Fluix LLC was founded by University of Central Florida engineering graduates, but a TikTok tech reviewer injected credibility into the Orlando-based firm’s liquid-cooling PC hardware.
DaPoets, who has more than 78,000 followers on TikTok, earlier this year tested and reviewed the product. DaPoets was impressed with the the product, meant to improve PC performance. This not only exposes Fluix’s liquid-cooling PC hardware to more gamers, one of the firm’s target markets, but also helps build credibility for the 4-year-old startup, co-founder and CEO Abhishek Sastri told Orlando Business Journal. After the review, Fluix received a flurry of messages from potential customers.
“People will look at us and say, ‘OK, they're a new entrant. How do I know these guys won't ruin my PC? How do I know the benchmarks or the performance they're saying is actually true?’ Even though we're engineers, we’re literally rocket scientists, they won’t believe us. Which is fine.”
That video is part of Fluix’s micro-influencer marketing strategy to get the company’s product into the hands of social media influencers and reviewers, Sastri said. The company got a local boost to the strategy when it announced June 28 it partnered with Bennett Newsome, a Twitch partner and streamer under the name DamnitBennett and the esports strategist for Full Sail University.
Sastri messaged Newsome on LinkedIn in 2019 to learn more about the world of esports and gaming. Newsome took Sastri on a tour of Full Sail’s Orlando Health Fortress esports arena, and Sastri reached out months later to see if Newsome would test a computer using a Fluix prototype.
While using the liquid-cooled system, Newsome noticed a dramatic drop in the temperature in his room while gaming and streaming as opposed to his previous setup, he told OBJ. At the same time, Newsome said he still got high-end performance out of the system. Roughly 18 months later, Newsome entrusted Fluix with installing a liquid-cooling system in his new gaming PC.
Fluix plans to expand this approach. Sastri said he hopes to get the product into the hands of some of YouTube’s biggest tech review channels, such as Linus Tech Tips or MKBHD, who have 13 million and 14 million subscribers respectively. Of course, the strategy carries the risk of highly visible bad reviews. However, Sastri said those at least help Fluix know where it can improve.
The 24-year-old Sastri said he is a prolific user of social media. In fact, his daily goal is to post three TikTok videos, two YouTube videos and at least one piece of content on LinkedIn.
In addition, his love of short videos meshes with more than its gamer and PC enthusiast marketing. Sastri said he can target Fluix’s other market —the architecture, engineering and construction industry — if architecture and engineering firms will allow him to film himself plugging the product into one of their workstations and capturing the differences in performance.
Influencer marketing is a fast-growing field. The industry is projected to be worth $15 billion by next year, up 88% from $8 billion in 2019, according to research firm Gartner Inc. Gartner reports the difference in influencer-backed marketing is real, with 55% of brand social media posts across industries performing worse than posts by influencers.
Meanwhile, there are other potential successes and growth on the horizon for the UCF business incubator company. Fluix is negotiating with the second-largest architecture, engineering and construction industry computer workstation manufacturer for a $90,000-per-month deal, Sastri previously said. Plus, the firm plans to raise $600,000 to eventually ramp up production to 450 units per month.
For that fundraising round, Fluix is searching for a strategic investor familiar with hardware products, Sastri said. “I don’t want to go to Texas or to New York or to Silicon Valley to try to raise. I want us to try to raise here in Central Florida and try to get jobs here.”
Contact
To learn more, visit Fluix’s website or contact CEO Abhishek Sastri at cooling@fluixengineering.com.
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