Feedback for ”IoT Blinds”  

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As described earlier a bit my idea is to have a small module you connect to your existing blinds. The module connects to your wifi and can take for example parse your alarm clock on your mobile.

 

I met up with an old friend who’s studying in Linköping to get some feedback on my idea. He has released several apps on the Play Store that have given him a fair income in parallell with his studies. I haven’t had any contact with him for pretty long but when I heard about his interest in apps I thought this would be a great opportunity to hang out. The most useful feedback from him was that I should sketch the logic and start coding right away, according to his experience the code gets much better if you code in intervals and let the code lie on the shelf for a while to ripe (and your brain to come up with better solutions). This seems reasonabe, have had similar experiences in other tasks ( engine problems, electrical system faults etc.) so I will bear this in mind.

 

I have loosely thought about this idea for maybe a year, and brought it up sometimes. My girlfriend told me she had spoken about it to her girlfriends and they said that they would gladly buy it if it was available. So I met with two of her friends, two students at Karolinska Institutet. Their feedback consisted mostly of expected features and ease of use. They pressed the issue with people that don’t like complicated installations and configurations. The idea is that the screw holes and dimensions should be the same, you should be able to install the module by using the existing screws and holes and then just plugging in the 12V-adapter. I have since my meeting with them thought a bit more about configuration, how to make it as easy as possible? I have looked a lot at how Google have made the configuration for their popular Chromecast, where you have an app that guides you through every step.

 

I also got feedback from a friend working at Ericssons R&D department. The most valuable feedback I got from him was something I have earlier thought of but avoided! All the regulations  when developing and selling an electrical product. You have to meet ROHS and CE requirements, affiliate with different envinronment and recycling organizations ( EE-registry, EL-kretsen, REPA).  That is a lot of research needed if someone plan on doing a venture all by himself! Quite overwhelming..

Concluding thoughts!

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Here are my concluding reflections on Entrepreneurship from a personal point of view (for more reflections on the course content, see my previous post). What I liked most about this class, and learned most from, is its hands-on approach. That we were encouraged to participate in events, meet guest speakers and to talk to people: to “get out of the building”. The class was mandatory for me, and as I never have seen myself as an entrepreneur I probably would not have chosen to take it if I had the choice last semester – but now I am actually considering choosing the path of entrepreneurship as an option for my career.

I have realized that the role of an entrepreneur fits pretty well with my skills and ambition; I like to be creative, when the pace is high and to see concrete results of my work. I also liked the extreme enthusiasm that many of the entrepreneurs I’ve met have shown, it is an environment that really catches and increases my motivation (although I’ve also found that peoples’/entrepreneurs’ enthusiasm might be a bit too intense and a sect-like from time to time). This is my major takeaway – that entrepreneurship might be a thing for me. What I liked less with this class was the information that at times was a bit contradicting and hard to access. But with all the feedback we’ve given I think this might work better next semester.

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To finish: I actually think about events (in this case the picture above) in a slightly different way than before – I often immediately start reflecting on whether the problem/need/delight is a viable business idea. The picture shows users that are clearly interested in the laser pen in a different context than its usual area of application (it is quite unfortunate that these users don’t have any purchasing power of their own – business model innovation would also be needed to make a venture out of this 🙂 ).