Bike light company is second time lucky on Kickstarter | Upstart Business Journal

Tivan Amour and Slava Menn are big fans of Kickstarter.Kickstarter

Slava Menn and Tivan Amour, the founders behind Fortified Bicycle Alliance, liked Kickstarter so well the first time that they're back once more, crowdfunding their latest generation of theft-proof bicycle lights.

"I think it's a way to get in front of a huge audience and get immediate feedback," Menn told me.

It's also been, for him and Amour, a pretty good way to get the money they need to manufacture bicycle lights geared to an urban audience. The first campaign, for their Defender lights, raised $84,000. This time the pair is looking to come out with Afterburner and Aviator, a higher end pair of brighter lights, and had raised $66,940 as of this morning, with 36 days to go. They've already beaten their $24,000 goal for the second campaign.

Menn, a 2011 graduate of the MIT Sloan School of Business, says he and Amour had the idea for manufacturing rugged, theft-resistant, bicycle lights after a friend in Boston had their bike lights stolen and was hit by a car. The friend wasn't injured, but the pair thought there had to be a better way.

[Keep reading at Upstart Business Journal]