Back in da Hub

Another London workshop, and meeting Bill and Dorien from a cool product development company called ARRK. The prototype casing was a big concern for us, expecting large upfront costs on tooling and moulds. Not very bootstrap friendly. We have no need to worry though.

Dorien showed us some super samples of what they can do in prototyping with laser 3D printing and cuts. Exactly what we need. Cost is affordable and process very flexible. But what really impressed was the quality of the end prototypes he showed us. Got to love tech innovation.

"Seriously, you have 3D printed all this?"

Keeping it real

When catching up with friends in the "valley" it is easy to envy the momentum and energy. But there are some advantages of doing a tech start-up outside. When being stuck in the "real world", it is much easier to stay in touch with what is going on out here.

Reality is that most people don’t read TechCrunch and GigaOm before breakfast. They don't scan Kickstarter when buying new gadgets. And they couldn’t care less about the holy grail called Internet of Things.

Intense discussions on "What would make me buy this thing?"

Multicoloured light bulbs and connected fridge will not make the cut here. Neither will X10 or Insteon type of geek gems. But a simple way of controlling your kids’ use of internet just might. Or monitoring your pets while at work. Or smart ways to save energy consumption. Or keeping track with the holiday home. Or watching Netflix and YouTube on the TV set without the clunky (so-called) Smart TV.

So last week we invited some of our friends to a first “focus group” session in Oslo. We got some great feedback and insights, and generally seemed pretty pumped up about the idea. Thanks so much guys, we need your help to keep it real! 

Lost In Translation – How It All Started

The idea started spinning when I was working in Tokyo last winter. I loved Japan - great people, food and nature. Very polite and unassuming, and of course tech savvy. But the language is…. complicated, even after spending 7 years in China. So I found myself admiring a lot of the cool infrastructure they had, without necessarily understanding much of how it actually worked.

The control panels in my apartment were case in point. It had some brilliant features – for instance it would record a video when someone was calling for me at the door when I wasn't at home. So in theory I could see who had been visiting when I got back. If I had understood the menus that is. Most times I ended up receiving a call from the security people and a lot of “sumimasen, daijoubu desu”.

Home control panel

So this thing was obviously connected, but I couldn't access it on my terminals. Why couldn't it just stream to a mobile app? Come to think of it, why couldn't the whole monitoring just be built into the WiFi router? I had been doing work on smart devices in Symbio, so I knew it would be possible.

Anyway, ideas have developed but the key vision remains – get our home devices to wirelessly plug-and-play to a smart device where user experience just makes sense. No hassle, no wires, no protocols, no weird buttons. Just a simpler, better life.

Luckily the toilet panel had pictures

Being creative in the Hub

Ambience matters. We just finished our second f2f workshop, this time in a cool incubator space downtown London. Ian and his team build a new makers movement platform out of here, and the buzz and energy of 200 people of 50 startups in one huge space certainly inspired. Worlds apart from my normal “office” space one could say.

Two intense days, working with David who help us design the device. Two ideas graduated to the final, both very cool. Can’t wait to see them in 3D. Maybe we can mold first batch here instead of china. Also playing around with some ideas for name: Domo and Multo. Domo is inspired from Japanese, Multo from Italian/Roman. Values intended to be open, flexible with endless opportunities… but also just simple, easy names. Need to test it out and let them mature a bit.

Anyway, fired up and ready to go now! Next 6 weeks will be finalising v1 offering – device design, sensor packs and app UX. Build focus groups and prepare late summer launch on Kickstarter + retail in Norway. Now back to fresh snow in Sixt!