Bimotal is now shipping Elevate! Why did it take a while to get to market?
Bimotal is incredibly excited to now be shipping Elevate. This blog answers a common question: why did it take a while to get to market?
Written 4/2/2024, updated and posted on 6/26/2024
Initial Announcement
That’s a great question. When we initially announced Elevate to the world, Bimotal was just two people. Why did we announce it? We needed to gauge market demand and create the excitement necessary to garner the resources to bring a product like Elevate to market. One of our key hires found us from that announcement, so we’re glad we did it even if some folks have had to wait quite a while for our novel Elevate product—and we sincerely appreciate their patience and support. At that point, the product was a basic prototype that still had years of technical development ahead before the leadership team was satisfied with its performance. To be fair to our customers, we kept $100 pre-order deposits in an escrow account so that, in case we couldn’t pull off the development, we could at least refund our loyal fans, supporters, and customers.
Non-trivial Hurdles
We grew slowly as a company. Our first hire was made within two weeks of COVID lockdowns, and we had to battle chip shortages to build prototypes. We went as far as purchasing development kits (think LEGO Mindstorms) and de-soldered chips from those to keep development moving. Things took a positive turn when the bike industry got hot, and we secured a strategic investment from a stellar bike brand. This investment was for a different program—an integrated mid-drive—that required us to shift the majority of our resources for two years. We did our best to keep Elevate progress alive on nights and weekends, but for all intents and purposes, the Elevate program was bootstrapped and starved for resources; the mid-drive was a massive technical undertaking.
A Mid-Drive
Elevate benefitted from this second program as it allowed us to hire an awesome team that is now driving Elevate into production at full steam. The production Elevate system is also improved through electronics and software learnings that overlapped with the OEM project and additional trail testing performed over the past 24 months. Overall, the company and the product are in a better position because of that program.
Today
Fast forward to the present day: we have lots of demand for Elevate systems. We’re pivoting resources back into Elevate to get it to market because of our commitment to our customers, because we raised capital dedicated to that effort, and because the product is genuinely disruptive in the market.
Thanks for your patience. We are excited to be delivering in the US and North America, and are starting pilot deliveries internationally. Get your order in to get it this summer: Shop Elevate.
