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Benchmark of 100 crowdfunding videos reveals what works and how much to spend

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Re: Benchmark of 100 crowdfunding videos reveals what works and how much to spend

#41

Post by ralfd »

Retric wrote: post #19
conesus wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That morse code product is called Knocki and it raised $1.1M on Kickstarter a few months ago. I don't think it's only the UX of four buttons. You can use them as only four buttons as well without having to remember that each button has its own app. I'm going to try again with a less expensive product (minus the wood most likely) and a better marketing strategy of signing up interest for months beforehand. But I still…

Whoa, that Morse code idea was meant as a joke. Edit: ahh ok that's not how Knocki works. Anyway, conversion is all about what percentage of people seeing an advertisement want your product. Having a great pitch only goes so far.

> Whoa, that Morse code idea was meant as a joke. Edit: ahh ok that's not how Knocki works.

It sort of does. Look at this advertisement:

https://knocki.com/images/3dhouse.jpg

I don't know if the idea of using patterns as control is genius or stupid.

That said: Compared to this Knocki thing a wooden house remote with four buttons looks a bit boring. My guess is that people who have home automation (and are surfing kickstarter) are more on the tinkerer-side and they want something complicated. (Ultimately I think speech recognition will win)

Re: Benchmark of 100 crowdfunding videos reveals what works and how much to spend

#42

Post by feral »

conesus wrote: post #34
daveguy wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You never really explain how you can set that up easily and use it efficiently. It looks like it would be tedious to set up and annoying to use if you have to keep different mappings in your head without any visual feedback. Was the feedback auditory? So the primary issue is not showing how this thing is pleasant to use. The second issue is you claim to be able to use it without any smart devices. Anyone with any hom…

That's fascinating. I had heard feedback around the setup before, but I didn't realize it would be beneficial to show how quick it is to pair smart devices to the remote. I easily could have done that in an animated GIF. Secondly, the remote actually controls much more software than it does hardware. I use it while watching videos, playing music, reading my news reader, as my alarm clock, and to handle my iMac (turn…

>You never really explain how you can set that up easily and use it efficiently.

Conesus, apologies if I'm wrong, but I suspect you might not have understood the core issue Daveguy is raising here. I don't think its about pairing devices.

When I watched the video, there was this huge awkward tension I felt: "How can all this functionality work with just 4 buttons?" which made me think "This product is probably a waste of time, I should close the video."

This is just one guy's gut reaction - although I see a couple of posters here saying something similar - but I really suspect this is a big part of why your campaign didn't work.

The value proposition is unclear:

You are selling a beautiful remote to control my home. But while it is clearly beautiful, it is not clear how it works as a remote. It looks complicated and like it probably won't work, because its not clear and never explained in the video how four buttons will suffice.

I did eventually scroll down far enough to read "Are four buttons really enough?" where I finally realized it was designed to be programmable but even this wasn't convincing (do I have to re-program it between doing all those things showed in the first video? reprogram it each day?), and I'd have bounced long before then if I hadn't come across this in a HN comment. It wasn't until I read that section multiple times I realized the bit about 4 different app profiles, where you hold the corresponding button to activate, and I was long gone by then. The fact that there seems to be a dedicated go-to-bed and wake-up button only confuses things more.

Strongly would advise you to go deeper on this, e.g. show people the video and afterwards ask them to describe how it actually works etc, ask them whether they think it has enough buttons, probe for confusion on that point that would have made them bounce etc.

You even seem to acknowledge in your comment that this is a stumbling block for folks:

>Ah-ha, we hit my area of expertise which is talking about how four buttons is all you need.

(I.e. you know this is something that is unusual/surprising and hence requires explanation)

But the video doesn't explain this at all, and I think that might be causing you to lose a lot of folks early on.

Re: Benchmark of 100 crowdfunding videos reveals what works and how much to spend

#44

Post by conesus »

feral wrote: post #42
conesus wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fascinating. I had heard feedback around the setup before, but I didn't realize it would be beneficial to show how quick it is to pair smart devices to the remote. I easily could have done that in an animated GIF. Secondly, the remote actually controls much more software than it does hardware. I use it while watching videos, playing music, reading my news reader, as my alarm clock, and to handle my iMac (turn…

>You never really explain how you can set that up easily and use it efficiently . Conesus, apologies if I'm wrong, but I suspect you might not have understood the core issue Daveguy is raising here. I don't think its about pairing devices. When I watched the video, there was this huge awkward tension I felt: "How can all this functionality work with just 4 buttons?" which made me think "This product is probably a was…

I'm glad I put myself out there for feedback because it was your comment that caused me to see my campaign in a new perspective.

I actually shot two videos. The founder interview at the end cost $4k because it was originally a longer video where I explained how the remote worked. But it didn't have any of the action shots, so I re-shot it, eschewing an explanation in favor of demonstrating its use, relying on people to be intrigued and then read on to see how it actually worked. It seems that didn't work, as I repeated this technique later on in the campaign itself.

Here is the original video (1:20) if you're interested to see what I rejected in favor of committing $18k to another video: https://dl.dropbox.com/s/nsvfn7n3l8phbi3/TurnTouch_CC.mp4?dl...

Re: Benchmark of 100 crowdfunding videos reveals what works and how much to spend

#45

Post by comboy »

conesus wrote: post #34
daveguy wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You never really explain how you can set that up easily and use it efficiently. It looks like it would be tedious to set up and annoying to use if you have to keep different mappings in your head without any visual feedback. Was the feedback auditory? So the primary issue is not showing how this thing is pleasant to use. The second issue is you claim to be able to use it without any smart devices. Anyone with any hom…

That's fascinating. I had heard feedback around the setup before, but I didn't realize it would be beneficial to show how quick it is to pair smart devices to the remote. I easily could have done that in an animated GIF. Secondly, the remote actually controls much more software than it does hardware. I use it while watching videos, playing music, reading my news reader, as my alarm clock, and to handle my iMac (turn…

The video you posted below[1] is so much better. Your target is pretty technical, they buy some home automation stuff, so it seems fair to explain exactly the flow (button talks to my phone, my phone talks with all the stuff you can control from your phone), how far can it be from the phone for it to work, and so on.

Also, I know it's great to hear it all from the founder perspective, but I think you are not doing great job as an actor and narrator. It's probably more of a video guys failure not to give you more hints. At the end of the kickstarter video it's visible how you smile and look with kind of a proud at the button just as the video cuts off. But during the video there's not much smile, more something like "I came up with this really smart thing". Clearly you put a lot of thought into this product, but when looking at example of using it, I probably would have more positive emotions looking at some random relaxed dude with smile on his face that may look like he's completely clueless about the whole thing. You know, typical ad stuff, it's cheesy but it works.

And nice one with the fast response and gathering so much feedback here. I wrote mine because it seems that you make use of this constructive criticism. So I'm pretty sure your next campaign will be a blast.

1. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/nsvfn7n3l8phbi3/TurnTouc...

Re: Benchmark of 100 crowdfunding videos reveals what works and how much to spend

#46

Post by lloydde »

conesus wrote: post #4

Ok, there's a chance I'll gain some valuable insight from posting this, which beats the cost of putting myself out there, so here goes... I just completed a 30 day hardware Kickstarter last week and spent $22k on the video ($18k for main video, $4k for founder interview) and raised $57k, which is an outlier to this data. I can tell my campaign is not in the Video Budget / Amount Raised graph because it would stick ou…

First time hearing about this product and watching the video. Beautiful video and well articulated, though was that guy doing yoga in jeans? ;)

I couldn't get my head around how it would work. How does selection work? Is it proximity to the thing you want to control? For me the video was a little too abstract. Maybe it would have just made sense if I was in the IoT space.

Re: Benchmark of 100 crowdfunding videos reveals what works and how much to spend

#47

Post by tgb »

conesus wrote: post #4

Ok, there's a chance I'll gain some valuable insight from posting this, which beats the cost of putting myself out there, so here goes... I just completed a 30 day hardware Kickstarter last week and spent $22k on the video ($18k for main video, $4k for founder interview) and raised $57k, which is an outlier to this data. I can tell my campaign is not in the Video Budget / Amount Raised graph because it would stick ou…

Keep in mind that that plot is log log scaled. Your numbers really wouldn't look out of place on it. I'm thinking it would be close to the trendline, vertically above that bottom right point.

Re: Benchmark of 100 crowdfunding videos reveals what works and how much to spend

#48

Post by Theodores »

conesus wrote: post #4

Ok, there's a chance I'll gain some valuable insight from posting this, which beats the cost of putting myself out there, so here goes... I just completed a 30 day hardware Kickstarter last week and spent $22k on the video ($18k for main video, $4k for founder interview) and raised $57k, which is an outlier to this data. I can tell my campaign is not in the Video Budget / Amount Raised graph because it would stick ou…

People just do not care for home automation as much as one might think. I have bought various smart gadgets for various family members over the years, thinking that due to health/age/whatever that this smart light/whatever would be well received as a gift. You would think that having some remote to turn all the lights on/off with dimming would be very useful but someone that has their house lit up by lots of very individual lights actually enjoys interacting with the 'design classic' lights, dodgy switches and all. So you think 'better' is 'better' but it is to totally misunderstand the way it works for my relatives and friends...

So how do you reach a more picky audience and get the 'cool' that they do take on board? Not so simple. Maybe partner with another brand to get that cachet of cool, piggy back an 'ok' brand to get to market and defeat snobbishness. Or be Amazon and willing to take a big punt. Even then, with lots of advertising, it is not easy.

Re: Benchmark of 100 crowdfunding videos reveals what works and how much to spend

#49

Post by ChuckMcM »

blackguardx wrote: post #36
miahi wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A one-channel scope is useful, but it still feels as cutting your left arm when you are used to (and need) more than one channel. And these days most of the things are digital, so that means SPI/I2C/whatever with more than one line, and even then, A-B is quite important. I guess you can't combine two of them with a hardware trigger in/out so you can synchronize them and simulate a two-channel. As it is, it's more lik…

You are very perceptive. We had a prototype of two scopes synced with a cable we called "nunchuck mode," but we shelved it because we weren't sure how useful that would be. I think the main selling point is the portability and remote measurement aspects. It fits in your jeans so you can literally have a scope with you at all times. You can also capture waveforms from over 100 ft away. I was worried about the one chan…

First, I think you've made a really creative project. You did a good job of laying out its features and what you saw as the market need. The price is certainly inline with a number of other scopes in its range.

EE Times did an excellent survey article on USB oscilloscopes the under $200 ones are here: http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326699&page_numb...

There are two serious challenges with "remote display" oscilloscopes, and that is connectivity to, and compatability with, the display. Over the the years I have owned a couple but the challenge is always that when you buy into a remote display'd test tool you bet that both the manufacturer and the environment will continue to exist. For me I've got a nice 2 channel 100Mhz USB scope that has a "display and control" application that runs on Windows 98. It kind of worked on WinXP, and barely worked at all on Win7 and works not at ll on Win10. It also uses USB 2.1 which, from a connection standpoint has been exceptionally long lived. The previous "universal" connection was parallel ports and those went away and a lot of gear became useless.

The choice of IOS is ok for now, but Apple will rev IOS in an incompatible way and if you're gone by then the scope is dead meat. Compare that to my first oscilloscope that was a used Tektronix 465b that was built in 1980, recalibrated in 1990, traded to a friend in 2000 and is still running today and doing the job. Test equipment lives a long time because the job is the job, it doesn't change, and if the tool is self contained it will never not be able to do the job until the parts it uses are no longer made.

So as a tool buyer (and I'm an outlier, having bought the 465b, a Rigol 1152D, a Tek 2216, and then a Tek MDO3024, and 3 different 'headless' oscilloscopes) none of the headless ones are completely functional any more and all of the 'headed' ones are. But there is a saving throw here.

Like you, I appreciate how cost effective it is to build these things these days. Why not build the display as well? Lets say you contract with a tablet maker in Shenzen or build your own LCD display + SoC of your choice. Then you are in control of both the display and the instrument and it opens up some other possibilities. You could for example have several test instrument "bodied" that could pair with the display, so a DMM body, a scope "body" a Freq Counter body, etc. Easy to unbundle, easy to get either "higher end" or "lower" end remotes. Second it solves your multi-channel problem if you tie all the probes to the same 'sync' line. Now you can have 8 channels if you want and the display body software just sucks them all in. You can also dump Bluetooth LE and go with the inexpensive Nordic 2.4ghz spread spectrum radio chips. Now you can share a nanosecond disciplined time base with all your tools and bring the signals back together in the display "panel." You can sell a larger 'indoor/bench' display panel or a ruggedized 'on the road' panel. That iPad Pro in the video cost the person $700 - $800, a panel with an ARM53 SoC talking to it can be had in Shenzen for $35, $150 is you put an IPS panel on it. Now you sell it for half the price of an iPad, it works with all your tool heads forever and I, as the engineer buying your stuff, know that even if you go out of business my test equipment will still work.

If you build something like this I'll buy one for sure. Market size is somewhere between 1 and several million engineers :-). If you want more thoughts on this feel free to contact me in email in my profile.

Re: Benchmark of 100 crowdfunding videos reveals what works and how much to spend

#50

Post by egypturnash »

Scirra_Tom wrote: post #40

Does anyone else feel that Kickstarter has turned from helping cash strapped startups and individuals raise funds for interesting projects into a low-risk small business pre-order system? I feel it's a shame people are spending $20,000+ to try and convince you to donate them money, I don't feel it was in the original spirit of Kickstarter earlier on.

It still functions perfectly for smaller things too. For instance I spent today starting to get all my ducks in a row to fulfill a comics KS I raised $15k for. (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/egypturnash/decrypting-...)
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