Author Archives: Johan

I have been out gathering some feedback about our project (Programming for Kids) and thought I would share some of it with you. For those of you who need a quick reminder: We want to make kids interested in programming by making it easier and more fun with an app and easy-programmable hardware (make stuff happen in the real world, in other words).

 

How did you find these people?

I work as a salesman in a store that sells electronics and home appliances, and I’ve taken the opportunity to talk to a few customers that have bought Arduino-related products (Arduino is a small and cheap microprocessor).

 

Which feedback did you get from them?

All are generally positive to the cause, and acknowledge the issue and opportunity we’ve identified. We can split our product into two parts: hardware and software. The software comes in a form of an app, which parents seem willing to try since it would probably be a cheap and convenient way to try to get their kids more interested in programming. However, the hardware requires more devotion and a bigger cost, so they are less willing to try the product without the kids showing any interest on their own. One parent also commented on how hard it would be to develop a product that was borderline between a toy and an educational tool for our target age. That age is very sensitive, and you could end up trying to sell a product with a “lame”- status if you’re unlucky.

 

How do you think how you found these people and who they are influences the feedback you received?

I specifically asked people who bought Arduino-related products, so they were definitely into programming, electronics and mechatronics themselves, which influences their opinions on the cause. One parent actually worked with the Arduino together with his son, who was 12 years old. He says that his son is really interested in programming, but he probably wouldn’t have been if he didn’t have his dad that could help him, since the Arduino is more advanced than our product.

 

Will you change your idea based on their feedback, why, why not?

The issue is that “an app is just an app” as we concluded during our discussion with Serdar. Sure, you can get people to download it, but making money from it is much tougher. That’s why started thinking of “modular mechatronics” in order to be able to add to our offerings. In addition, our mission is to get the kids using our app excited about programming, and seeing something that they’ve programmed happen in the physical world would probably add to the excitement. This is why we think the hardware is an important complement to our product. However, it is also the most challenging and expensive part of the project. With all this in consideration, the hardware might be in a later release wave if we manage to establish and sustain a customer base for the software alone.

 

 

Summer is coming (thank god), and this year I will be attending the Roskilde Festival for the third time! What happens there stays there, but just let me tell you that living in a tent for about 9 days creates a number of problems. One of the problems is my cell phone, since it can’t survive more than a day without a charger. The festival has 130 000 visitors, all with the same pain. Last year, I found a crowd of people lining up to one large booth with the name “Volt” over it. Examining it further, it turns out that they lend you a portable charger and cable for your phone. You use it until it’s empty, then you return it and get a new charger once every day. Genius! For this service they charged me 250 SEK for the service and an extra 250 SEK for the charger deposit, not cheap but totally worth the convenience.

 

When I talked to my friend Harun Poljo about this, and how it could be scaled up to cover entire cities, he said “Actually, me and some friends are currently looking into that exact thing!” Just one week later, he sent me a link to the webpage BananaCharge and their Facebook page.

 

Harun explains that their vision is to give people electricity on the go, it is not about creating a certain product or service. This way they’re open to all kinds of changes that might help them achieve their vision. This is especially important in this stage since they need to test in what sticks with the customers. When they find a suitable way to deliver their customer value, they might revise their vision to something more tangible. Today, they lend you a charger and cable for 200 SEK, if you return them you get 160 SEK back, it’s as simple as that. If you choose to keep it, you’ve bought it.

 

The pain is legitimate, I’m fairly confident that we’ve all been in need of a charger while we’re on the move. I actually have some own numbers on this as I looked at my own charging habits when I changed the battery in my iPhone 5 for the second time a couple of months ago. It turns out that in 12 months, I had gone through 563 full charging cycles, that’s just over 1.5 charges every day! Modern Li-Po batteries in cellphones start to lose capacity between 300-500 cycles, so just imagine how many poor performing batteries there are out there.

 

So how should BananaCharge cure the pain? That’s the real question to answer, since they need to be close to the people on the go. They are mostly looking at what people are doing between 16:00 and 20:00, since most of us are on the move during that time. The service could either be delivered at cafés and similar facilities, or self-service at vending machines in the metro for example.  Instead of buying candy, you can rent or buy a charger! But if we’re speaking hardware, we automatically have to talk about patents if we want to protect what is ours. BananaCharge has examined patents, and it turns out that this is not a new idea at all, Motorola has owned an approved patent for renting phone chargers through vending machines for the last 20 years! How many have you seen? A company similar to BananaCharge tried to file for a similar patent in 2012 and it was denied, so a patent seems far-fetched for BananaCharge at the moment.

 

At this stage, it is all about being seen at events and being close to the customers in order to learn from them, so machines aren’t the right thing for BananaCharge in this phase.  Today they rely on human interaction and explain their service directly to the customers as they offer it on a number of events. I told Harun about the “Bootstrap your startup”-event at Epicenter, how Fritjof Andersson explained how most of his business relations have been created by just walking up and saying “Hi” to people. And once they have a reputation, a customer base and a refined product, they can think about scaling up. Maybe you’ll have an app telling you about the closest BananaCharge-machine or -dealer on your phone in a couple of years?