many other people are but I must say it is it's really cool
arm you know just I'm just one person and I'm not particularly
arm special you know any more than any other
love you in this room or anyone on the planet were all unique individuals in we
all have the power to make choices
that can change our lives in the people around us
and why not try so
from along the way our TV going kinda took over my life
and I learned a whole bunch of things about how to run a business
made a lot of mistakes and I'm gonna share
a summer that with you and also some other things I've done right
and hopefully boiled down with make sense so I'm
for small don't just pick a project that you think might be an OK kinda cool way
to make money
this project if it succeeds is going to take over your life
really totally take over your life and if you don't love it the ups and downs
have the thing
are going to be an incredible roller coaster the ups of course are wonderful
but the downs
you won't get through them II there were times when the downs I didn't know I was
gonna get through this but knowing that it's something that I loved allowed me
to get through it and
it's amazing the lows are a bomber the highs are incredible and
knowing it's something you love is just what carries least that's what carried
me through
so um see yet
so there's a
kinda weird process love coming up with ideas like where two ideas come from
anyways
you know the ether your own creative genius
a some bizarre Muse floating around shooting arrows
I don't know but ideas come around and on
you know it for me it's a process of inventing which
is really three steps
you see a problem you wanna self
and for me it was seeing TV's popping up all over the place in public places that
were really annoying me
and on then coming up with an idea
how to sell their problem like obviously a universal remote control with one
button to turn them off
and Om than the last Sep
is up you know implementing and bring it into reality
a the last step is really what I'm gonna be talking about because the for two
steps
I really totally mysterious arm the idea and then the solution to it is
some Bazaar thing and they come these ideas
and when an idea comes what do you do with it
I see you've got two choices
the idea if it's in there and it needs to come out in the world all sit there
and just scream at you I need to come out I need to come out
and you can fight it or you can go with it so many people who are
otherwise could be good inventors they have all these cool ideas
but they just fight all the time coming up for so many reasons why they
really can't do it because they're doing all these other things or
they're not good enough for whatever we come up with all these reasons not to do
something
that we think might be really cool arm you know but speak on says about that
listen to those weird little things spinning around in your head
cuz if you fight it the fighting yourself
and if you find yourself you know who loses
so arm my fight it go with it
see what happens could be cool so once you have a an idea that you know you
wanna bring into reality
there's a bunch of things that a
you might think I love I love better obvious to think about
on other things that aren't so obvious to think about
and these are some things that I've ball down from my process that took a little
bit more than
one slides worth have time but a
I can put in one's lifetime now arm you know to do a project that you're
actually gonna succeed in getting on the world you want to keep it as simple as
possible
arm in on in here I'm using the TV on his example if an idea you have is
software or craft or whatever to be somewhat different process
but some for me I'm a hardware DK always have been so having a
a little microcontroller projects in bringing it into the world through
manufacturing processes well show you
if you have projects that have a a you know your own analogous process
arm there's still a lot to be learned from using TV gone as an example
TV gone is about as simple a project to manufacture as possible
and it's a lot work but it's a lot of fun too
so hopefully he'll catch that is I'm telling you the downsides as well
arm but some other things that you want to think about is
you know the user interface this is something people are going to use
I want to have something that helps people in their lives
it's got to be really really simple and I don't wanna have to like those old
Casio watches it may be alive you've heard about
universal remote control you have to program it for each
TV you wanna turn off and by bother doing anything else with it
when you can turn it off but some arm
so I just have one button just sends out of codes one right after the other and
eventually the TV in front if you will find its of code that we translate to in
terms of
so one button totally simple are what's the form
well that weird smiley face the beginning was my first idea
but when I a when friends are mine wanted a TV gone and
I was doing it for me but when friends wanted it and then when
their friends wanted when their friends wanted I thought why I should make a
bunch to these
there should be at least some thousands of people that are whack enough like me
to want
is so but my first idea was to have a button
sort of a perverted seventies smiley face button
where the eyeballs were the emitters
that weird turn off the TV and the nose was the activator button
was like three inches big and numb
as I was telling people about that people are thinking Lenovo feel
comfortable walking into a room with that button in turning TV's of
so I came up with his other idea with a friend of mine who is just entering our
Design School
and it's the Batman like case the CE
on the right at the screen and Dom
you know one button remote control key chain so
you know and then know what color to make it a bomb
blacks kinda nice instill fear in the Batman like car
a image goes along with black I N
you know how are you gonna implemented obviously you want to keep it simple
I've learned arm
all my life how to use microcontrollers effective leaders
a in with the microcontroller you just need to program it
Lincoln infrared emitter the right way it's all I need is an infrared emitter
a button a battery in a microcontroller something simple enough
why go through other contortions when I can do it simply
and noms the tasks to do
arm lot things you need to do when you make
a a project that you actually want other people to use if you wanna sell it
there's even more things you need to do
and I'm really glad I did not know how
difficult all those things would have been %uh mice he might not have done it
but I'm really glad I did so I hope by telling you all these things that need
to be done it won't scare you away
arm because it really is amazingly cool
to put your project out in the world and if other people like it
and you get up you know you change reality by putting your ID out in the
world it's it's
it's quite a trip so some going for you altered to check it out but it is
a lot to do it's a lot of work and I'll see more about that in a bit
but some for TV B Gone
I thought it would be pretty simple a but I would have to collect of codes
and arm known that was one of my tasks
and that turned out to be a quite a big tasks
but I'm gonna say more about that in a sec to so
clicking the power codes designing the case
designing the packaging arm are things I thought about my task list
it turns out that test was gonna grow I'll
more on that later too so you also need
a cool name in our modern world
that's more difficult than it used to be cuz
TV gone it was really instantaneous when I thought the idea when I was sitting in
restaurant with some friends to catch up on
a life with each other we hadn't seen each other in a while and the TV was up
in the corner with the sound of distracting us who are paying attention
to it rather than each other
which is not why we were there arm we started talking about how annoying TVs
were and how would be called the term of I came up with the idea
instantly came up with the name as well and it turned out that
no one had trademark TV be gone before
go figure are but you know that's one thing you got to do anything cover name
is see if other people have used it
so TV gone you look up farm and US PTO dot Gulf
everything that has ever been trademarked before is there you can also
look up at your local place
a city a and county to see if other people have registered it
you go online in google it and see many hits you have with TB gone there were
0 hits that's kinda miraculous
usually I get like 45 or something that's okay but if you get like a half
million
probably time to get another name but not only that but it's got to be a name
that is not registered
and on the web the domain name has to be free
so and it also has to be easy to remember and easy to spell
so TV be gone you know when you think a TV uganda's instantly how do you spell
it
does it have dashes arm upper/lower case doesn't matter
but I'll put it with dashes without dashes and TV dash be
dash gone and with only one dash in either place you may as well register a
mall there only like
you know six seven eight bucks apiece arm
that's what I did
so time in order to do something cool you've gotta make time for it
we do so many things in our life that's why I don't watch TV
there's no time to do anything else when I watch TV and I wouldn't be able to do
TV on if i watch TV
so from you know there is some the choices I make in my life you gotta make
your choices in your life so
you have to make time to explore things you love
if you're going to be doing things you love first why you gotta find out what
those things might be
and then you gotta make time to do those things
arm like I said before it took away the more time to do these house
for TV on then I thought a
but some I gave myself
a year to do this to turn out to be a year and a half and fortunately I just
had
enough money to do that and in it worked out for me
but it did take year and a half my life to do this
arm in particular getting those codes
they don't publish them who would have thought
he doesn't go online and see a mother a few of them but
I had to record them from your house from a control
are actually lots will now go out and bought and up
I was thinking I just buy an equity data acquisition system that took up my
computer in which is work
well if I had ten thousand dollars that would've been dandy
but I didn't have ten thousand dollars up
I had a no couple hundred maybe to spend this
so um I had to make my own
that took several months more than I'd planned but I was a fun process
and once I recorded the codes I didn't realize how
varied these records were and I had to figure out which ones are duplicates in
which ones were sorted to complete since
is this code different %uh from this code or two
closer too far and I do have lotsa field testing
fortunately field testing is a lot of fun in this case
so but it takes time and some 90
this part in the project coming over the idea is implementing going through there
some frustrations roadblocks
obstacles to overcome but you overcome a min then you got tired
I don't for me anyways ives totally on a roll with his whole thing
and its are taking over my life already
so um who is coming up with all the the things to do
it was kinda overwhelming once they started actually listing them out
fortunately I have a lot of friends who are really talented individuals and
friends are really amazing resources
I could have done it all myself there'll be a lot of things I would have to learn
but you don't if you have an idea that other people are interested
if they're not friends before they become friends so these are a list I
have
so my friends in perform any the tasks that need to be done on TV gone like
making the printed circuit board
which all electronic projects the usually have to start all the parts
designing the plastic Acer you like as my friend who just entered design school
needed a final project
perfect and arm my friend you know he's downstairs she did see to sings the blue
she did the
original graphics for it and the graphics for the web site
arm having a website of course is important and my friend
Peter and I are a originally Phil help you do the website
and on and on and on all these people and the
you don't with a little help from your friends you can go a long way
but of course you are the one driving the whole thing it's your vision it's
your project
and you've gotta coordinate all these people who enters you
enthusiastically helping you with with your project
um course there's a lot of things that I didn't think up along the way and I'm
sure it'll be the same with you these are the things I just did never think
about when I thought about putting a product in the world
barcode do you think about bar cuz I because we think about it a little more
now because we have to the bar codes everywhere QR codes on things
but you know our products have a bar code if you want to sell in the store
you need a barcode
where do you get a barcode he just draw lines for the marker
doesn't work too well and even if you did there is a central
our organization called GS one
something I see a front a but they are a central international nonprofit
organization that
that you register with you pay in Europe 30 other extortion fee
and you get your own company code and you get
two digits for product codes and that's the cheapest one you get that's a
a hundred different products you can sell than when
so um yeah and then package design obviously you want a cool package
but one thing I didn't know about is that the size of the package is actually
very important
if it's too small so all these people who are buyers at stores say and they
really believe this so it's true
arm if it's too small people won't pay more than certain amount for it
if it's too big then your product may not be valuable enough to fit the
the perceived value of the package so are you have to have it the right size
and there's a bunch of people talking about that online
arm and then car design you know you have this product in a beautiful package
but you're making it who knows you know wherever you choose to make it
and you've got to put it in shipping container shipping cartons
for shipping cartons have to be designed to someone as a design knows
how do you do that I'll get to that in a bit and
trademark it is another thing if you have a cool name
you can registered on US PT ot Gove
it's really easy and cost three hundred fifty dollars
arm and a then there's also
you wanna patent this thing or you wanna make it open source to do some
combination of both
I did the normal thing back then the which there is no open source hardware
are so I patented which were all inventors are supposed to do my brothers
a patent attorney
so I want the normal routine patented patton patent-pending
but it turned out to be something that was really popular with
the hacker crowd which got me sucked into this whole mess the change my life
for the better in amazing ways which is why I'm here now
arm but that's where I learned about open source
our software in a big way and got me to think in a big way about
open source hardware and a very negative aspects of patenting
because patenting in a lot of ways as saying this is mine
stay away if you come near me I'm gonna sue your ass
least that's the way I think I've it now an away a lot of people that I met my
first hacker conference
are thought of it that way and really got me to think about this patent thing
arm and making an open source has been so perfect for me
and now you gotta think this through for yourself though like what are the
advantages and disadvantages of patent versus open source
one big disadvantage hope love patent is that they cost like thirty forty
thousand dollars
slot money if you make it open source free
also you have perhaps thousands have some in the most enthusiastic
talented creative engineers on the planet
working on your project for free and loving it
giving you all this mazing Lee cool information to make your project better
and then you can get more ideas from that and share it with them in the rest
of the world in
you know it's just it gets better from there I'm just one person
something else all these engineering ideas on my own isn't as good as having
a world of people with an open source project
arm so and when people download the plans which I have online
are that year and a half a life salata life
but its open source now so no one has to go through that process again all the
codes are out there
and it's shared with the world arm and people appreciate that when they
download the plans
I don't get a cent from that if they make it from them out but they show
their friends who are totally enthusiastic in
look what this thing does so call in like a look %uh the horses just about to
get there and
I'm so you know for example arm
and those people might buy my kid than a good lady at a
arm presently a day makes so with my idea
and arm I am they made by my keychain
am i buy the pro which is 150 meters TVs have of
and arm a don't whatever
everyone's happy when beam for my project being open source
arm the anyways the list goes on and on but
that's enough to give you an idea and
next idea here is
funding different projects cost different amount of dollars
or Euros or wherever you happen to live um
you know it could be its expensive but for TV gone that year and a half that I
spent
the total amount you know as a year and a half a life it really cost me a lot of
time
but it was I loved it so it's a great thing to do but
it cost me two thousand dollars
at all cost me microcontroller only cost but dollar a piece I went through a
bunch of them
arm and I had to come up with my dad acquisition system
which you know just little tidbit I used to work for
I started a company called three where that makes RAID controllers
and i'd as did the firmware for it I programmed microcontroller with firmware
and so I haven't have a development environment for that my hacked it to do
data acquisition home my more info escalator
a it was kinda fun so it was all
really cheap are your project might be
a little more expensive are you've got a plan for that cuz
during the time when you working on a project that's taking off your life you
don't have time to make money in other ways
it's really really rough I i found for myself and for other people I've talked
to to have
part time and certainly full-time work and work on your project in your spare
time cuz
you find this takes a lot of time it does take over your life and there's
just not enough time
so if for me i i saved up and saved up and saved up and I have this year's
worth of money that
stretch to your behalf arm so I could work on
what I loved and it turned out to be gone was what got on a roll on what I
did
and I was lucky enough for to give me enough money to make a living
and just know that this is a possibility and arm
your project though my costs a little more money your lifestyle might not be
as inexpensive as minor may be cheaper whatever you've got a plan for all this
and down one option is to
get help from friends and family that's what I did
when ike's had a stretch to a year and a half arm
another option is angel funding so these people
that's what they do for a living after they've made some pilot money doing
maybe something I didn't like as much
is investing people that they like
are and or are doing things they think are cool
so they can be a really good asset according to people I know who've gone
that route
arm they can find other people who can help in various ways
other enthusiastic so they can tell you hey I've been through it when there's
the down part serve those up and down cycles
arm and yeah technical way to go in there like between
in a few thousand to maybe a quarter million dollars
a and in arm you can get more than one angel investor
another option is the Seas
I guess you already know my opinion %ah
I've worked for companies a in silly Valley
like saying that a silicon valley and the
he sees is the normal route to go there the normal route
for VC's is for people to come over the cool idea
and to get the C funding the VC's put a lot of money and they say that you're
they're your friend they're totally enthusiastic and then when things aren't
going well
they take over the company fire the founders and the founders get looted
down the
nothing and you're left with nothing so
that's the normal route for VC's from my opinion
you might have other a experiences but a
if your project cost so much that you need VC's like five million or more
maybe that's something you want to do maybe you can reconsider how much a
project costing come up with another way
are maybe you can come up with another idea that's burning inside you
arm so obviously I have met my opinions but
the does know that a lot of people I'll
lot of people have share my opinion
you can ask me more questions later if you like
soul harm
you can manufacture your project I on your own
once you come up with a all the tasks that need to be done your
finally finished the but
if you're making 10,000 have these in a month
a and your project involves soldering that's a lot of soldering
I love soldering but I don't love it that much
so fortunately there these companies that exists called contract
manufacturers that exist all
are solely to manufacture other people's projects
and arm there a lot of them around the world most an hour centered around
Southeast Asia
although they exist in in Mexico in other places well there's also some in
the US
originally wanted to do mine in the US but it turned out that
they were too low quality and too expensive that combination
so ugh asked everyone I knew and
engraver worked with and china seem to be the place to go and it pretty much
still
is a high analyst options
I and II actually went to China and visited some of my
a candidates because it's really really important to me
that if I'm doing something to improve my life
it necessarily improve the lives of people around me and I'm not going to do
that is the expensive anyone else
even if they're in China so
I am really go ahead you agree with that cuz that's not the norm in our
are strange empezaron wonderful planet so
from you know but a you know here's
my criteria and a all these are really really important I would not pick
personally a contract manufacturer that didn't have all of them
so arm I A found
a couple that were really good and I found some that were incredibly
amazingly horrible and I only visited ones that gave me all the information
saying
that this they met these criteria so if I didn't go to China
I wouldn't have known so actually met the people that would be soldering my TV
Gagne's and pulling the
put cranes and pushing the buttons on the assembly lines and arm
a actually sat next one
now I'm gonna show use a little bit about manufacturing a a bit later see
can see your pictures some those people
arm so another thing a to think about
is some how do you get your product from wherever it's manufactured
to wherever it is you're going to be mailing them out to people
arm there these companies called freight forwarders
I never heard that before but if you are ever in a place where the port like New
York or San francisco-oakland
you see these huge ships for love containers
a which fit on the back of trucks Inc transfer the ships are
or arm or railroad cars called containers and their standard sizes
and their companies which Phillies containers and move them
anywhere on the planet with boats and airplanes and trains and whatever is
necessary to get them where they're going
and arm I got recommendations from people
good work with and why no and found
are some that I like and arm
there's trade-offs in in this with manufacturing
you know if it's in China that's a lot further to go to ship then if you make
it in
New Jersey arm but the cost of shipping
from China to my warehouse in New Jersey
arm is a including the manufacturer and the shipping is still way cheaper than
and better quality
then I could have done if I made in the US arm
but if you want it quickly which sometimes I need to do because people
want their TV guns now in their ordering a bunch I can get him now
so I have to pay a dollar thirty five apiece to get each one here
are if I go by boat which you know the slow boat from China
those exist a cost 35 cents a piece that way
if I could do a full container which I've actually never done
its it's considerably cheaper arm
so that's a little tidbit on shipping arm
here's a bit on manufacturing so just real brief
when you manufacture something them and the contract manufacturer is going to
help you with
doing a lot of things arm a few fine when
that that's a good one are they order all your parts for you
are they make the plastic cases from your design
they can print the I am artwork for
what people see when they look at your individual packages
they can design those shipping cartons for you and
arm a make the Prince circuit boards and put the whole thing together put it on
pallets and ship it out
all you have to do after you get the whole process going
is where the money and then pellets for love your product magically appear like
a week or two later
at a port in the on my case Shanghai
and then the freight forwarders bring it to your place where you are
a sell it from but here's those pictures I talked about
the project managers are these happy little guy
its a that's the Calvin
handball those are their names they're really cool people and they love doing
what they do
the people on the assembly line I wouldn't say they love doing what they
do
but the there there there pretty content with their jobs this place trees are
people well
they train them well so they don't wanna lose their in China they often do things
for the wrong reasons the right things for the wrong reasons
so they're doing the right things for what I consider not quite up to more
reasons but
they train their people they don't wanna lose their investments will have to
treat them well so they don't quit and go somewhere else
so so treated well they actually have their own chef
and I'm a vegetarian menus like on what what you want if you don't meet night
told them he made it for me insane with everyone on the assembly line
so they get 3 month contracts are they usually come from
various places around although the
in Shanghai where they do their that's a big city so people don't have far to
come
they don't still live in the dorm but they have three month contracts they can
only have two
few months contracts and then they have to go but in the three months
they can make enough money to pay for them in their family for a year
how many americans can do that so yeah
it given the the a scale economy is pretty cool that way
arm so f you get it in its some its at
your your your place between to skip a.m.
that's coming later so okay so
when she wanna sell it UV you know you wanna sell it
what you sell it for arm
that's not an easy question to answer like what is worth we
the parts and the manufacturing the shipping these are all
very definite numbers that you know because you paid it
um and some arm
om night it's get one thing let me just go back a second I said it cost two
thousand dollars
a to do TV on that was to develop it
arm and some it actually costs me
I thirty thousand dollars once I want to press the spend button at my contract
manufacturer and then to pay to ship it
arm and that's where again I ask for friends and family cuz I didn't wanna re
going investors
angels and you know my opinion up he sees
so arm sorry hours so but back to hear selling at what cost
turm you sell it for
I I made the mistake as many many people do
love the region levy selling my ATV gone for two cheap
so I was selling them for $14.99 because this is the United States New canceling
thing for fifteen dollars
and arm so highways designing these whole thing's going through all the
manufacturing process dealing with all the online stuff in all the stress and
fulfilling all orders
and at the end of the day up after paying everybody that was helping that
long list a friends
after TV gone became popular suddenly they were working
to make TV guns happen and I had to pay all of them I want to pay them what they
were worth which is paying them well
so at the end of the day I got was left which was like
serum 0
0 there was a lot of work and a lot of stress although I love the project
I had to eat so um I had to raise the price
so it's kinda weird making money is not his easy as it seems that should be
fifteen dollars basically $14.99 arm
times 20,000 TV guns which is what I actually made in
a they were super popular overnight because will wear dot com article in
those sold in a few weeks
fifteen dollars times twenty thousand is a lot of money
why I'm not ice am why am I not super rich
well because I had to pay all those people and at the end of the day when I
got what was left it was zero
that's why so on I raise the price to 1999 cuz
America you can sell it for twenty and that was enough
as it turns out for me to have some money left over
are at the into the after repeated one else so
that was a huge surprise to me
so no hope you can learn something from that and also lemme
I'll lady out to all the more fried and and filter owner earlier today we're
talking about this
if you want to sell something you don't just pick a little bit more
are to sell it for than what it costs you total
if you wanna sell it on your website you might be able to get away with that if
you don't pay anybody else
but you know like I said after paying everyone else I was getting zero
arm if you want to sell it in stores
then you've got us pick a higher retail price:
hopefully our higher retail prices apprise people wanna pay
as well for TV gonna turns out that there aren't all that many people that
don't wanna buy it for twenty that would have for fifteen
but for other products: you know it could vary and there's no hard and fast
rules about that but
there are some rules a farm about selling products
a a at stores so a store in general wants to make
money that's why they exist primarily
arm and often they wanna double the price that you sell it for
or that they buy from a distributor distributor wants to make forty percent
more then what you sell it to them for
so whatever you wanna sell it for has to be enough money to pay you in all your
people
and then you increase it by forty percent its
that's what you sell it wholesale for not plus or minus depending on
a the I miss you sell higher volumes you can bring price down
arm and then you have attack under that out
may be double the price from their 50 percent or forty percent depending on
the store
be on that and that fix your retail price and hopefully like I said that
surprise people want to pay
if it isn't think of that before you press the spend button
otherwise you might have a warehouse full of things
that you'll sell to some company that a start selling them really cheap on ebay
so um another thing
website to you in some sense website super simply just say
ATV going to calm myself TV ons but
some you really want to a website experience ever whoever's using it to be
a invading and useful hand
easy cuz if people have to navigate through a whole bunch pages and figure
out
okay this is really cool thing how do I buy it if it takes them a bunch of
clicks to do it they might give up before they even find it
so are there's my website put a lot of thought into this by looking at lots of
web sites I thought were
I mean how many have you have ever looked at our web-site you thought
sucked
I I think the 100 percent so um
we all know what not to do and we've all probably seen web sites we thought were
work pretty well so that's what I did I looked at the
view source in saudi HTML and I'll learn some PHP and then I
paired my friend Chris to do the rest because he's really good at it
and he made the the shopping cart arm an
shopping carts the really good ones now legs and cart and
was ask art is that the on a and maybe a few others
and but back then none of the ones that existed were all that good for what I
wanted so we actually
went through the pain of creating our own custom one
the cool thing about that our is a I can make it do whatever I want now
but love people really like flow from seeing the front page
actually going there in it's really easy to do it you just click
buyers online for by now
arm you know and it's kinda weird but it's only inviting
arm and the TV on no I like retro and my friend Nina likes retro so there's the
retro trippy stuff
which are recycled for brain machines by the way
attribute pattern recycling is good so
from go green
order fulfillment is another thing I didn't put much thought into an should
have
you have a whole bunch love your products arm
and a a whole buncha people may or may not be buying it
%uh but if people are buying a you've gotta put them in boxes or envelopes
input labels on an input postage on him bring in the post office and get them
somewhere where
the low end up your customers if you're doing like a handful today sure do on
your own
on your own I was getting thousands have orders a day which I did not plan for
after that where dot com article
selling 20,000 like three and a half weeks and
can use a stress I had a couple friends with TV guns in their garages at that
point
before I found out about order fulfilment centres and
arm very hired lot to their friends and somehow we actually got
orders to our customers before they got we too angry
you know if you're selling something and you've got a whole bunch of angry emails
coming in
like if you get one angry mail it kinda sucks but if you get a hundred
I'm in NJ I get 300 emails a day and that sucks in
in and of itself but imagine evolve those were angry ones
that actually happened to me when my order fulfilment centre
messed up once arm so the thing is
order fulfilment is a real pain if you hit if you pick
in order fulfilment centre which exists solely to send
your product to your end customers
if you pick one that does at that makes mistakes
you get a 180 the emails in the morning
that is we know fun arm the first
order fulfilment centre that I picked made a lot of mistakes
so I picked another one they made even more mistakes
and not only that but that second one whenever I pointed out the mistakes they
would yell at me
that had to change fortunately at that point one of my friends who are used to
live with house-made
a many years ago started his own fulfillment center and I didn't even
know until he called me and said hey you know you're doing TV B Gone
I just sort of fulfillment center to you the think you could use me I really
could use more
and that was when that other companies started yelling yelled at me for the
third time in nine you had to quit so it's perfect timing
so it's been a breeze sense arm order fulfilment
is an error prone process they will make mistakes but you wanna pick a place that
take responsibility for their heirs and fixes them
this place they have now they still make mistakes but they are usually tell me
before my
our customers tell me angrily and even good customers are
are miffed when they get something that's wrong I'm sure you've been
through that yourself
so from there's a bit about our fulfillment
customer support is definitely something I did not think I've
I make a remote control with one button
so home just because some things easy for you doesn't mean that it's easy for
the rest of the world
think about that when you put something out and make sure you have someone
so I i don't have arm a phone that people can call I have voicemail
on my website the people can call and
and email that is answered a rather quickly
a and a boy
you know I'll I have in a teacher most of my life
in many ways and before I was a
teacher professionally I used to think that too is really there's no such thing
is stupid people
that people just need a little more time and effort but you know stupid people
actually exists
they really really do so on
I and if I wasn't convinced about from being a teacher I am definitely
convinced of that now
so on but you have to you know
TV B Gone is not just for intelligent Deeks
its for the mass market and so we have the broad spectrum of people
not only stupid people in the United States but stupid people everywhere
and everyone everywhere so on customer support is necessary
are in my friend Peter a
does that really well we have a whole bunch of templates with you know
you mean it doesn't go thru floors and then you just as you know
I'll email 3b and arm
sometimes though he he gets emails that just
anger him so much to the st. call me invent so it's my project that's my job
arm you know so
specific port you be prepared for that
arm publicity if your projects so
popular you'll get publicity whether you want it or not
and TV on I was really really lucky that I got
Hunza publicity you know People magazine
you know my picture and a full page %uh People magazine
that is bizarre to life is weird
it's really cool so arm again New York Times
spent four days with me following around taking pictures interviewing me and
I'm in the front page %uh the Technology section I'm on CBS
ABC NBC Fox TV news for turning off TVs
I mean life life is weird but
thats a once in in a lifetime kinda thing that'll never happen to me and
probably never add anyone in this room
arm so I really really lucked out there but the thing is
advertising you have to let the world know that your product exists how do you
do that
so you know it's really really cool you can tell everyone you know
are you could advertise with super expensive what's way better
and advertising is news
so will probably have opinions have the free press in our country
arm but the thing is these are individuals who are doing their job
and they're doing it poorly but they do it as best as they can and they want
ready-made
news if you give it to them they will broadcast that they will print it they
will put it out into the world in the do it for free
so write compelling stories make a controversial even if it isn't
all-news really really is good news it gets people to know about it
TV gone I was really lucky that it seems like it should be controversy all
but its not it's just a fucking TV turning off
so arm I got all the advantages ovett being seeming to be controversy or when
it's actually not so people
other press love did they they had a heyday with it
and I got tons a free press but even if it's not something that's so compelling
to the media you give them
PR releases press releases arm and a
they printed they broadcast it and if
it catches on one place other places pick up on it media viruses go out in
the world
bloggers pick up on it word of mouth gets really really big
one thing I learned in my studies have media literacy kind of stuff which I'm
up on
are as well as advertising people have to hear about something in general an
average
seven times seven times before they'll actually buy it
but they know they wanna buy it or not within 30 seconds of hearing a bit
emotionally they just know and then you give them just a little bit in your
press release
a giving the intellect enough
information to convince are to overcome the reluctance to spend money
because they already know whether they want to buy it or not you're only going
after the people that know they want to buy it so
and you put it out in the world so that they'll hear it at least seven times
word-of-mouth newspaper arm a mention on
drive-time radio interview whatever seven times some
they can all be the same or different but you just wanna put it out there so
people here at
enough people here at seven times so that your product is known
and people are buying it
if your pup if your product is popular you pry don't answer the phone yourself
so I hired someone do that and
the people I picked a our little better than that
so II said you know it its followers are ups and downs
and and it really is arm running a business is not
my idea I love what I totally love in life
but running the business makes everything else i do
possible so its way worth it
but there are times when hit really
really release Sox I mean it
really Sox arm a
see how am i doing for time what time is it five minutes
%ah okay so a let me just tell you quickly someone stole TV on UK
used to be a customer arm and I violated
my one rule
I have a rule I have one rule
it's really important role
you should not violate this rule
really you should not violate this form
it's important
this should be something you should follow in life are but
life and business are the same because it's your business it's your project
it's something you love you don't wanna
nixon people you don't like every time I violated this rule it is bitten me badly
and it leads to those incredibly sucky downtimes
I hope you will not violate this rule arm
so this guy in the UK stole TV gone he started selling it was a piece of shit
and I got all the angry emails I already told you what that's like
you probably already know so anyways I A sold to him because it seemed easy
enough but this guy was a total bully he was a manipulative bastard
and I sold to him and it came back to bite me that way when he said
you know you guys are getting these emails and I asked him what was up is a
beer or give me a good enough price so I made my own
and is an open source project only had to do was copy my open source plans
online with a really well documented in didn't do that he stole my trademark and
even ask anything about it
and he got a lot of me we customers because anyways
it worked out all I had to do is pay a hundred and twenty thousand dollars to a
lawyer
for which I got sixty percent back because that's all you get in the UK
and are now all his customers are mine
so there's no guarantee that if you make your own project even if you totally
love it is burning inside you to come out that
it will give you enough money to make a living but
what is guarantee that if you don't make time to do what you love
you will definitely not be doing what you love in your life
if you don't take the time and
a start doing
finding what you love and doing what you love putting your own ideas out in the
world
you'll definitely not be making living doing what you love and there's a
really good possibility cuz a lot of us in this room
have already done this in this congress arm
have figured out a way to make a living doing our projects and does know
if you have a job that you don't love
a worse yet you don't like or even more said that you hate there are other
possibilities
and like I said if you want someone to poke you
contact info so
that's my rap he
if you have time for any questions
so any questions you can be
I'm totally willing to answer any questions always anytime email phone
text whatever in person
abut yeah I can ask
what is the stupidest question you've gotten from cuz
for customer support oh you have to a mid
i was just wondering
if you noticed and immediate financial effect after publishing the specs online
like a change in order volume or anything like that after what
a few published the specs online Owen once I made it open source bi
sales went up because more people are telling each other where the mother
totally excited they're showing their friends and many other friends are
buying the key chains mean you're buying the kids
arm yeah so and more people are telling it sold more people got those seven
times
are the of codes fairly static
do you have to be from time to time to make sure that new TVs can still be
turned off
yes so I have to keep updating the thing is though there's
something like fifty billion TVs that have been made in the history of our
people on the planet almost all of them in the last few decades
and I am all those have the same codes
even when they make new TVs so arm but
there's a handful have new codes every year they come out I try to keep up with
it by buying your
from universal remote controls courting them in adding them to my database
great presentation
anything special you did with your press release we're dealing with the prestige
all that great but getting on the New York Times
and people I mean that was just more than an accident I'm sure that you had
San special insights you can share with us about how we do it ourselves
you know after I was in all these places in on TV I got all of these are
letters and emails asking me who my PR people were
because a it was a brilliant strategy a billion campaign
and I didn't have PR people I it was a total fluke arm
it was just I was on where dot com and it turns out that
where dot com people actually read where dot com
arm and I'll NPR national public radio in the US
listen purple read out and they called me you
after being awake all night so I could get the shopping cart working for the
few people that might
rewired a common maybe by this bizarre thing and
no sleep and everything they did okay in live radio interview before like poverty
million people in the United States
for drive time and that's when all the other people called me
so I wish I could say that I plan that cuz I'd be
amazingly brilliant but I don't think anyone can plan something so amazingly
complex
and bizarre so yeah but after that then I did hire some PR people who know how
do arm
brake press release is better than me but there were people friends again
who who are good at this stuff who helped I
when you first put together your list your close friends that were gonna work
with you on this project
how did you determine you know is percentages
hourly how did you how did you feel that you would positively
you know now pay them for their efforts 'em
it no arm I'm kind of an anarchist term
and I've never really considered myself a capitalist but we live in Oak
a society which is probably capitalist so II
make you so that as best as I can and arm you know we need money to pay rent
and all that stuff so
I figured if I making enough to live on on in
and incidently I make barely enough to live the life I live on TV behind
but I love the life I live so I'm making a living doing what I love which is just
perfect
so arm it's worked out really well I just asked my friends what they thought
they want to be paid and and it turned out when I analyzed together
after all that paid and the shipping and all that stuff
I take what's left in its barely enough for me to live so works out if it didn't
I would negotiate with them saying that look like we're all in this together
should we keep doing this
it's not working for me yes so people come up with ideas including payments
compensation arm and I get final say it's my vision is my company but I'm not
going to make any decision that other people are dissatisfied with
thats 30 the decision-making process that
I company which I call cornfield electronics cuz they came up with the
name I lived in Urbana Illinois surrounded by thousands of miles of corn
I interesting presentation thank you very much for sharing your insights
I'm wondering you have projects you're ready to go you believe in it yourself
but you're trying to get it up there to the public the public's not responded so
much
what kinda spark to you think you need in order to get it
really out there and get that fire started well that there is
no one simple answer for that if it still burning inside a view
arm just gotta keep trying different ways I N
a friends and arm
colleagues fellow hackers are great resources so
if something's burning inside to me I'm enthusiastic about it I tell everyone
about it
and a if a ideas come my way I pick up on them their opportunities
arm in if not then No even if its
the burning inside me I did what I could maybe it's time to move on
these are your decisions ya gotta make along the way I've certainly done
projects that
I had obstacle after obstacle after obstacle and
does not happen and I had to to other things with my time
so you know I can go that way to Oregon just be something as far as supplements
the
as I'm doing other things so yeah so
no simple answer for all that but yeah we receptor way that out continually
because what I love now is it necessary when I love
leaders
so I guess that it so things through 10
and feel free to ask me questions that plus the congress or any time in our
lives
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