even plugged in to your phone. This versatile pack will find uses for any future trip and it is a must have for this summer’s festival lineup. Experience the vibe on Kickstarter today.
