Crowd­funded cam­era bag hits the big time

Web exposure: Gouache founders Poco and Enriquez owe their success to social media. — Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN

WHILE its prod­ucts’ vin­tage de­signs are an ode to an an­cient paint­ing tech­nique, lo­cal waxed can­vas and leather goods man­u­fac­turer Gouache was es­tab­lished thanks to two mod­ern busi­ness tools: crowd­fund­ing and so­cial me­dia.

Founded in 2013 by Louie Poco of retro pop band The Bloom­fields and his wife Ann En­riquez, Gouache first made it­self known to the Filipino mar­ket through The Spark Project, a crowd­fund­ing web­site akin to Kick­starter. Their pitch page on the plat­form then only fea­tured the pro­to­type of their first prod­uct, a cam­era bag, as it was Poco’s need for such bag that prompted the couple to start the busi­ness.