Soroosh from Micro Safari was the Consumer Product finalist in the 2021 IdeaFunding Pitch Competition, as well as the 2021 IdeaFunding Main Stage Winner. Companies in the vertical pitch competition were grouped by similar industry verticals to compete in categories such as tech, SaaS, bio and life science, and consumer product. Micro Safari is a unique educational toy and learning tool empowering young scientists to explore the world around them. Read more from our interview with Soroosh below!
Q: Describe your company. What’s your product and what problem are you solving for your customers?
A: Micro Safari is a team of curiosity driven explorers that love learning new things about the world around us. Our mission is to make very intangible ideas in biology accessible to the modern student. The Micro Safari is kind of like an ant farm, but instead of ants, it’s an entire universe of microorganism species to explore. At the core there is a self contained ecosystem habitat that supports just the right conditions to support 10,000+ organisms across 30+ species. It’s the sea monkey for 2020.
Q: Congratulations on winning IdeaFunding! What are your next steps? How will this money help you achieve your goals?
A: My next steps are to identify the long run customer acquisition cost of this product which will determine whether this is a sustainable long term business. The money from IdeaFunding will allow us to drive test marketing campaigns that will help us identify high value marketing strategies. We are also looking into forming partnerships with other established companies, or potential early stage integration with a company with a larger set of similar products which would help lower customer acquisition costs.
Q: How did you come up with your product?
A: I was bored at home one day and bought a worm composter on Amazon. As I held compost in my hand, I noticed a shimmering glimmer effect in the compost and I wondered what it was. Curiosity drove me to buy a microscope and learn microscopy to learn what was going on. What I saw blew my mind and filled me with a sense of wonder and awe upon discovering this reality that was radically different from the world I know. It was a feeling I knew I needed to share.
Q: What has surprised you the most about how people are using Micro Safari products? Has that informed your next steps?
A: I realized a decent number of our customers are not people buying them for children, but rather adults who are buying them for themselves because they think it’s really interesting. I was also surprised at how much consumers like the microscope that comes with the product. People seem to realize the educational value in that this product satisfies their curiosity about this world
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