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System for watering plants. How to get to Kickstarter. Step-by-step process

In short, I decided to stir up my startup.


A startup is when you work a lot, and you don't even get paid. Heh heh. Familiar? Then listen to my story.

A year ago, I worked as the head of CRM systems at Megaplan. I do not know how anyone, but my rhythm of life in Moscow was simple. Day work, work in the evening for fun. Work for fun was the study of first Windows Phone, then Xamarin and the iOS system. Well, do not drink beer, in fact.

Since programming anything was not interesting, I decided to do something that would help in my second hobby
')


Or even the first, depending on where to count. This hobby of mine is botany and everything related to plants. I moderated the forums on plants, wrote articles about plants, led the transfer on TV about plants. I even graduated from the university with a degree in plant genetic engineering. And the first articles on Habré are devoted to me exactly to this.

Having traveled on a couple of trips abroad, I was very upset that there were a lot of unfamiliar interesting tops around, and my hands were falling off, dragging thick gauges on the hump. The process is clearly not from the digital age. A quick googling showed that the maximum that can be calculated is scattered sites in some regions, which, of course, still do not work offline.

Challenge accepted!

So I started writing for mobile platforms.

It took about a year to cut in the process and coding in the evenings. During this time I became so attached to this business that when the choice arose - either I quit and finish the project in the foreseeable time, or I write it in the evenings for many more years, I decided to quit. Accumulations were, therefore, nothing held.

Three more months of daily work, and I released a couple of definition applications for iOS. One for indoor plants , the second for tropical fruits .



I must say that they did not justify any particular hopes for monetization. Yes, there are flaws with the interface. But the main reason is that it is very expensive to fill content with determinants. And the market is now a very tough place. And its rigidity, I clearly underestimated. In general, after some vain attempts to achieve a plus in advertising campaigns to attract users and lose a few more hundred dollars, I left the app to work at the level of natural search traffic (Android didn’t do this for the same reason). It goes from there about $ 100 a month, well, okay. Ever pay off. By the way, I made in-app until the end of July free, you can download and use.

The application is written in Xamarin . It is interesting for anyone to feel the speed of the framework.

The conclusions from the creation of mobile applications were made as follows. The market is tough and the competition is very strong. The game is all or nothing. Too heavy for a loner. Therefore, I decided not to develop this topic further.

But he turned his attention to the system for a smart home. It is close to cell phones. This is something that many do not yet have, but that everyone will definitely have. And if you take the most stereotypical and routine household chores, then watering the plants is far from the last place. And unlike robots, vacuum cleaners, almost no one has a home sprayer. Well, since I'm a nerd in the shower, the choice was predetermined. It was decided to make a system for watering plants! This decision occurred to me in the fall of 2013.

Idea


I have a lot of flowers at home. Mostly orchids, but there are others. And the constant problem with the fact that you need to water on time. And I have something to do, then leave, then something else. I forget this thing, unfortunately. So I came up with a project for people like me - an automatic watering system for plants.

It would be unfair to say that once and invented. The appearance of the system was born for several months as sketches were drawn and the first prototypes were created. Here is what happened in the end:

The watering device looks like a pot stand. Watering is done with a pump, and the remaining water flows back into the tank. Everything is controlled via the Internet, from a smartphone (iOS, Android), you only need a home WiFi network. The device remembers the frequency of watering even if the connection to the Internet is cut off. Pushes notifications to the phone if there is not enough water left. Reliably and does not leak, because in principle there are no wet connections. Holds so much water so that it is not necessary to add a month or two.

The price was conceived so that I could provide all my 20 pots with irrigation and not go broke. The use of a stamped plastic case and a reduction in the number of electronics immediately follow from this point. Long thought how to do it and came to modularity. There are “smart” head devices, and there are “stupid” subsidiaries, which can only be watered when the head ones order them. There is generally only a pump and stamping, you can do it very cheaply.



Why such a device? Honestly, I'm tired of the efforts of designers in this area. From those who have never grown flowers, but really want to make some nonsense. Type, hydroponic system with replaceable cartridges for growing vegetables. Well, nonsense, really. This is a toy, not an assistant to plant lovers. I want to make exactly the most useful device.

The same goes for some Swiss knives that shine and water and do anything. But everything is bad. No, let my device only water. But it makes it as simple, convenient and cheap as possible. And then expand if the demand is.

Prototypes


I did not run on investors, PR or do something else like that. Just started working on materials for the project.

Drawings in OpenSCAD (I liked OpenJSCAD more , it supports an honest object model), 3d printing of prototypes, initial electronics.
Since I have never worked in 3D packages, but I had to do a 3d drawing, I decided to go through everything on the market. Frankly, for the programmer, it is a complete horror, except for the listed open box and its branches. Well, maybe not for any programmer, but just for me. But this is some kind of hell. Blender, Sketchup - heartbreaking interfaces and stupor, even when trying to draw a cube. But parametric modeling in the scud - great and nice, what you need. Especially if you have a penchant for drafting.



After the parts were ready and fitted in 3D, it is time to look for printing services. The unpleasant discovery was that none of the foreign grandees of this business delivered to Russia. Refer to mail problems.

But, to be honest, and their price did not suit me. My product weighs 200 grams, they had it under 10 thousand. Very expensive!
Started looking for us. It turned out that in the Russian market the average price of ABS or PLA printing on amateur printers is about 20 rubles per gram. On roboforum.ru I found a companion who prints ten. Two thousand for a prototype is already acceptable. And the fact that you have to pick up at the subway station - so we have bootstrapped or how :)?

As an electronics, I used the MSP430 + CC3000 kit . Very good chip and convenient board, smart config is able (this means, there you can transfer login and password from a closed wifi network by pressing a button). He himself figured out only the basic things, the program and shild made to order. 5000 rubles, quite normal, I would have killed it for two weeks. As a result, the board accesses a specific host via DNS and takes from there the status whether to enable it or not. If the signal is on, the motor pump pumps water. Off - stops pumping.



Here I will also say a few words on the design. If you look closely, you will see that the lid is concave. So excess water flows into the tank, without getting past the device. At the bottom there are connectors for power and electrical connection of daughter modules. Holes on the sides of the top cover - the grooves for the capillary. This is a small part in the form of a plastic bracket with a capillary cord, which allows you to keep the same water level in adjacent devices.

Power in the basic version of the network through the adapter, but really want to make solar panels with intermediate charging batteries. Calculations say that this is real if you do not keep a permanent WiFi connection. But for now the power is mains, as it should be for the simplest first version.

The prototype of the mobile application design ordered for two thousand. The application itself was made in two evenings, after all a prototype, no intricacies. I could not resist making a dynamic control of the calendar instead of a picture, that's why two evenings and not one.



The prototype was ready. Works, water at the touch of a button. To fasten a schedule to it and to add the application is very simple. It is clear how to translate this into serial rails.

What's next?


Here I must say that I have been working in business for a long time. And I realized during this time that sales are always primary. This is contrary to my engineering vision of the world, but unfortunately it is. Therefore, initially everything was aimed at testing the idea of ​​the market. And what is the best mechanism for this now? That's right - crowdfunding. Well, the best platform for this Kickstarter. The most recognizable, with the largest audience and so on. So you need to use it.

Enclosures, electronics - what you see in the pictures took two or three months to complete. Just because I had to learn a lot of unfamiliar areas and think a lot about the design.

In parallel, I chose the name and as the design of the site. He called the project quite banal for the region - Aquarius. Registered domain aquariusbot.com

And after a couple of days after registration, I suddenly see an article on a habr. I was stung! Someone is already doing the same. We urgently need to accelerate! But in general, it is surprising how much the same idea can come to different people at the same time. By the way, the guys are great, then a couple of articles later came out where the product is already very presentable.

We needed a clear plan of action. The plan is:



In the end, I started from the site, while reading about crowdfunding. It turned out that there are several people helping with this for a percentage of the fees. There is also a casting of projects and anyone they will not take. Therefore, the site remained in first place in the priorities, it was necessary to ensure a good flow from the outset.

Site


Since the sites are not my strong point, I took the path of least resistance.
I bought a good template for WordPress on themeforest.com . Hired a freelancer who set up my hosting on linode.com (the best conditions for me under vds and server in the States).

After that, deeply immersed in the nuances of css and web design. And I also needed pictures.

I wanted high quality photos, at least in the interior + on a white background. I don’t have to rent this in my apartment, so I decided to look for a studio in the city. Found. Remove the subject, then what you need.

And here happened a bummer. Photos on a white background somehow filmed. And with the interiors with them came a complete misunderstanding. I wanted something in a modern style, with Ikea furniture and office surroundings. And they had only a coarse pseudo-baroque with ugly stucco. And I learned about it after the fact, when I came to them laden with plants and other props.



Not at all in style in general. Now I understand that you just had to leave and disagree. But time was tight, so I stayed.
As a result, all the photographs taken in the interior were essentially thrown out and did not go anywhere. 5 hours of filming cost 7000 rubles. Expensive, it was necessary to look for cheaper.

Then I had to practice at home with what I had. It turned out certainly worse than it could be, but there was no time to retake at the studio, and the flowers would not have survived another transportation in the cold.

Summary: delve into all the nuances in advance and do not think that they will understand you the way you want

I completed the site, along the way, we finished photographing the necessary photos already at home. Fortunately, there was a camera, although there was no light. I bought a tripod and used stools and light bulbs on clothespins as light.

Texts


The product is conceived primarily for the foreign market. He is more mature for such things, and simply more, so why not?
Not to say that is very cool in English. I understand well, I speak and write worse. Therefore, I started working with translators. An important nuance in translation work: truly high-quality translations are obtained only in their native language. And with this you will have a lot of problems, the cat wept with translators with knowledge of Russian and native English.

With difficulty, but found. Basically satisfied. Prices for translation - from 5 cents per word.

Where to look for translators? All English speakers are here: proz.com (long, expensive ...). But even when I was doing mobile applications, I discovered a completely amazing site for myself - fiverr.com. Its essence is that there is a clearly defined amount of services for a clearly agreed price of $ 5. Very convenient to work. Try it. The most convenient that you can test a huge number of people. You will lose a maximum of $ 5 on everyone, but you will quickly find someone who suits you.

All this is completely different from the classic freelancing, where you need to negotiate for a long time, wait a long time for the result and so on. Everything is fast here, and this is often a key factor. An additional advantage is that on fiverr there are not only translators, but various performers of almost any kind of work.

I translated the biggest texts to order. However, for small texts, I do not recommend this. If you at least somehow know how to express oneself, then write in a clumsy language, and then order editing (proof & proofreading). This is significant, five times cheaper than translations! And the performers are much more. On the same fiverr there are editors who give the finished work in 30 minutes. Extremely convenient!
Again, you will practice English, this is useful.

Editing rates are such that they allow one and the same text to be run through a couple of editors. Until you find regular artists, I recommend doing this and comparing the result.

image

So, the playground. To start the technique that you need to get out there.

You must be a resident of US, GB, AU or NZ. As you understand, I do not fit this criterion at all.

Second - you need to create the right campaign to get noticed and invested in you.

So, there is an institution of intermediaries for entering the site. Someone provides their details and washes his hands, someone provides consulting support and in fact is not a mediator, but a full-fledged partner. All Russian speakers can be found in this group.

I will not say now who I work with. I will say about the conditions of work. I understand that they are generally common.



A friend with whom I work has helped me a lot with the video, with the construction of the campaign and is currently helping. So I take him as a partner and listen to advice. I recommend it and treat this matter, so you will get the most out of your relationship. Well, I remind you that I am not agitating in someone's favor, this is just my personal experience.

Next, what is the amount of fees set? Here the answer is simple - the least realistic of all. Kickstarter ranks projects including how fast they reach their goal. If your target bar is low, then the chances of exceeding it multiply significantly increase.
With regards to hard projects. Do not forget to take into account the cost of packaging, storage in warehouses, delivery. Many projects seriously fell on these points. Well, keep in mind the postal pricing. Forwarding to an address within the United States, for example, is more expensive than shipping from China.

Video


Almost all the pictures on the product I had taken during the creation of the site. So I focused on the video. This is probably the hardest part in all the preparations for the campaign.



What should be in the video:

Do not worry, from the first time you still will not remove normally.

Many people spend thousands of dollars on video. But it can be done independently and it is absolutely real. You will need a camera, a tripod, a light. Very desirable helper.

I can give the following tips:


Where to get liner for history? You can draw a comic, use PowerPoint, you can shoot yourself if there is a good texture and camera. I used video boards. They provide short thematic videos, from which it is possible to put together the story. Pieces of video are expensive, so do not buy them and use thumbnails until you make the final editing.
The pieces of video from drains cost me about $ 200.

Music is taken in the same place as the video on the drains. The most normal sentence on audiojungle . A bunch of tunes, an average of $ 10 apiece. You can order English text reading either at fiverr (cheap, the result is not very predictable), or at voicebunny.com . There are very professional speakers. My cost was about $ 120. Three times I asked to remake, I didn’t like individual intonations, in the end I was satisfied. Service strongly recommend.
Editing do in your any video editing program that supports multiple tracks. According to the degree of brain removal, they are not even close to 3d editors.

In the video I spent about three weeks. It seems to be fine. In any case, the indicator of those who inspected it to the end is kept at the level of 50%, and this is considered to be good statistics.

Campaign page design


There is no special wisdom, a fairly standard structure.


You can take any of the successful projects in your area and check the web archive how their campaign looked at the beginning. The main thing is not to be too lazy to look into the archive, as the campaign is edited as it is conducted.

For every small paragraph of text you should have a picture. Pictures, more pictures, everyone loves pictures!

Press


Preparing for the campaign in the press is to see who wrote about your competitors, put it into a huge, gigantic table and convey to all of them information about your product.

The trick is that Kickstarter is now in such a competition that if no top publications are written about you, then your campaign will not receive any traffic and contributors.

I would like to advise something else ... But I can not. How to communicate with the press - this is wisdom, which is still not available to me.

Hey, who knows how to push the press, people, and generally a clear marketing kid / girl with the results? I'll take you to the project, write.

Launch


Prepare a hundred times, still you will not guess. We decided to start on Tuesday, June 3 at 6 am LA, considering it to be the most convenient time. And they flew completely, because they forgot about Apple WWDS, which began on Monday. The press unanimously ignored the press release, and practically no one enters the campaign, despite the excellent conversion to backers.

So now begins a new responsible stage - pulling the campaign out of the ass. I'll pull it out - I'll write :)
That's all for today. I will definitely try to have a good continuation of this story.

You can support me and order yourself a irrigator here:

www.kickstarter.com/projects/kudryavtcev/aquarius

Ask questions in kamentah, I will try to answer all.

PS For some reason unknown to me, Habr does not respond to requests in the form of “help to startups”. Therefore, all this is published in “I am promoting”. Dear Habr, I still hope for an answer!

Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/225897/

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