San Francisco, CA
With Companion Bike Seat, now your bike seats two! We introduced Companion Bike Seats to the world in 2013, and have since sold over 550 bike seats in 15 countries across North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. We ran out of inventory in April of this year, and have since ordered another 1,000 bike seats to be made. This new inventory of bike seats, backrests, and ebike pegs arrives at the end of August next month. This Kickfurther campaign will help cover cash-flow needs when the new inventory arrives, of which 50% payment for the inventory is still due.
The total inventory arriving next month includes:
1,000 bike seats
500 backrests
330 ebike pegs
Companion Bike Seat was founded in 2011 with a goal to put adult passengers safely on bicycles. The initial design and prototyping was finished in early 2012, but it took almost a year to find a contract manufacturer that could make the bike seats for the price range we were aiming for. We finally found a consulting partner in Berkeley Sourcing Group with factory relationships in China that was able to hit our target numbers, and in Sept 2013 shipping the first Companion Bike Seats to customers.
In 2015, I’ve introduced three new accessories for the bike seat – a backrest for the bike seat, pannier hooks to hang panniers onto the side of the bike seat, and ebike pegs. Ebike pegs are specially designed pegs that can be installed in ebikes. The firsts backrests were delivered in September; the pannier hooks and ebike pegs followed soon after.
Bicycle commuting has hugely profound benefits to society, especially in big cities. Not to mention regular exercise as a part of life’s routine, but it’s a huge cost-saver for the city and tax payers alike: reduced healthcare costs, reduced pollution and traffic congestion, and even reduced infrastructure upkeep (maintaining roads for cars is costly). Bicycle commuting is continuing togain a foothold across the world with the growth of bike-share programs and the expansion of bike lanes and bike paths in major cities everywhere. I want to make sure this trend continues, and make it accessible to everyone … the casual bicyclist and the hardcore cyclist alike.
With Companion Bike Seat, I want to make bicycle commuting more easily accessible to everyone, by making your bicycle as functional as possible for every-day commuting needs. Cargo bicycles like Xtracycle and Yuba Bikes are really expensive (often $2K or more), plus they’re heavy to lug around. With Companion Bike Seat you get much the same functionality as a cargo bike, but don’t have to buy a whole new bicycle, and at a fraction of the cost of the competitors. Child bike seats are great for babies, but there’s nothing else on the market to support children, let alone adults.
I’ve been running and managing Companion Bike Seat on my own now for over a year, and the greatest part of it has been getting unsolicited customer reviews and photos, thanking me that the product exists. I originally started the business with a couple of buddies who’ve since parted ways, wanting to focus on family and other business ventures.
Companion Bike Seat is still somewhat of a passion project, as I still have a full time job to pay the bills. I’m currently a product manager at an internet marketing company in the bay area, with over 10 years experience in sales, business development, and product management in online advertising. I also bring a Stanford undergrad and USC MBA to the table.
My dad was a cyclist and I grew up riding bikes, and Companion Bike Seat feels great selling something tangible, making something, designing physical things, and getting back to bicycling.
Here’s my LinkedIn profile if it’s of interest: www.linkedin.com/in/olearysan/
Companion Bike Seats support passengers up to 200 lbs, are easy to install, and are compatible with most bicycles: mountain bikes, cruisers, path-and-pavement bikes, and many electric bikes. Companion Bike Seats come with a locking, rain-resistant storage compartment beneath the seat too.
We advertise a 200 lb load capacity though we actually load-tested the bike seats at over 2 tons. We offer a range of accessories for our bike seats, including a removable backrest, pannier hooks (to hang panniers on), and a sound cloth for the storage compartment to keep things quiet while riding around.