Aurum197

We just launched our PRIAMBLE earphone earrings, and I would love your feedback! Their raison d'être: one needs different headphones for different occasions, and PRIAMBLE is not only very comfortable, but it meets the dress code. Also, unlike, AirPods (which I am a fan of), it doesn't end up on the floor! There are other reasons as well, but these are the more compelling ones.

Here's one idea: creating support pods for people, especially those in one-person households, so the members of a pod all automatically check on each other on a daily basis. And if something awful happens to any, a series of processes get kicked off (like calling family, local police/hospital, work, etc.) I have at least two friends who are single, who live on their own, and don't seem to have much of an immediate support system.

Glad to hear you are still going!

Our TAM is $12 Billion, expected to reach $32 billion by 2025. It is a large, fast-growing market. We can definitely be a unicorn. But I have to dwell some more on the question of ecosystems and crowd dynamics.

First of all thank you for taking then time to think this through.

Our MVP worked fine. In fact we were reviewed by the BBC last year. It's our new version that isn't ready yet. Our chip supplier has asked us to order 6 months ahead. We do have the BOM and the hardware files at this point. We are at the point of getting our prototype boards manufactured. But the state of the world is definitely a challenge.

We would like to take preorders for two reasons: firstly to convince VCs that there is a market, and secondly to gauge how many chips we need to order.

Thank you for helping me think this through. I am beginning to see some upsides to crowdfunding even though I am turned off by how manipulated it has become (with paid backers, etc.)

I agree. If we take preorders, we will make sure we can refund them completely if we don't deliver.

The idea behind taking preorders is to convince VCs that we have a market. They can get on TikTok and read the comments asking for our products, but I don't think that's going to convince them. Hence the need to have pre-orders.

Any idea how many pre-orders is enough to validate a new hardware product? The MSRP is $200.

Scalpers? And don't initial customers pay less generally?

We don't have venture backing yet. We were hoping to use preorders to convince vcs/angels. We really don't want to go the crowdfunding route because it has gotten increasingly gamed and crowded (!) Plus we already have a number of signups on our own website. I see a potential downside to asking our potential customers to go to a crowdfunding campaign.

But you have given us something to think about.

I believe Shopify allows preordering. I was not aware that processors will freeze you out for taking preorders. Thank you for letting us know; we will look into this.

Here's our plan: get pre-orders. Take those pre-orders to potential investors to raise money. Fill orders. The idea behind the pre-orders is not so much to raise money directly but to convince investors to fund us.

Any hardware entrepreneurs here?

We are seriously bullish on voice. Will definitely look up your app!

Brilliant: the project itself but also the trouble you took to share the how-to deets!

Sorry, I’d forgotten about that! But the community obliged!

It does have a mic. We are conflicted about the accelerometer for our next iteration.

It does!

Thanks! We will definitely keep your offer in mind. Our issue, though, is not the market. There is a lot of demand! And we just got nominated for a design excellence award by the Accessories Council.

Thanks. We think users will have a collection of earphones: different ones for different occasions: one for the gym, one for a work lunch, one for an evening party…

I agree about trying to cram too many features into a product. That doesn’t work. What we are trying to do is show how to use an available feature -smart assistants - in different ways.

Well, different users will want different use cases. We tried to show the range.

That was our thought process as well. Many users don’t even realize the capabilities of smart assistants!

The audio module is swappable between earrings. Our plan is to add new styles on an ongoing basis!

I had shared this update here a few months ago, and received great feedback. Since then we had some positive news: the BBC reviewed our earrings online. The requests for our earrings are pouring in. We launched on TikTok last month, and hit 10K followers in under 3 weeks. Organically. We know we have a product that customers are eager to get.

And yet... we have discovered that it's true what they say: hardware is hard. More than that: it's expensive.

:)

Did you mean this, millzlane? https://youtu.be/aAUIfNSVauY

Anything that makes the opaque accessible is a worthy undertaking. Kudos!

Thanks vaccinator!

Thanks spdebbarma!

Unfortunately, that's a yes for our current version. They are for pierced ears. We do have test versions for clip-ons but they are still a few iterations away from being ready.

Earbuds are still earbuds. And everyone's trying to one-up each other in that space. Anyway, we were trying to make an alternative for those occasions when an earbud would be a social no-no.

Thanks MrDrDr, that's a pretty edgy design! Our first attempt was an Octopus, holding on to the ear with its tentacles! But here's the problem with the spider web design: if you put a circuit board + battery front and center, sticking forward, it looks like a gigantic tumor on the ear. There's no way to avoid that. Which is why we focused on designs that hid the board behind the earring. We also wanted the earrings to be swappable (because I don't see most women wanting to wear the same look every day.) Our challenges were: hiding the circuit board, positioning the speaker near the canal, and allowing swappable looks. We spent months just figuring out how to solve these design issues.