[MUSIC PLAYING]
MARTIN OMANDER: So my guest today
is Joe Born, co-founder of the startup behind the Hale Dreamer
Alarm Clock.
Thanks for coming on the show today.
JOE BORN: Thanks for having me.
MARTIN OMANDER: So this is a hardware product.
You worked in hardware.
How has crowdfunding changed hardware, do you think?
JOE BORN: Oh, night and day.
You are talking about we suddenly have the ability
to release a product and get market feedback before we've
actually brought it into full production.
It's a much more important factor
than many of the others that get more notoriety-- 3D printing
and some of the open source stuff--
because you think about the ability
to get feedback up front without making these big investments.
That's really changed.
It's really turned hardware development
upside down-- very big impact
MARTIN OMANDER: And you used it to your advantage
for building this product.
Could you tell us a bit more about that?
JOE BORN: Yeah.
So our goal was a little bit unconventional in this product.
So we really wanted to get up-front feedback
and really see particularly developer, early adopter
community with our product.
So for example, the hardware's got a relatively open
interface.
And that allowed us to recruit a few other apps that
would work with our hardware as a result of Android Central
and some of the publicity that we got out of the gate.
And that came from that very focused approach
that, in this case, crowdfunding facilitated.
MARTIN OMANDER: Oh.
So for you, it was just as much crowd marketing and building
community as getting the funding for the product.
JOE BORN: Yeah, that's right.
And so Kickstarter is a big, big community
of very involved users that it's very hard
to get out of traditional kind of mass distribution and sales
channels.
So whereas Amazon is very mainstream or [INAUDIBLE]
or the like, Kickstarter really does get you
that early adopter, that very involved consumer.
And that's very important to try and recruit them up front,
particularly with many of the hardware devices.
MARTIN OMANDER: Mm, I see.
And crowdfunding runs in the family, I hear.
Your daughter ran a campaign.
Could you tell us a bit more about that?
JOE BORN: So my daughter's going into seventh grade now.
And she invented a no-spill cup.
My dad has Parkinson's.
His hand tremors, and he was shaking and spilling.
And so she invented a three-legged cup
that holds the base off the ground
and did a couple crowdfunding campaigns, the most
recent over the summer.
MARTIN OMANDER: Oh, great.
That must have been a great learning experience
for both you and your daughter.
What did you learn?
What was unexpected?
JOE BORN: Yeah.
Well, one of the big unexpected things
was-- and I think there's a lesson for all of us--
that if you'd asked me what's important for her
as an inventor coming out of the gate,
I'd have said, well, aesthetic sense and the ability
to iterate and stuff.
But it turns out that being a spokesman
is really, in many ways, much more important
than those details.
Because it was her ability to articulate and tell the story
that really captivated people and really recruited
interest and developed stuff.
So I think that's a good part of what crowdfunding
does in forcing us to articulate the product.
MARTIN OMANDER: Oh, right.
You have that one- or two-minute video,
and you have to pack it all in there.
JOE BORN: Yeah.
And I think that's a great exercise.
Because we start out, and we and our co-founders
are so used to the product.
And they've heard the articulation a million times,
and they get used to the fact that it
has 10 million features.
All of a sudden, now you're forced,
how do I articulate this at a very high level to someone
who doesn't know the product in a minute or two minutes?
And going through that exercise is really
an important discipline-- what's important,
what's not important, what could I leave off?
And I think going through that exercise early really
is a help to understanding your product
and how you're going to sell it and how
you're going to articulate it.
MARTIN OMANDER: Yeah.
A lot of people with an engineering mindset,
like me, we start thinking about a product and start building
it.
And feedback comes way late, well after.
JOE BORN: And that's the conventional way, right?
And that's why crowdfunding is so important.
Because all of a sudden, we find ourselves selling a product
before we've completed the whole engineering process.
Well, that's great, because now there's
plenty of time to make changes and get feedback and learn
from it before you've made all the investments
and before you've locked yourself
into the technology, the details, the implementation,
and so on and so forth.
So I think that kind of exercise probably
is as good for software as hardware.
But particularly so in hardware where you do
have to make investments.
And a lot of those investments do lock you
into certain things.
MARTIN OMANDER: Oh.
Because it's harder to change hardware,
you mean, than software?
JOE BORN: Yeah.
Hardware's become more like software--
more iterative, more software-driven.
But you still have a physical manifestation
that's in the field and can't be changed-- at least the knobs
and buttons and housing, and that kind of stuff.
So you do get locked into tooling,
and you have to make decisions that do lock you in.
MARTIN OMANDER: Right.
Great.
So how is your daughter's campaign and product doing?
JOE BORN: Good.
We've sold 10,000 cups over the summer, so $62,000 worth.
And now we're feverishly working to bring those into production
and tool it up and ship those to people.
It's called the Kangaroo Cup, if any of your viewers
are interested.
MARTIN OMANDER: Kangaroo Cup.
Great.
Well, thank you so much for coming on the show, Joe,
and sharing your experience, and that of your daughter, with us.
Best of luck with your product and your daughter's.
JOE BORN: Yes.
I'll pass that along.
Thank you.
MARTIN OMANDER: We hope you found something
you can use in your startup.
Your input matters.
Please leave your comments below.
We read everything you write.
To learn how Google can help your startup,
go to developers.google.com/startups.
If you would like to be a guest on the show,
go to bit.ly/applyrootaccess.
That's it for now.
See you next time!