In the days and weeks that followed, Martijn started sharing the idea with his friends and family. More and more people got interested and involved. The early signs of a community started to show.
A former work colleague introduced Martijn to Chris, who later became the second founder. In Jakarta, Indonesia, Chris was running a partnership for outerwear production.
A few Skype calls later, Chris and Martijn had their hands on the first prototype. It was not exactly how they wanted it to be. But it was a start. A few adjustments and weeks later a new prototype was ready to be presented to the world.
In the meanwhile, a few months had passed. So it was the beginning of June. Only the glaciers still had a bit of snow left.
Martijn reached out to some friends to shoot the video, and a few days later the Kickstarter video was ready. The product was ready. Time to go live.
On June 27th at 12:00h Chris and Martijn pushed the go-live button, not knowing it would only take 12 hours to reach their €15.000,- goal. The Open One would be taken into production.
The campaign continued another 29 days, raising a total of €51.829,- before moving on the IndieGoGo InDemand. A young community of founding members was born.
Before winter arrived the Open One was sold out. More than 300 happy backers started the winter of 2016-17 riding in the first Open Wear jackets.
Their feedback was great! The Open One had turned into a big success and even got nominated for the ISPO BRANDNEW. Motivated by this, Chris and Martijn sat down together and decided it was time to go all-in.
Elias
16th October 2022
Simon
13th October 2022
David
10th January 2019