This is a really cool story. If the author is reading: It would be interesting to read about your experiences with marketing and building support for your products. I know you said a lot of it was luck and timing, but it would be helpful to get your thoughts on which moves you made that best took advantage of that luck and timing.
I have dozens of friends who launched group buys for small boards around this price range for different niches that never took off. Some of them even had superior products to the popular offerings, but getting traction is hard.
Hey! I'm the author. I think my good timing and luck showed up mostly through my initial Reddit post garnering a ton of attention. I road that wave to the group buy. From that single Reddit post I had tons of people interested and got them to join a community Discord. Remember that this was right when covid lockdowns had started, seriously good timing for me.
I worked hard to move fast, engage, and share often on my community Discord[1]. The early messages in the announcements channel might be a good place to see how I was communicating early on. It was a pretty exciting time for me where we were all sharing ideas and figuring out how to make my initial prototype into something that all hobbyists could use. I think past that, word of mouth kept the Discord growing, and by the time I had the group buy, I didn't even post on Reddit because there were already thousands in my Discord ready to buy.
After that I worked with vendors to get it in ecommerce storefronts ASAP to not let the hype die out. Within weeks of the group buy being filled, people who had been waiting that missed it could purchase from a "standard" mech keyboard storefront. I used Reddit here to keep things going.
I really do think timing and luck was most of it, but hopefully this gives some insights to what I was doing. Building a community, sharing often, and collaborating to help turn it into an ecosystem ASAP.
I admit, I barely understand what the product does, much less how there's 50k people wanting this. This is a component you can use if you're building a DIY keyboard and want to make it wireless? Seems profoundly niche to me. Am I missing something?
Anyway, congrats on finding and reaching your market! The Internet at its best (although part of me wishes this nerd community had found a more self-hosted way of connecting online than Discord).
It doesn't have to be for that, but yeah, that's the target. At the time, a lot of keyboard designs were based around the pro-micro formfactor, so this made it more-or-less a drop in replacement.
Custom keyboards are really popular - especially a few years ago. Most cases/boards are wired only. I think his product enables those to be wireless too
In the late 80s, a friend turned his comsci class project into a product.
The company was making about $25m. It died due to a patent dispute.
He later started a dot com that is still very successful.
> both of these new boards that popped up are advertised as nice!nanos and are shipped with the exact same firmware I use on the nice!nano, so when someone plugs it in, it says it’s a nice!nano.
Trademark dispute is the way to go. Since there were no stories about an onerous amount of returns of clones to the author, probably not worth it, but returns of clones is why it financially makes sense and not just to enrich lawyers.
This is a really cool story. If the author is reading: It would be interesting to read about your experiences with marketing and building support for your products. I know you said a lot of it was luck and timing, but it would be helpful to get your thoughts on which moves you made that best took advantage of that luck and timing.
I have dozens of friends who launched group buys for small boards around this price range for different niches that never took off. Some of them even had superior products to the popular offerings, but getting traction is hard.
Hey! I'm the author. I think my good timing and luck showed up mostly through my initial Reddit post garnering a ton of attention. I road that wave to the group buy. From that single Reddit post I had tons of people interested and got them to join a community Discord. Remember that this was right when covid lockdowns had started, seriously good timing for me.
I worked hard to move fast, engage, and share often on my community Discord[1]. The early messages in the announcements channel might be a good place to see how I was communicating early on. It was a pretty exciting time for me where we were all sharing ideas and figuring out how to make my initial prototype into something that all hobbyists could use. I think past that, word of mouth kept the Discord growing, and by the time I had the group buy, I didn't even post on Reddit because there were already thousands in my Discord ready to buy.
After that I worked with vendors to get it in ecommerce storefronts ASAP to not let the hype die out. Within weeks of the group buy being filled, people who had been waiting that missed it could purchase from a "standard" mech keyboard storefront. I used Reddit here to keep things going.
I really do think timing and luck was most of it, but hopefully this gives some insights to what I was doing. Building a community, sharing often, and collaborating to help turn it into an ecosystem ASAP.
[1]: https://discord.gg/HAA4Hnepf if you want to see the announcements channel
I admit, I barely understand what the product does, much less how there's 50k people wanting this. This is a component you can use if you're building a DIY keyboard and want to make it wireless? Seems profoundly niche to me. Am I missing something?
Anyway, congrats on finding and reaching your market! The Internet at its best (although part of me wishes this nerd community had found a more self-hosted way of connecting online than Discord).
It doesn't have to be for that, but yeah, that's the target. At the time, a lot of keyboard designs were based around the pro-micro formfactor, so this made it more-or-less a drop in replacement.
Custom keyboards are really popular - especially a few years ago. Most cases/boards are wired only. I think his product enables those to be wireless too
In the late 80s, a friend turned his comsci class project into a product. The company was making about $25m. It died due to a patent dispute. He later started a dot com that is still very successful.
What was the product?
neat product, but where's the FCC ID for an intentional radiator on it? your million dollar product can afford the legally required testing, right?
Wow, sometimes it can be as simple as "make something people want."
Hah as a satified customer this is really heartwarming to see
> both of these new boards that popped up are advertised as nice!nanos and are shipped with the exact same firmware I use on the nice!nano, so when someone plugs it in, it says it’s a nice!nano.
Trademark dispute is the way to go. Since there were no stories about an onerous amount of returns of clones to the author, probably not worth it, but returns of clones is why it financially makes sense and not just to enrich lawyers.