What do you plan to do as a next step post-crowdfunding (other than delivering your product, of course)?
Ask Us Anything: Y Combinator Hardware Companies Crowdfunding
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Re: Ask Us Anything: Y Combinator Hardware Companies Crowdfunding
#32How do you managed to get your campaign to the press? Any advice if there is no time for building up relation-ships with the journalists?
Re: Ask Us Anything: Y Combinator Hardware Companies Crowdfunding
#33How do you managed to get your campaign to the press? Any advice if there is no time for building up relation-ships with the journalists?
The best option is to get warm introductions and develop relationships early. Getting people to hear about your product, give you feedback and feel invested before you launch is critical.
However, that's not always possible. If you're scrambling and haven't had time to do that, you can always reach out blind or use services/agencies to help. There's a YC company called PRX that helps with this and does it at a very affordable price. Another cool site that was on Product Hunt recently ranked a bunch of media outlets - http://presshour.co/?ref=producthunt. Lastly, take a look at your competition and who covered them - those are probably your best targets.
Re: Ask Us Anything: Y Combinator Hardware Companies Crowdfunding
#34I've lots of embedded linux experience. It's less consumerist products but more embedded systems experience.
Where do I find people's problems to solve that can be addressed by HW?
Re: Ask Us Anything: Y Combinator Hardware Companies Crowdfunding
#35What do you plan to do as a next step post-crowdfunding (other than delivering your product, of course)?
Build a really great product! We envision improved versions of the shower, and after that other products that use water in the home. The product development cycle is realistically 18-24 before you get something to market, so it is a long timeline.
Re: Ask Us Anything: Y Combinator Hardware Companies Crowdfunding
#36Do you think hardware IoT companies should eventually open source their hardware to solely focus on the software? (Based on the belief that if we can make it, there's always someone who can make it better for cheaper). How would we go about doing that in a way that does not greatly damage revenue streams?
Open source it is a substantial investment of time and energy in my opinion.
Some products will just not have a big developer community behind it also.
But again, online community is one of the biggest defense as a company and I definitely software should be a focus in most IoT companies.
Re: Ask Us Anything: Y Combinator Hardware Companies Crowdfunding
#37Great hardware has the tradeoff of being "built to last" but then not re-engaging the customer for new purchases for quite some time. How do you think about re-engaging customers who purchase a Nebia shower?
Re: Ask Us Anything: Y Combinator Hardware Companies Crowdfunding
#38How do you managed to get your campaign to the press? Any advice if there is no time for building up relation-ships with the journalists?
I recommend doing as much as you can to automate and scale your outreach to the press. I recommend Pitchbox.com for this - it's a sort of CRM for press outreach. It takes some time to set up, but it's worth it. Great support, too.
Re: Ask Us Anything: Y Combinator Hardware Companies Crowdfunding
#39How do you managed to get your campaign to the press? Any advice if there is no time for building up relation-ships with the journalists?
I recommend doing as much as you can to automate and scale your outreach to the press. I recommend Pitchbox.com for this - it's a sort of CRM for press outreach. It takes some time to set up, but it's worth it. Great support, too.
Re: Ask Us Anything: Y Combinator Hardware Companies Crowdfunding
#40Is it a good idea to sell your first small batch of functional prototypes as-is while still in the market research stage to get user feedback?