How we launched the router on Indiegogo or what opportunities are there in the communications market
If you travel a lot and want to be in touch as soon as the plane lands at the next airport, if roaming seems expensive, and buying local SIM cards is a dreary process, then we have common problems and interests. In addition, I wonder why, with all the development of technology, we still use SIM cards and manually select which wi-fi point to connect to. In the publication below, I want to share what gaps still exist in the telecommunications and communications market and how we tried to address some of them in our Nommi router, which today, at 10 am US time (PST), started on the Indiegogo crowdfunding platform.
The idea appeared back in 2015, when, together with my co-founder, we had a long discussion about the fact that roaming is an expensive and often incomprehensible thing; besides, when I flew to a foreign country, I want to think more about the purpose of the trip than about how and where to connect to the Internet.
Interestingly, the most significant change in the field of “smart” portable routers has recently been the focus on “simple” (pay X and get Y) mobile plans, no more. This is a very superficial optimization that captures only one of the possible improvement blocks — the one that relates to user UX.
Immediately answering the question “what are the areas of optimization in principle,” I can say that we have identified the following three for ourselves:
1) “Device” level - depending on which device you are using - it may or may not work in certain countries, on certain frequencies and have its own network connection settings;
2) Network level - network characteristics can fluctuate significantly depending on external load and need to be monitored and taken into account in real time;
3) The “user” level is the most difficult, since it is important to understand what the user really needs - connection speed, quality, stability, and so on. and give him exactly that. Simple tariff plans, convenient switching from one operator to another - it's all here too.
')
Before starting to develop, we ordered and tested a large number of models of routers on the market, both for use in the country of residence (such as Beeline modems or Karma), and those that are mainly needed for traveling (Enjoymov, Skyroam, GlocalMe). Additionally, we studied the travel SIM card and roaming solutions, as one of the most simple and popular options.
The main conclusions to which we came:
1) Travel Sims - solutions for the most part are quite expensive, often even at the roaming level. They require a separate phone or their own two-part phone in order not to lose important calls via GSM.
2) Traveling routers are relevant for travel, but are almost useless at home. Also, there are limited number of supported ranges, so it may happen that in some countries your router will not work. They also do not look very good - for geeks, maybe not scary, but if you like beautiful things and appreciate the design of your smartphone, then the appearance of the router will not bring you much pleasure.
3) Roaming - I must pay tribute - this is the simplest solution for the lazy, in addition, operators are gradually making tariffs lower. The main difficulties here are still the prices and the quality of the connection - often it’s not 4G, but 3G, and sometimes 2G.
4) Local SIM cards - can be a good option if you are traveling abroad for a long time and you need to make frequent calls on a regular phone. However, depending on the country and the airport / train station / etc arrival - you can spend up to an hour doing the registration and registration of the card, asking for tariffs and then activating the SIM card. If you are in the country for a short time and you mostly need an Internet - local SIM card may not be the cheapest solution, moreover, it often requires having a separate phone or pulling out your native SIM card, unless you have a dual-use phone.
5) Your favorite smartphone - unfortunately, in most cases we still have to manually choose which wi-fi network to connect to, we can not switch to wi-fi at home, because we turned it off a little earlier in the cafe and we still Carefully insert into the phone a piece of plastic called a sim card, which is needed to transfer only a few parameters to the operator.
The task we set ourselves was to develop a product that provides the most seamless interaction of various technologies in such a way that for the user access to the Internet was something really simple and straightforward. The ideal solution in this case is the development of eSim and a number of other modifications at the level of the firmware of smartphones, however, considering that to expect such changes from Samsung / Apple and most other companies (except, perhaps, Google with their Google Pixel and a number of Red Tea Mobile devices ) not necessary - we decided to stop at the development of the router. Being a separate unit, it allows you to make such a combination of hardware, firmware and software, which will be convenient to use regardless of the model of your phone or laptop, and in addition, by adding a charger to the router - we can make it more attractive to travelers , and for ordinary users - it is not necessary to carry a router and a power bank separately.
They decided to call the product Nommi - from “nomadic mi-fi”, so to speak for modern digital nomads. Accordingly, on the one hand, we tried to make the design minimalistic - on the road we didn’t need excesses, on the other hand - stylish, so that the router was more an accessory than a gadget.
On a set of features stopped on the following:
eSim is the so-called "built-in" or "virtual" SIM, which can store a lot of identification numbers, as well as receive them from an operator in a particular country. It does not need to pull out and insert, it is already inside the device. Paying for roaming or buying local SIM cards in this way becomes unnecessary.
Crowdsorse base of passwords worldwide - together with the device is attached a large base of passwords for cafes / public places and so on. Updating the database is further planned by adding Nommi users passwords.
Dual wi-fi - a dual module allows for better switching between wi-fi and 4g: while one module keeps you on LTE, the second one scans available wi-fi networks, and also checks for the presence of a password from the network in the database, receives an SMS message authorization (if necessary) and checks the connection speed - and if all these parameters are satisfied - already switches you to wi-fi.
Signal wifi repeater - This feature will be useful even outside travel. In large houses and offices, despite all the advancement of their owners, there are still areas where the wi-fi signal is not good enough, because the local router is far from your favorite cozy corner. By putting Nommi between you and this router, you essentially double the distance you can move away from it. Well, on trips it often happens that a hotel wi-fi router is in the corridor and catches well only at the door of the room. Leaving Nommi charging at the entrance, you can be online while relaxing on your bed.
Built-in Powerbank with fast charging via USB cable and support for Qi standard wireless charging (compatible with new iPhones) are implemented in a more “capacious” version of Nommi (there are two versions - one with a smaller battery, the other with a larger one). Great helps in travels, where the navigator and the active use of the camera consume a lot of charge.
Built-in VPN is all about security. There are many free applications both on the desktop and on smartphones, but they usually have limitations or a lot of advertising, and the Opera VPN application for smartphones does not allow connecting a laptop to it. Therefore, for the convenience of future users, we have added a built-in VPN client that can use either free servers or data from your own server if you choose this option.
Guest wifi - when your router “broadcasts” two wifi networks. One with a complex password and only for your devices. Another - with a simple, or even completely without a password, for your colleagues or friends and those who are not long near you. Who do you want to kindly give access to the Internet, but do not want viruses from their computers to scan your devices or their iPhone to download the update to 1 gigabyte of your traffic. Therefore, you can give them access to a special guest network, which will be isolated from your devices and limited in terms of traffic volume and speed.
A simple tariff plan - during trips abroad, you can take daily packages at a price of $ 3-5 per day for 500MB at 4G, then drop to 2.5G, and use a regular SIM card from your favorite operator at home; for the US, we have an additional monthly subscription option - $ 35 per month for 5 GB worldwide. According to the results of crowdfunding, if there are 1-2 more countries with a large number of subscribers, we will also think over a monthly plan for them, with tariffs no worse than local operators.
To pack all this in one router, we have developed a customized firmware. And so that the user does not have to dig into the settings through the web interface, we are developing a mobile application for managing Nommi. As a result of the prototyping process, we consciously refused to have a screen and control buttons on the device itself. There are so many features that it is difficult to manipulate them through the screen, but it costs money and takes up space in the case, which is better to be allocated for the battery.
The process of iterations, prototyping, finding a factory in China and preparing for the campaign as a whole took us about 6 months. We were initially preparing for Kickstarter, but literally a month before the launch, the guys from Indiegogo wrote directly and were convincing enough for us to change our original plans. By coincidence, our manager Indiegogo was in New York, I was there in the framework of “intelligence” before launching, so we met in the office and discussed everything verbally. From the key “buns” I can name: a dedicated campaign manager who advises how and what is better to do; dedicated PR-manager who helps to reach the press; additional mention in the mailing list - in general and privately, just a bit more involvement from the team, which can be expensive in conditions when you do not know deeply the market.
About the features of the training can be read here in three parts: the first , second and third .
For those who are interested in the product: by placing an order on this link you will receive a bonus of 1 GB of traffic on the device.
For those who are very interesting - write in a personal, give personal links.
Hope the story was helpful. :-)
The idea appeared back in 2015, when, together with my co-founder, we had a long discussion about the fact that roaming is an expensive and often incomprehensible thing; besides, when I flew to a foreign country, I want to think more about the purpose of the trip than about how and where to connect to the Internet.
Interestingly, the most significant change in the field of “smart” portable routers has recently been the focus on “simple” (pay X and get Y) mobile plans, no more. This is a very superficial optimization that captures only one of the possible improvement blocks — the one that relates to user UX.
Immediately answering the question “what are the areas of optimization in principle,” I can say that we have identified the following three for ourselves:
1) “Device” level - depending on which device you are using - it may or may not work in certain countries, on certain frequencies and have its own network connection settings;
2) Network level - network characteristics can fluctuate significantly depending on external load and need to be monitored and taken into account in real time;
3) The “user” level is the most difficult, since it is important to understand what the user really needs - connection speed, quality, stability, and so on. and give him exactly that. Simple tariff plans, convenient switching from one operator to another - it's all here too.
')
Before starting to develop, we ordered and tested a large number of models of routers on the market, both for use in the country of residence (such as Beeline modems or Karma), and those that are mainly needed for traveling (Enjoymov, Skyroam, GlocalMe). Additionally, we studied the travel SIM card and roaming solutions, as one of the most simple and popular options.
The main conclusions to which we came:
1) Travel Sims - solutions for the most part are quite expensive, often even at the roaming level. They require a separate phone or their own two-part phone in order not to lose important calls via GSM.
2) Traveling routers are relevant for travel, but are almost useless at home. Also, there are limited number of supported ranges, so it may happen that in some countries your router will not work. They also do not look very good - for geeks, maybe not scary, but if you like beautiful things and appreciate the design of your smartphone, then the appearance of the router will not bring you much pleasure.
3) Roaming - I must pay tribute - this is the simplest solution for the lazy, in addition, operators are gradually making tariffs lower. The main difficulties here are still the prices and the quality of the connection - often it’s not 4G, but 3G, and sometimes 2G.
4) Local SIM cards - can be a good option if you are traveling abroad for a long time and you need to make frequent calls on a regular phone. However, depending on the country and the airport / train station / etc arrival - you can spend up to an hour doing the registration and registration of the card, asking for tariffs and then activating the SIM card. If you are in the country for a short time and you mostly need an Internet - local SIM card may not be the cheapest solution, moreover, it often requires having a separate phone or pulling out your native SIM card, unless you have a dual-use phone.
5) Your favorite smartphone - unfortunately, in most cases we still have to manually choose which wi-fi network to connect to, we can not switch to wi-fi at home, because we turned it off a little earlier in the cafe and we still Carefully insert into the phone a piece of plastic called a sim card, which is needed to transfer only a few parameters to the operator.
The task we set ourselves was to develop a product that provides the most seamless interaction of various technologies in such a way that for the user access to the Internet was something really simple and straightforward. The ideal solution in this case is the development of eSim and a number of other modifications at the level of the firmware of smartphones, however, considering that to expect such changes from Samsung / Apple and most other companies (except, perhaps, Google with their Google Pixel and a number of Red Tea Mobile devices ) not necessary - we decided to stop at the development of the router. Being a separate unit, it allows you to make such a combination of hardware, firmware and software, which will be convenient to use regardless of the model of your phone or laptop, and in addition, by adding a charger to the router - we can make it more attractive to travelers , and for ordinary users - it is not necessary to carry a router and a power bank separately.
They decided to call the product Nommi - from “nomadic mi-fi”, so to speak for modern digital nomads. Accordingly, on the one hand, we tried to make the design minimalistic - on the road we didn’t need excesses, on the other hand - stylish, so that the router was more an accessory than a gadget.
On a set of features stopped on the following:
eSim is the so-called "built-in" or "virtual" SIM, which can store a lot of identification numbers, as well as receive them from an operator in a particular country. It does not need to pull out and insert, it is already inside the device. Paying for roaming or buying local SIM cards in this way becomes unnecessary.
Crowdsorse base of passwords worldwide - together with the device is attached a large base of passwords for cafes / public places and so on. Updating the database is further planned by adding Nommi users passwords.
Dual wi-fi - a dual module allows for better switching between wi-fi and 4g: while one module keeps you on LTE, the second one scans available wi-fi networks, and also checks for the presence of a password from the network in the database, receives an SMS message authorization (if necessary) and checks the connection speed - and if all these parameters are satisfied - already switches you to wi-fi.
Signal wifi repeater - This feature will be useful even outside travel. In large houses and offices, despite all the advancement of their owners, there are still areas where the wi-fi signal is not good enough, because the local router is far from your favorite cozy corner. By putting Nommi between you and this router, you essentially double the distance you can move away from it. Well, on trips it often happens that a hotel wi-fi router is in the corridor and catches well only at the door of the room. Leaving Nommi charging at the entrance, you can be online while relaxing on your bed.
Built-in Powerbank with fast charging via USB cable and support for Qi standard wireless charging (compatible with new iPhones) are implemented in a more “capacious” version of Nommi (there are two versions - one with a smaller battery, the other with a larger one). Great helps in travels, where the navigator and the active use of the camera consume a lot of charge.
Built-in VPN is all about security. There are many free applications both on the desktop and on smartphones, but they usually have limitations or a lot of advertising, and the Opera VPN application for smartphones does not allow connecting a laptop to it. Therefore, for the convenience of future users, we have added a built-in VPN client that can use either free servers or data from your own server if you choose this option.
Guest wifi - when your router “broadcasts” two wifi networks. One with a complex password and only for your devices. Another - with a simple, or even completely without a password, for your colleagues or friends and those who are not long near you. Who do you want to kindly give access to the Internet, but do not want viruses from their computers to scan your devices or their iPhone to download the update to 1 gigabyte of your traffic. Therefore, you can give them access to a special guest network, which will be isolated from your devices and limited in terms of traffic volume and speed.
A simple tariff plan - during trips abroad, you can take daily packages at a price of $ 3-5 per day for 500MB at 4G, then drop to 2.5G, and use a regular SIM card from your favorite operator at home; for the US, we have an additional monthly subscription option - $ 35 per month for 5 GB worldwide. According to the results of crowdfunding, if there are 1-2 more countries with a large number of subscribers, we will also think over a monthly plan for them, with tariffs no worse than local operators.
To pack all this in one router, we have developed a customized firmware. And so that the user does not have to dig into the settings through the web interface, we are developing a mobile application for managing Nommi. As a result of the prototyping process, we consciously refused to have a screen and control buttons on the device itself. There are so many features that it is difficult to manipulate them through the screen, but it costs money and takes up space in the case, which is better to be allocated for the battery.
The process of iterations, prototyping, finding a factory in China and preparing for the campaign as a whole took us about 6 months. We were initially preparing for Kickstarter, but literally a month before the launch, the guys from Indiegogo wrote directly and were convincing enough for us to change our original plans. By coincidence, our manager Indiegogo was in New York, I was there in the framework of “intelligence” before launching, so we met in the office and discussed everything verbally. From the key “buns” I can name: a dedicated campaign manager who advises how and what is better to do; dedicated PR-manager who helps to reach the press; additional mention in the mailing list - in general and privately, just a bit more involvement from the team, which can be expensive in conditions when you do not know deeply the market.
About the features of the training can be read here in three parts: the first , second and third .
For those who are interested in the product: by placing an order on this link you will receive a bonus of 1 GB of traffic on the device.
For those who are very interesting - write in a personal, give personal links.
Hope the story was helpful. :-)
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/344014/
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