Indiegogo Update
Good Day to all our AnywhereFridge Supporters!
Several people have asked for a detailed update on all progress over the years, so I want to take the opportunity to provide this to everyone.
I want to be clear regarding this update. Some of the challenges that have occurred in raising additional funding for the production and shipping of the Anywherefridge are due to some of our Indiegogo contributors negative comments. That really affected not only Kickstarter but also our Equity Crowdfunding campaign failure we recently had. This has only prolonged the process for you and other customers. We completely understand your frustrations and we are frustrated too, but please pay VERY close attention to the Form C that was/is on the WeFunder Equity Crowd Funding site because in that you would see that our Indiegogo Customers still are and always have been our 1st priority of orders to fill.
We really want to make this happen! We really want you to get your AnywhereFridge and Perks! We will be headed out to the TV show Shark Tank next month and we will be running another round of Equity Crowd Funding by the end of the year. We hope that you will continue to support us!
Now here is a message from your CEO of SST-Technologies. LLC / AnywhereFridge breaking down some of the questions you have asked.
Sincerely,
Anywhere-Fridge team.
My name is Spencer Trotter and I'm an Inventor and Entrepreneur,
I founded my company SST technologies LLC in 2007. Since then I have embarked on my invention the Anywhere Fridge, the (AF) has been my life long work/dream that I have been working on for more than 16 years. This has been a very long and strenuous endeavor and has come with a lot of blood, sweat, and tears throughout the years.
I would like to have the opportunity to explain all of the ridicule and negative comments on the crowd funding website Indiegogo in regards to the AF.
When I first started working on my project/invention the Anywhere fridge, It was very hard to acquire funding in order to put this project together properly. As this particular project consists of quite a bit of technology including some of the latest state-of-the-art technology in order to make the AF possible.
It took me quite some time to even gathered together the necessary technology to build my initial prototype. 10-years ago the necessary state-of-the-art technology did not even exist for the AF to even work properly, and I had to simply wait as time passed by for the technology to come into existence in order to build my very first prototype. I have invested about $120,000 of my own money into this project throughout the years.
In 2012 the president signed into law for crowd funding to come into existence. And then in 2016 he signed into law for equity crowd funding to become legal. In 2014 is when I started my first Crowd funding campaign on Indiegogo. I had to launch 3 crowd funding campaigns on Indiegogo in order to raise the amount of money I raised. The amount raised which was approximately $160,000, which was still not quite enough to fill all of my contributors orders, that they pre- ordered through their contributions for the product on the crowd funding website Indiegogo.
The breakdown of the $160,000 that I raised was allocated towards patent fees for my patent attorney, Trademark fees, And the rest went to building the production prototype model of the Anywhere Fridge. Approximately $35.000 went to my attorney fees for my patents and trademarks/ Billable hours, and approximately $80.000 went towards various engineers and (RND) aswell as Injection molding from shenzhen China in order to gather together all the necessary technology and to build the working prototype of the AF. Indiegogo/PayPal took approximately $18,000 for their fees, and taxes cost was approximately $10,000. The other $15,000 went towards travel airfare business meetings etc.;
Throughout this duration of time, I was still working at my day job full time. While at the same time seeking other funding portals and/or investments for the AF, as I knew I didn't have enough money to fill my orders. This is around the same time when my contributors started getting upset because they have not yet received the anywhere fridge and started requesting a refund of their contribution that they made on Indiegogo for the AF. At this time I had very little money left from the amount I raised, but still refunded as many of the contributors as I could that requested a refund, and did so out of my own money in my personal savings account, that added up to about $5000 of refunds which is all I had in my own personal savings account. At that point I was down to $0 in my own personal saving account and had $55 left in my business account for SST technologies LLC for the AF.
I then tried launching a campaign on Kickstarter in order to hopefully raise more capital in order to fulfill all my contributors orders on Indiegogo.
However, this was not possible.
I raised $32.000 within 4 hours on Kickstarter’s website, but then kick starter sent me an email informing me that they would like to see all orders filled from Indiegogo first in order to continue my campaign with them, so they then forced me to cancel my campaign and refunded all the contributions that were made on their website kickstarter.com. At this point is when I started my equity crowd funding campaign on Wefunder, which was my equity crowd funding campaign that ended on February 14th 2019.
So far we have raised about $11,000 but this is not quite enough to reach the websites minimum raise amount of $50.000. I have TV shows interested in bringing us on when we are in production. Unfortunately we are far from production because we are lacking the necessary capital. That is why at this point even having struggled for over 5 years now but not giving up, we are still trying to raise additional capital to bring this project to life!...I am still holding on to my dream of bringing the anywhere fridge to life! Because I believe that the anywhere fridge is more than just another product, but rather a necessity for a better lifestyle as well as a life sustaining unit for people all over the world especially in rural areas who otherwise would not have access to power and/or refrigeration in which the Anywhere Fridge provides both.
My goal has always been only to help the world and people in need. I find my happiness in helping people especially in situations that occur in natural disasters and hurricanes etc. I was a missionary in Honderous for over a year as a school teacher and this also inspired me to continue with the AF. I had the opportunity to live in a 3rd world country where many people don't have access to refrigeration, and the AF can make things a little easier. But more importantly, the AF redefines refrigeration.
I hope this will Inspire you to join along-side with me in my life long endeavor/goal of helping the world with this product.
Best regards
Spencer Trotter Inventor
Chief Executive Officer
SST-Technologies. LLC
Anywhere-Fridge