The Idea

Looking back, I think the story starts with me, wondering about the little to no alternatives to common energy drinks. I was always an entreprneur type-guy, so I decided to take things into my own hand. The idea of Dion was born.

The major problem was the funding. As I am currently studying engineering and architecture, there is little to no time for me to work a part time job. So I put the idea of Dion on ice. That’s where Kickstarter comes into play. I’ve heard of crowdfunding platforms before, but didn’t think much of it. After a little while I decided to give it a shot and here we are now!

The Product

To start things of, I might talk about the name: Dion. I was looking for some references to latin names and words, where I found the greek god of wine, Dionysus. I shortend the name a bit and was left with Dion. Quite memorable and easy to pronounce, exactly what I was going for.

Now the drink itself. I went with some standard flavors of lemon and peach, because I think that those are the best ones to start things of. I hope to bring in new flavors in the future. The energy drink will be carbonated and I chose to give it a sweet taste, but not too much, hoping to hit the perfect balance. The point was to feel refreshed afterwards, without the disgusting sugary taste.  Also I want to replace sugar with healthier sweeteners and bring the energy drink as close to 0 kcal as possible.

I already had a coversation with the production facility and they told me the idea is possible to  implement. Production and delivery takes about 2-3 months. Unfortunately I didn’t have the possibility to already produce some cans to present here.

The Finance

I set the goal at 75.000€. Quite high for a Beverage project? Yes, probably. That’s why I will go through now, what the money will be used for. First of all, here in Austria we have to pay taxes on crowdfunding, 20%. That leaves us with 60.000€. That money is spread as follows: 

• 40% for ingredients and logistics
• 15% for promotion
• 10% for kickstarter fees
• 10% for reserves
• 5% for storgage

(20% of tax already deducted)

As our production quantity is quite low, to not overshoot things, we went for 15.000-20.000 cans. About 9.000 are allocated to the backers rewards, the rest will go on sale. That doesn’t leave much room for profit, but that will only be the first production line. We will reserve a few hundred cans for promo. Our idea is to bring Dion to the young people, the mass consumers of energy drinks. We want to do that with YouTube influencers. We will start things off with a few german YouTubers and if the budget allows it, some international ones. That way we want to make people aware of our brand. The next step would be a production line of 250.000 cans. The cost per unit is a lot lower than with 20.000 cans. For that we will either start a new Kickstarter campaign or find private investors. With those amounts of cans we will start looking to get on supermarket shelfs as fast as possible, to provide people with Dion on- and offline.

Stretch Goals

In case we collect more than 75.000€ in the first run here, we will go for a few more thousand cans. In case, you all really love the idea, and we reach more than 200.000€ we will go for the 250.000 cans production directly. The 200.000€+ would allow us to promote the product more efficiently and instantly sell it, compared to the few thousand cans that would be left on the 20.000 can production to public.

Rewards

• 6 Pack Dion
• 24 Pack Dion
• 2x 24 Pack Dion
• Dion Pint Glas (16oz)
• White Dion T-Shirt
• Black Dion Hoodie

The images above are only concepts and the designs are subject to change. This includes the can design aswell as the merch designs.

Important Note

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I will do my best to answer them as fast and accurate as possible. Please have a look at the risks and challanges section. It contains very important information, which I want every backer to read through before investing.