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Why We Cancelled Our Kickstarter And Funded It Ourselves

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Re: Why We Cancelled Our Kickstarter And Funded It Ourselves

#51

Post by roderick3427 »

revolly wrote: post #49

Livescribe pen been on the market for years. It's good and you do not have to wait for 5(!) days for digitized version - it's there automatically. Could you please explain me, why would you want to use service like Modnotebooks? Am I missing something?

At least for me, my Livescribe has a learning curve to it. Plus it doesn't feel as natural to write in and with compared to a plain notebook. Again, this is just how I feel, but the Mod notebooks seem to place more emphasis on the design and quality of notebook compated to livescribe.

Re: Why We Cancelled Our Kickstarter And Funded It Ourselves

#52

Post by justinsteele »

saraid216 wrote: post #48
avenger123 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They mention that they realized users wanted the notebooks back, but I didn't see any details on how they would do this. It's left as a problem to solve.

They solved it. Mod Notebooks gives you the option to have your notebook back. The reason they couldn't do it was because the company doing the scanning could not scan it non-destructively. Very likely, they just switched to another company.

You're addressing something avenger123 never asked. They are asking HOW the process happens, considering removing the binding is the most efficient way to accurately scan them as far as we are aware.

Re: Why We Cancelled Our Kickstarter And Funded It Ourselves

#53

Post by wlesieutre »

incision wrote: post #50
protomyth wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I tend to be wary of any service with ongoing running costs sold as a one-time fee Well, they aren't really charging a one time fee, they're charging per notebook.

>"Well, they aren't really charging a one time fee, they're charging per notebook." Sure, a one time fee per notebook. The "per" doesn't make it a different model.

I think the closest analogy is pay-per-minute cell phones. No automatically renewing bill, but they do get recurring income from people who keep using it. Call it a one time fee per notebook if you want to, it's still a revenue stream per user than can keep them in business as long as users are using and replacing notebooks.

So the important nuance regarding your previous comment is that "new sales" doesn't mean "new users." You could run a stable business off of this with a steady user base, unlike a pay once use forever model.

This feels like a better bet for them than subscriptions. I certainly wouldn't have been interested in their previous model, but now I am.

Re: Why We Cancelled Our Kickstarter And Funded It Ourselves

#54

Post by 205guy »

herbig wrote: post #4

Get all of the hype and exposure that a Kickstarter campaign gives without having to pay them their cut. Makes sense.

And even after using Kickstarter for promotion, they're milking the story for more promotion (how we used kickstarter, oh, btw, we have this cool product).

And I see they're still using the Kickstarter branded video. Is that hosted by Kickstarter too? Even if they made the video, they should revert to an unbranded (or self-branded) video in what is obviously a promotional article.

I agree with drakaal's comment below [1] that Kickstarter is going to need to protect themselves against such exploitation.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7424133

Re: Why We Cancelled Our Kickstarter And Funded It Ourselves

#55

Post by Timothee »

incision wrote: post #33

>"We’d kill the subscription model..." I tend to be wary of any service with ongoing running costs sold as a one-time fee. As long as new sales exceed the cost of servicing the existing population everything is fine. Once that relationship reverses all bets are off. That said, I like this idea and $25 is a better price point that I would have expected.

What are the ongoing running costs though? Serving the scanned images? Sure, but if the only way to add more data to that bucket is to keep buying notebooks, that should be fairly safe. The hosting costs should be very low compared to the price of the notebook. And if you continue accessing your files, you're likely to want to buy more notebooks.

Re: Why We Cancelled Our Kickstarter And Funded It Ourselves

#56

Post by dasil003 »

GFischer wrote: post #40
avalaunch wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article it doesn't sound like the PR company completely let them off the hook. It says Fundzinger "offered a deal that worked for us." As an aside, has anyone else worked with Fundzinger? Sounds like an interesting business model.

I didn't know what Fudzinger was, so I looked it up and there are several links saying they had a negative experience with them, for example: boardgamegeek.com/thread/1119213/fundzinger-do-not-use They apparently did do their bit (write a Press Release), but not to the campaign creators' satisfaction, and he was very annoyed about their using him as a success story.

> Fudzinger

Freudian slip?

Re: Why We Cancelled Our Kickstarter And Funded It Ourselves

#57

Post by dasil003 »

Timothee wrote: post #55
incision wrote: post #33

>"We’d kill the subscription model..." I tend to be wary of any service with ongoing running costs sold as a one-time fee. As long as new sales exceed the cost of servicing the existing population everything is fine. Once that relationship reverses all bets are off. That said, I like this idea and $25 is a better price point that I would have expected.

What are the ongoing running costs though? Serving the scanned images? Sure, but if the only way to add more data to that bucket is to keep buying notebooks, that should be fairly safe. The hosting costs should be very low compared to the price of the notebook. And if you continue accessing your files, you're likely to want to buy more notebooks.

Are they hosting the images? I assumed it was relying on Dropbox/Evernote/OneNote, or at most a limited time drop.

Re: Why We Cancelled Our Kickstarter And Funded It Ourselves

#58

Post by saraid216 »

justinsteele wrote: post #52
saraid216 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They solved it. Mod Notebooks gives you the option to have your notebook back. The reason they couldn't do it was because the company doing the scanning could not scan it non-destructively. Very likely, they just switched to another company.

You're addressing something avenger123 never asked. They are asking HOW the process happens, considering removing the binding is the most efficient way to accurately scan them as far as we are aware.

It looks like he never asked it because he edited his original comment.

Re: Why We Cancelled Our Kickstarter And Funded It Ourselves

#59

Post by avenger123 »

saraid216 wrote: post #58
justinsteele wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're addressing something avenger123 never asked. They are asking HOW the process happens, considering removing the binding is the most efficient way to accurately scan them as far as we are aware.

It looks like he never asked it because he edited his original comment.

I don't know what you mean. My original comment remains unchanged. I understand Google used special machines to scan books and was wondering if its the same sort of tech involved. I'm sure the size of the notebook has something to do with the tech they are using to accomplish this.

Re: Why We Cancelled Our Kickstarter And Funded It Ourselves

#60

Post by joosters »

thehooplehead wrote: post #25
josefresco wrote: post #19

Is there a HN thread where we can discuss this service and ask questions/debate the merits? I'd do it here but it feels inappropriate as the thread is more about Kickstarter and not the core product/service.

Ditto. How about in this thread? I was watched the video waiting for some big reveal, but was sort of let down by the offering. The site says more about the notebook's quality than the OCR/digitization, which is what I was more interested in.

Do they bother to inform us how many pages each notebook contains? 10? 100? Seems pretty fundamental to me.
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