A colleague and eventual mentor recommended reading Robert Kiyosaki’s book, Rich Dad Poor Dad, not long after having his first child, it inspired him to shoot for more than just working for someone else. He then formed a business with a good friend he met when finishing his high school studies. The business was based on property development (which was Andrew’s full-time career at the time) and aimed at creating a supplementary income and ultimately a self-sustaining revenue stream.

Fast-forward ten years to 2012 and Andrew along with his friend and business partner are now keen cyclists, having picked up the sport since training to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro in 2007. One day, his friend was riding his bike by himself when some young guys drove up next to him, leaned out the passenger window, and shot him in the butt with an elastic slingshot from point-blank range, laughed at him, and then drove off, leaving his friend with a massive bruise on his butt and bewilderment as to what just happened. The car had driven off, so he could not get the license plate number, thus they got away with the assault.

This event led to the concept of having a rear-facing camera on the bike so that if something like that happened again, at least he would have the details of the car, including license plate, to pursue the offenders. Andrew and his friend discussed the concept and agreed that such a camera, along with an integrated light, would be a good product for cyclists. This was the genesis of Fly6, a rear-facing HD camera with integrated flashing red light for cyclists.

They both developed the product by pouring all their time and money into it up to the point where they had made four hundred preproduction units that they had sent all over the world for testing and feedback. The results were outstanding and the feedback very, very positive. In fact, one of the people testing the units had a major crash while using Fly6, and its footage enabled him to recover all the costs of his expensive medical bills as well as replacing his completely damaged bike—the ultimate endorsement that the product worked and helped vulnerable cyclists.

They knew they were onto a good thing, and having spent the best part of $450,000 to that point in time (late 2013), they really wanted to proceed with their first mass production run (three thousand units) but to do so would have cost substantially more at a time when they had used all of the available money they could find. The concept to run a Kickstarter campaign was raised but dismissed originally because it was a very public process. They didn’t want anyone to copy the idea of our product at such an early stage of the business’s development. In addition, Kickstarter was a relatively unknown system back then.

Fast-forward a couple of months of consternation as to how to proceed with the business and a number of knock-backs from traditional forms of funding (banks) and they looked again to Kickstarter and agreed to launch a campaign.

Well, what happened from there is now well known—three Kickstarter campaigns (Fly6, Fly12 and Duo Mount), each at least 270 percent oversubscribed and raising in total over $1 million, which ultimately led to the business being listed on the Australian stock exchange.

Andrew is married and the father of five children living in his city of birth, Perth, Western Australia. He no longer works at Cycliq (but is still a significant shareholder) and now spends his time helping other startups grow their businesses globally, guiding businesses needing manufacturing in China, keynote public speaking at events, and spending time with his wife and children.