Albert Gajšak: After the Kickstarter campaign, we are entering the first ‘real’ round of capital raising

One hundred thousand dollars in the account, a smart toy that the buyer must assemble themselves, and a high school director; these were the factory settings of CircuitMess, a startup that recently launched its fourth, already mega-successful crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter, secured a partnership with the American giant in the entertainment industry, Warner Brothers, and for the first time in its history expects to end the year with one million euros in revenue. This only means that the team of CircuitMess founder Albert Gajšak has been working like a beehive for the past four and a half years.

Every year they developed one STEM toy that is assembled according to the principle of ‘do it yourself’, for which they raised production capital through crowdfunding. In total, they have raised over $918,000 through Kickstarter campaigns, where pre-orders were collected for the gaming console MAKERbuino (now Nibble), the mobile phone MAKERphone (now Ringo), and a subscription for a range of devices in the STEM box, with the latest campaign, which will last until early December, already raising almost $200,000 in the first week (from a targeted $15,000). Excitement is at its peak, CircuitMess and its twenty-three employees are at a major turning point.

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Albert Gajšak

photo Rene Karaman

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Collaboration with Warner Bros

We visit them in their new office in Lučko, where a racing car is being created that both Mate Rimac and Elon Musk have surely sighed over. It is a supercar of the most popular bat-man who has ever flown through comics and film, and thanks to the global license from Warner Bros, next year the STEM toy Batmobile from Lučko will land at many addresses around the globe.

The plan is as follows, Gajšak tells us as we sit in the dining room from where a glass wall offers a view of the guys working diligently in the next office: once the pre-orders are collected and the money from Kickstarter is paid out, they will complete and produce the Batmobile, whose prototype is listening to us on the table. Only after deliveries will the real market conquest follow. Along with their own online store, from which most of their revenue comes, they will also place it in other online stores they collaborate with, as well as on the shelves of physical stores.

– We would like to enter more physical stores with the Batmobile. We gained some experience selling Nibble in Kaufland, but on the global market, we were an incognito brand. I hope that by collaborating with Warner Bros, we will convince larger stores that we are a legitimate product and that the sales results on Kickstarter, which are already very good, will send a message that this type of product is highly desirable and worthy of being placed on their shelves – says Gajšak, who would love to see the Batmobile shine in some American retail chains like Target, Best Buy, or Walmart, given that the USA has been their primary market so far.

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Albert Gajšak

photo Rene Karaman

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The key goal of Gajšak’s creative work is to encourage children to love STEM and by assembling ‘do it yourself’ devices from his collection, realize how fun this area is. Since there is already a shortage of STEM personnel in the labor market, and with further digitalization, they will be increasingly lacking, the segment of smart toys, in which there is still no market saturation, already has a strong sales argument in itself. If the Batmobile performs well in the market, and it seems to be heading in that direction, the collaboration with Warner Brothers could continue on other products; the idea is already there. After all, the hardest step has been taken. It took no ‘nonsense’ to grab the entertainment titan by the sleeve and gain his attention, but with a little courage and a lot of persistence, every goal is attainable. This is also demonstrated by the entire entrepreneurial venture.

Typical beginner mistakes

Even as an eleven-year-old, Albert realized that he didn’t have to be just a consumer and that he could make devices himself. He created them thanks to free electronics and robotics courses at the Technical Culture Community in Karlovac. He participated in many competitions and fairs promoting them, which attracted the attention of investor mentor Tomislav Car, who himself founded Infinum at a very young age.

Unsure whether his hobby could turn into a serious business, Gajšak launched a campaign with a gaming console on Kickstarter and received confirmation in the form of one hundred thousand dollars. He quickly founded CircuitMess so that the money could be put somewhere.

– I had a fiery baptism; it was a terribly stressful and very educational experience. I made all the typical beginner mistakes: I hired ten friends from school, no one took anything seriously, I poorly invested a lot of money, accidentally sent double packages. There were a lot of growing pains. I knew something about marketing, but I had no idea about management and finance. If Tomislav Car hadn’t helped me, I wouldn’t have succeeded. He turned me from a kid who knows how to assemble devices and talk nicely about them into someone who can successfully run a company – Gajšak honestly admits, adding that Car not only taught him the operations but also helped him develop a mindset focused on business and people.

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– Every minute you dedicate to children is important; it shapes them for the future. If I hadn’t had mentors and professors who showed me what is possible to do independently, I probably wouldn’t have embarked on this path. Now I want to convey that to the homes of all people in the world – Gajšak is modest.

photo Rene Karaman

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The first ‘real’ round of capital raising

Although Car is currently his only investor, and there is no one to match him in crowdfunding campaigns in Croatia, CircuitMess plans to enter its first ‘serious’ capital raising after the delivery of the Batmobile.

– We haven’t done that so far. I wanted to see first how scalable the business can be. Startup founders often don’t think about that, but just take venture capital from investors. I didn’t want to do it that way. With this year’s results and everything that has happened, I am more confident than ever that we have a good story and that our niche market has a lot of potential for scaling – explains the 23-year-old entrepreneur, for whom an exit is currently not even on the horizon.

He says he wants to create truly good, attractive products that solve real problems and sell well.

– If I focus on that and do it well, everything will come, both money and investors and potential buyers. But I don’t plan to sell the business soon because I know I can still achieve a lot of results, and it would be boring for me. I would have to open CircuitMess 2, where I would do the same again – Gajšak is energetic, although traces of fatigue are visible on his face as he has been working across multiple time zones for months. Sleep is for the weak, laughs the sprightly startup founder, whose driving force is passion and emotional attachment to the job. If he wanted quick money, he says, he would work as a freelancer in some IT company, on someone else’s products. This way, he develops his own, which he can be proud of, and that is more important to him than money. Every product is a new challenge he looks forward to, and one day CircuitMess’s portfolio could include aircraft, drones, and even a content platform.

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