Her company Kuli Kuli made headlines over raising $53,000 on Indiegogo to help fund its superfood snack made of Morgina, and now founder of the company Lisa Curtis is ready to pen her story to Huffington Post. The writer and social entrepreneur gave readers and insider look at crowdfunding and how it has helped make her company go from being virtually non-existent to being known throughtout the world.
As previously reported by Crowdfund Insider, since its crowdfunding days on Indiegogo, Kuli Kuli has teamed up with Whole Foods and other natural foods grocery stores throughout Northern California to provide delicious products. It is on track to achieve approximately $200,000 in sales for the year and now it wants to capture 1.5% of the nutrition bar market, hoping to generate $11 million in sales by 2019.
“Prior to our crowdfunding campaign, even my close friends and family didn’t know what I was doing,”Miss Curtis explained. “My own father still couldn’t pronounce the name of the plant that were trying to make the next big superfood. The success of our campaign landed us on the front page of major papers and enticed Whole Foods to pick up our first morgina product, a nutritional bar, before we even finished manufacturing it. Our email list grew from zero to nearly 2,000 people and our social media flourished.”
She continued, “In essence, Kuli Kuli wouldn’t exist without that crowdfunding campaign. And we’re certainly not the only ones. New crowdfunding platforms are popping up everyday with Kickstarter alone finding more than 60,000 projects. I ‘m a strong believer in the power of democratized financing. I believe that if more businesses are finding that crowdfunding puts them on the path to success in a way that a bank loan never could. Along a similar vein, these businesses now have a responsibility to their first ‘backers’ to do something meaningful with that money – making them more likely to conduct their business in a socially responsible manner.”
Regarding the recent laws about crowdfunding, Lisa stated,
“I’m so excited that recent changes in legislation are making it easier for businesses to crowdfund not just donations but also investments. As of late August, businesses can now publicly advertise that they are raising capital, provide that they only raise capital from high-net work [accredited] investors. After successfully raising engouh money to do our first manufacturing run and enter into 40 stores in Northern California, Kuli Kuli has decided to do another crowdfunding campaign. – this time to raise investment. Starting this week, we’ll be raising $350,000 through a new platform called Agfunder.”
“Crowdfunding is bringing the people power back into fundraising, proving that even non-traditional entrepreneurs without wealthy networks can still find a way to finance their dreams,” she added.
Kuli Kuli’s goal is to become the dominant Moringa provide in the Unite States, where superfood sales are in excess of $38 billion. It plans to release other moringa products in other categories beginning 2015.
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