Semitrailer VS Vespa

No funds, no investors, no manpower, not enough capital to pay the employees... And still, some startups manage to create something that no one else could have ever dream of, how?

There are 2 main reasons for that:

1.They are the first to think about it (even if it happens, the big boys would copy you overnight).

2.They are aware of their disadvantages but also very aware of their advantages of being super small and can take life changing decisions over night while a large corporation would need to pass it through the entire board of members and it can take months, its kinda like taking a turn with Vespa compared to taking it with semitrailer. Yes, a small rock on the road and you'll wake up in the nearest hospital with your Vespa while the semi driver would probably won't even notice it, but if you manage to take it without any issues your tiny Vespa will gain a huge advantage.

When we at WinnerGear decided to change the game with the MicFlip we did our homework first, we had no spare funds to waste and not too much time.

So we tried to figure out why the heck no one on this planet ever launched the most desired product.

We all use Micro USB cables (yes, Type-C is out there but let's face it - Micro USB is about to be part of our life for the next 1-2 years in the worst case) so why won't we make the micro usb plug reversible?

The AH HA moment

After we realized that it's been tried by a large tech company and they claimed "it's impossible" we knew that it's absolutely possible and there's a market for it cause they won't try to enter a small niche market. So we decided to give it a shot and we contacted a very large manufacturer in China. It took us over 20 minutes to explain him what we need him to do, we showed him the drawings, the idea, the concept, the industrial design and all we got from him was: "I don't understand, there's nothing like that in market, not sure we can do it".

When you're drinking wine with your wife and she tells you that the idea doesn't seems to be feasible you say to yourself "challenge accepted" but when one of the world's biggest tech manufacturers says the same thing you realize that you are about to change the world.

The Road/Blocks

It took us 7 more months to create the prototype (with a small and very ambitious Korean manufacturer) and 2 more to prepare for the Indiegogo campaign, those were the longest 9 months in my life - felt like I'm giving birth to a new reversible child (don't tell my wife about the comparison).

What happened when we launched it?

The campaign exploded!

We sold 10,000 units on the first weeks and over 50,000 more in the following months.

We got the biggest retailers contacting us, the largest tech outlets and technology experts covering us: Gizmodo, Cnet, DigitalTrends, HuffPost, Mashable, Macworld - you name it.

We got covered by magazines in Germany, France, South Africa, Brazil, Israel, Korea (we know about South Korea, but if you're reading this and you live in North Korea please contact us- we'd love to see a link from there).

During the 12 months after we launched the campaign and till we started shipping we've been through so much, we listen carefully to each and every backer who supported the campaign and implemented ALL your feasible ideas:

• Durable aluminum shell
• Rubber protection
• Nylon braided cable
• Reversible Standard USB plug on the other side as well (US Patented)
• 2 Meter / 6 FT length
• Red/Black rad colors

In this point we realized that we're not about to make the first reversible micro usb cable, but we're about to create the world's best micro USB cable, the only micro USB cable that is worth spending your hard earned money on.

But there was more into it,

most heavily backed Kickstarter/Indiegogo campaigns won't supply the promised goods on the first try, eventually they'll be able to make it but it might take them years to reach the perfect product.

Keep in mind that even Apple had to do some changes after their first iPhone,

heard about a company named Amazon? it took them over 10 batches till they got the perfect outcome.

The difference between startups and those companies?

More time equals more salaries equals more capital equals raise more money from investors when you failed to deliver the product you launched on Kickstarter equals bankruptcy.

So luckily (seriously, sometimes in life you need to learn to thank external forces and I believe that's the perfect case for it) our first batch of MicFlip was absolutely perfect.

Yes, I know I'm corrupted and obviously I'll always claim it's the best micro USB cable and there's no cable that is even half as good as the MicFlip.

But I'll never start writing a blog post when we're the only people on earth that think that way, the MicFlip was picked as the world's BEST Micro USB cable by websites with over 1 billion (yes, billion with a b) unique monthly users per months overall.

Gizmodo

9To5Mac

Mashable

Cnet

BoingBoing

Spigel

Mashable even gave us the medal of honor and claimed it's the greatest invention of that year.

Gizmodo claimed it's bigger than the invention of the wheel...

Let's sum it up?

The entire story above is just a small part of what we've been through,

I can't even count the number of nights I woke at 3AM with cold sweat covering my body from nose to toes cause I realized we just took $200,000 from backers and have no idea if the mass production is going to be successful.

During the idea stage we had to sleep on the floor in the office for so many nights as we had absolutely no time, we knew others are thinking about producing it as well.

I don't even want to talk about the first Chinese knockoffs that claimed to be original WinnerGear product but turned out to be a cheap fake that can burn your smartphone (that's why we only give warranty to orders placed on winnergear.com)

But still, we manged to do it,

we managed to figure that out,

we managed to pull this out somehow.

But to be honest?

It's not somehow, it's never somehow, it's never a matter of luck!

Along the way we had about 500 "exit" points, where we could have say f*** this project, quit this hard journey and still stay alive but we always chose the hard way, the impossible way, the way no one have ever stepped before.

I'll be honest with you, we were terrified to stand there alone in the middle of the desert when there's no one in the horizon, you just stand there alone and no one around you, you sweat and feel like the devil is spitting on you and your feet burn but you know that a day will come and you'll find this oasis, this place that other startups are talking about, the place where you'll discover something so great that no one even believed that it's there - and when you'll find it, they'll come.

And about this I can only quote our Japanese designer and say:

Nana Korobi Ya Oki

Today the only place you can get the original MicFlip is on our website, you'll get 2 years warranty and we offer free worldwide shipping with tracking number.

All orders are shipped with 24 hours.

We know that we can't keep up with the demand, and yes we're working on increasing the stock but it's never enough, for this reason it's usually on pre-order but at the moment we still have limited stock available so hurry up and get yours today