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Despite Failing, Boosted Gave Us a Master Class in Marketing
Even Casey Neistat was a raving fan
In the micro-mobility niche, Boosted quickly became an all-consuming brand, gaining a cult following seemingly overnight.
Boosted Boards is a California start-up bred by Stanford students. It came directly out of Stanford’s acclaimed accelerator, StartX, and their bread and butter was the electric skateboard, so much so that Boosted was almost synonymous with electric skateboards. Their product was portable, lightweight, and aesthetically pleasing.
Everyone loved it.
Boosted wasn’t just another skating brand marketed towards your typical California dude or dudette. It also wasn’t a high-brow tech product marketed towards your Bay Area techies. It was somewhere in between, something that was super cool and attainable. You didn’t have to know how to ride a skateboard, and you didn’t have to be exceptionally tech-savvy.
Boosted knew this and used it to their advantage.
Within 24 hours on Kickstarter in 2012, they had reached their initial goal of $100K, and by the time their fundraiser closed they had exceeded that number by 400% and were pledged $467,167.
They were irrefutably a hit.
