In 2014, SKULLY Technologies came to us with a product unlike anything on the market: a motorcycle helmet with a heads-up display, a rear-facing wide-angle camera, GPS navigation, and hands-free calling — all visible through a transparent HUD in the rider's field of view.
The AR-1 was audacious. And it needed to reach riders before they knew they needed it.
The Product
The SKULLY AR-1 was the first motorcycle helmet to integrate augmented reality into a safety product. Instead of glancing at a GPS unit or squinting at a phone, riders could see turn-by-turn navigation projected into their visor at the bottom of their visual field — never requiring them to look away from the road.
The rear 180° camera eliminated the blind spot that kills motorcyclists. The processor ran on a custom battery system with 9+ hours of operation.
It was simultaneously a piece of safety equipment, a consumer electronics product, and a piece of industrial design. No category existed for it.
The Indiegogo Campaign
SKULLY launched on Indiegogo in 2014. The campaign needed to do two things: convert motorcycle riders who were skeptical of a $1,500 helmet, and attract media that could take the story to audiences who hadn't thought about it yet.
We built the campaign around safety, not technology. Riders buy helmets to protect their lives — the AR-1 made them safer by keeping their eyes on the road while giving them access to information they'd otherwise have to look away for. That was the story.
The campaign raised $2.4 million — one of the largest crowdfunding campaigns for a hardware product at the time.
The Challenge of Physical Products
Software products ship when you decide they do. Hardware ships when supply chains, regulatory bodies, and manufacturing realities align.
SKULLY's challenge after the campaign was turning crowdfunded excitement into a manufactured product. We helped with the digital side — managing backer communication, building the web platform for orders and status tracking, and coordinating the marketing that kept 2,000+ backers engaged during the lengthy development cycle.
The AR-1 Legacy
The SKULLY AR-1 shipped to backers in 2016. The company faced the operational challenges that many hardware startups do — cost overruns, production delays, regulatory hurdles. But the product was real, and it worked.
The concept — integrated AR in personal safety equipment — is now an established product category. Dozens of smart helmet companies have followed the path SKULLY cleared.
For us, SKULLY was an early proof that hardware startups had the same need for great digital marketing and platform infrastructure that software startups did — they just had longer timelines and higher stakes.
Hanzo AI has supported hardware, software, and blockchain startups from seed to scale since 2014. Techstars '17.
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