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The dream of owning a home is a universal aspiration, but for many, the obstacle of a hefty down payment has stood as a formidable barrier. Enter Loan Factory's 1% Down Payment Option – a groundbreaking initiative that's reshaping the landscape of homeownership. In this article, we'll delve into the details of this innovative program, focusing on the qualifying requirements that make it an accessible and realistic option for aspiring homebuyers.
➤Understanding 1% Down Payment Option:
1% down payment program is designed to make homeownership more achievable, especially for those who might find the traditional 20% down payment requirement prohibitive. The key feature of this program is its reduced down payment, requiring only 1% from the homebuyer. Let's explore the specific qualifying requirements that can make you eligible for this game-changing opportunity.
Qualifying Requirements:
1. Credit Score:
While credit score requirements can vary, a good credit score is generally essential for loan approval. Loan Factory typically looks for a credit score in the range of 620 or higher. A strong credit history reflects your financial responsibility and increases your chances of qualifying for the 1% down payment option.
2. Stable Employment and Income:
Lenders, including Loan Factory, seek assurance that borrowers have a stable source of income. Employment history and consistent income are crucial qualifying factors. Generally, a steady employment record and a reliable income source contribute positively to your loan application.
3. Debt-to-Income Ratio:
Lenders evaluate your debt-to-income ratio, which is the percentage of your monthly income that goes toward paying debts. While specific ratios can vary, a lower debt-to-income ratio is typically favorable. Loan Factory assesses this ratio to ensure that you have the financial capacity to manage your mortgage payments along with other obligations.
4. Documentation of Assets and Liabilities:
Transparency is key during the mortgage application process. Be prepared to provide documentation of your assets and liabilities, including bank statements, investments, and outstanding debts. This information helps lenders assess your overall financial health.
5. First-Time Homebuyer Status:
Loan Factory's 1% down payment option is often geared towards first-time homebuyers, making it an ideal choice for those entering the real estate market for the first time. If you meet the criteria of being a first-time homebuyer, you may be well-positioned to take advantage of this program.
6. Participation in Homebuyer Education Programs:
Some lenders, including Loan Factory, may require borrowers to complete homebuyer education programs. These programs provide valuable insights into the homebuying process, financial management, and homeownership responsibilities. Completion of such programs demonstrates your commitment to making informed decisions.
7. Minimum Down Payment Contribution:
To qualify for Loan Factory's 1% down payment program, you'll need to contribute a minimum of 1% of the home's purchase price. This can be a significant advantage for those who might struggle with a larger down payment.
8. Collaboration with Loan Factory's Partners:
The program operates on a collaborative model, where Loan Factory partners with a strategic contributor to augment the down payment. While the borrower contributes 1%, Loan Factory and its partner combine forces to contribute an additional 2%, resulting in a total down payment of 3%.
Advantages for Borrowers:
1. Affordability:
The primary advantage for borrowers is the affordability of the 1% down payment option. By reducing the upfront cost, Loan Factory is making homeownership more accessible to a broader range of individuals and families.
2. Financial Flexibility:
With only a 1% down payment requirement, borrowers gain increased financial flexibility. This flexibility allows you to allocate resources to other financial priorities, such as emergency funds, debt reduction, or home improvements.
3. Competitive Interest Rates:
Loan Factory's commitment to providing competitive interest rates ensures that borrowers not only benefit from an affordable down payment but also maintain favorable long-term financial implications.
4. Pathway to Homeownership:
The 1% down payment option creates a pathway to homeownership, especially for first-time buyers. It bridges the gap between renting and owning, allowing individuals and families to invest in their future by building equity through homeownership.
While the allure of a 1% down payment is significant, it's essential to approach homeownership with a sense of responsibility. Loan Factory, as a responsible lender, ensures that borrowers are well-informed and equipped to handle the responsibilities associated with owning a home. Thorough financial assessments are conducted to determine the suitability of the program for individual borrowers.
1% Down Payment Option is a game-changer in the world of homeownership, offering a lifeline to those who may have found the prospect of a substantial down payment overwhelming. By understanding and meeting the qualifying requirements, borrowers can position themselves to take advantage of this innovative program. Aspiring homebuyers are encouraged to explore this opportunity, guided by the vision of making homeownership not just a dream but a tangible and achievable reality.


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The Orbit of Ulysses
Ulysses was launched in October 1990. Ulysses was launched from the STS-41 mission of the space shuttle Discovery. Two Inertial Upper Stages (IUS) and a mission-specific Payload Assist Module (PAM) combined together to send Ulysses toward its out-of-ecliptic trajectory. To reach this out-of-ecliptic trajectory, Ulysses was sent out to the planet Jupiter, whose immense gravity was used to deflect the spacecraft in a slingshot fashion into a highly inclined orbit (80 degrees inclined to the ecliptic). The spacecraft reached the Sun's south pole in June 1994. Ulysses continued its orbit around the Sun reaching the north pole in June 1995. Ulysses has now embarked on its second orbit of the Sun. The spacecraft will make polar passes in the years 2000 and 2001. Ulysses' out-of-ecliptic orbit has a period of 6.2 years, approximately half of a solar cycle.
The Ulysses mission is presently approved to continue operating and collecting data through December 2001. With the approval of NASA and ESA, operations may be extended for several more years.

subset: commoncrawl


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Superbike riders invaded the modified race track at the Bonifacio Global City streets at the Globe
Slipstream, a homecoming event for Filipino-Swiss race car driver Marlon
Stockinger last Aug. 30.
The race teams of
Ducati-Bacchus, Ducati-Access Plus, ATAT Racing Team, Samson
College-Access Plus - Ducati Desmo Owners Club of the Philippines and
Kojie-San brought in their top
riders, among them 16-year-old TJ Alberto, superbike master rider and Ducati
Philippines CEO Mr. Toti Alberto and General Manager Marc de Joya, John
Defensor and Alvin Dee, Superbike Open riders Jussi Hoikka, Vince Mercado and
Jordan Gaw, Lawrence Macalinao, Ralph Reyes Jay Carrion, Redge Burilla, Miguel
Bichara, Gerald Aycardo, Nikki Romero, Gelo Roa, Daniel Savino, Col.
Benjie Ladra,Martin Rosario, Monti Mortimer and former superbike champion
Raniel Resuello.
with the Ducati group are celebrity racers Dingdong Dantes with his new all 1199 SUPERLEGGERA, a Ducati limited edition with
only 500 units being sold around the world and Philippines has sold 2 units
of bringing in the team's F1 show cars, Globe Telecom, the exclusive business
partner of Lotus F1 in the Philippines, decided to bring in Stockinger's Lotus
WSR Gravity Charouz Formula Renault 3.5 car he actually drives in
the World Series for a test drive around a customized BGC race track.
superbike racers did a demonstration race along with the parade of vintage
luxury cars, karting challenge.
more on these Ducati racers as they take the Clark International Speedway on
October 4 and 5. 2014


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Bayern Munich stayed on course to become the first side to retain the Champions League by claiming a 1-1 draw to ease past Arsenal.
The holders dominated much of Wednesday's round-of-16 second leg at the Allianz Arena and, despite being unable to secure a deserved win on the night, they progressed 3-1 on aggregate following their first-leg victory in London.
Arsenal beat Bayern 2-0 in the second leg at the same stage of the competition last year but a repeat performance never looked likely and Bastian Schweinsteiger put Pep Guardiola's side in front early in the second half.
Arsene Wenger urged referee Svein Oddvar Moen to give his side a fair chance before the match and the Norwegian official did just that by allowing Lukas Podolski's equaliser to stand after he appeared to push Philipp Lahm shortly after Schweinsteiger's opener.
Lukasz Fabianski, stepping in for the suspended Wojciech Szczesny, saved Thomas Muller's stoppage-time penalty after Laurent Koscielny upended Arjen Robben but the tie was all over by then.
The Bavarian giants progressed on away goals against Wenger's men just over 12 months ago but this was a far more comfortable victory and Bayern were left to dream of becoming the first team since AC Milan in 1990 retain their European crown.
Guardiola had called on his side to be positive and deprive Arsenal of possession and they adhered to his orders in the opening stages, with Schweinsteiger forcing Fabianski into an early save with a long-range drive.
Bayern were dictating the play and Javi Martinez found the back of the net with a volley 26 minutes in but the Spaniard was correctly flagged for offside, then Laurent Koscielny was well positioned to get in the way of the lively Robben's shot.
Arsenal were struggling to contain the hosts by that point and Fabianski had to be alert to keep out Mario Gotze's shot as they weathered the storm to keep Bayern at bay until half-time.
Mesut Ozil was replaced by Tomas Rosicky at the break due to a tight hamstring and Bayern picked up where they left off but Moen rightly waved play when Robben went down theatrically after bursting into the penalty area.
It appeared to be only a matter of time before Guardiola's team went in front and the opening goal duly arrived 10 minutes after the break when Ribery was afforded too much time to pick out Schweinsteiger and the midfielder finished clinically.
Bayern were only in front for two minutes but had every right to feel aggrieved with Podolski's equaliser after their former player appeared to push Germany team-mate Lahm before beating Manuel Neuer at his near post with a vicious left-footed strike.
Mario Mandzukic was then too casual when presented with a great chance to put Bayern back in front and Fabianski was alert to the danger.
Szczesny's deputy then stopped Muller's stoppage-time spot-kick after Koscielny had brought down Robben but that was never going to prove costly as Bayern cruised through.


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This filter inverts Value (luminosity) of the active layer or selection. Hue and Saturation will not be affected, although the color will sometimes be slightly different because of round-off error. If you want to invert Hue and Saturation also, use
→ .Note that hue and saturation can be distorted quite a bit when applying twice this filter for colors with a high luminosity (for instance, HSV 102°,100%, 98%, a bright green, gives HSV 96°, 100%, 2% after a first application of the filter, and 96°, 100%, 98% after a second application). Thus, you should not expect to be able to apply this filter twice in a row and get back the image you started with.


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Sierra Pacific Credit Union Membership
- Sierra Pacific Federal Credit Union is headquartered in Reno, Nevada and has been serving members since 1936.
- 10th largest credit union in the state of Nevada, managing $165.64 Million in assets and serving over 11,000 members.
Membership: Work with select employer groups or a member of specific groups such as the Nevada Alumni Association.
Lake Trust Credit Union Membership
- Lake Trust Credit Union is headquartered in Brighton, Michigan and has been serving members since 1944.
- 8th largest credit union in the state of Michigan, managing $2.58 Billion in assets, serving over 178,000 members.
Membership: Live, work, worship, or attend school in Michigan.
Lookout Credit Union Membership
- Lookout Credit Union is headquartered in Pocatello, Idaho, serving members since 1952.
- 9th largest credit union in the state of Idaho, manages $335.82 Million in assets and serves over 28,000 members.
Membership: Open to everyone who works with partner employers or is a member of specific associations and groups.
Coinstar / Turn Your Coins to Cash, eGift Card or Donate to Charity
Coinstar offers a convenient and accessible solution for individuals who want to convert loose change into usable cash or gift cards. Find a Coinstar kiosk near you.
Credit Sesame Cash: No-fee Debit Account Pays to Improve Your Score
- Sesame cash is a no-fee debit card and an online bank account that pays you to improve your credit.
- Robust mobile banking features to deposit checks, transfer money, pay bills, and more.
- Get paid 2-days earlier with a direct deposit of your paycheck.
WorldRemit Transfer Money to Family and Friends Overseas
- WorldRemit is a fast and secure service that lets you transfer money online using a computer, smartphone, or our app.
- Transfer money online to family and friends abroad with bank transfer, cash pickup, mobile money or WorldRemit Wallet, or Airtime top-up.
- Low fees and the best exchange rates upfront, with no hidden costs.
Remitly Send Money Faster and Securely Worldwide
- Remitly helps you send money online faster and more securely from the United States to international destinations.
- Send money directly to a bank account, get cash from thousands of locations in minutes, or send money instantly to a mobile money account, or have your money delivered to your recipient's home.
- Competitive exchange rates and low transfer fees.
Goalsetter App / Savings, Spending and Investing App for Families
Goalsetter helps children save, spend, and invest through one convenient app while learning about personal finance and sound money management.
Chime / No Fee Checking Account and Get Paid 2 Days Early
- Chime Banking is a no-fee mobile bank account that offers a Spending Account, a Savings Account, and a Visa debit card.
- No maintenance fees. No overdraft fees. And no bounced check fees.
- Cash access to 35,000+ surcharge-free ATMs.
- Get your paycheck 2 days earlier.
What is Banking?
Banking is a form of money management using products and services related to savings and loans.
Different Types of Financial Institutions
Banks are what we typically associate with banking. They come in different sizes: local, national, traditional and online-only. Federal or state agencies supervise banks. The FDIC insures deposits of participating banks.
Credit Unions
Credit unions are not-for-profit financial institutions. They offer products and services similar to banks with a focus on member service, not profit. The NCUA insures deposits from participating credit unions.
Alternative Financial Services
Many fintechs are non-chartered financial services companies that offer banking services. You might think of them as an app offering checking and savings accounts, debit cards, payments, etc. They are not banks but work with partner banks or credit unions to hold your deposits.
Types of Banking Accounts
Banking accounts help make financial transactions convenient.
Savings Account
A savings account helps you save your money. You're storing your money for future use and hopefully earning a reasonable interest rate. Interest is the money you earn for letting the bank keep your money. Some financial institutions impose minimum deposits, withdrawal limits, and fees.
Checking Account
A checking account is a transactional account that allows you to make deposits and withdrawals of your money anytime. Checking accounts is not the best place to store your money, as the goal of the account is for use, not saving.
Most checking accounts do not pay interest, but some do. Be mindful of transaction limits, minimum balance requirements, and fees.
Debit Card
Checking accounts come with a debit card enabling you to spend your money conveniently. A debit card allows for making purchases at stores and online shopping. You can only spend the money that's in your checking account. Additionally, you can use your debit card at ATMs to make deposits, withdrawals, check balances, and transfers between accounts.
Money Market Account
A money market account is a type of hybrid savings and checking account. It tends to have higher deposit requirements but often pays more interest than a savings account.
Certificate of Deposit (CD)
A certificate of deposit, also known as a CD, helps you save money with a set interest rate for a specific amount of time. Your cash is term-locked. In exchange, you get a higher interest rate compared to a traditional savings account. Certificate terms can start at 30 days and go to 5 or more years.
How to Choose the Best Banking Service
You have many choices on the type of account to use and the variety of financial institutions available. So, shop around. Ask the following questions to help you narrow down your choices:
- What are the products and services offered?
- What are the fees?
- Are there minimum balance requirements?
- Do I need a physical location (like a branch) or prefer better mobile app services?
- Does local banking matter or is national big bank convenient?
- Are deposits FDIC or NCUA insured?
- How to access your money?
- Debit card? ATM network?
- Can I set auto-transfers, auto-payments, and alerts?
You want to determine how the banking provider aligns with your needs, the cost of services, safety, security, and overall convenience.


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Address: 2225 East Lake of the Isles Parkway
Neighborhood: East Isles
Construction Date: 1904
Contractor: Unknown
Architect: Adam Lansing Dorr
Architectural Style: Craftsman/Queen Anne transitional
Historic Use: Residential – Single Family Dwelling
Current Use: Residential – Single Family Dwelling
Date of Local Designation: 1998
Date of National Register Designation: N/A
Area(s) of Significance: Master Architect, Social History
Period of Significance: 1904-1955
Historic Profile: In 1904 when the Keyes House was built, the area surrounding Lake of the Isles was a remote, wooded area. Charles Keyes and his wife Ruth chose Minneapolis architect Adam Lansing Dorr to complete their design. Dorr, one of the most prolific architects of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Minneapolis, chose a blend of Queen Anne and Craftsman architecture for the Keyes House. Charles and Ruth Keyes were active civic leaders in Minneapolis for many years, involved in Tax Payers Associations and the Sanitary Commission. Charles also served on the Parents and Teachers Council, the Citizens Committee on Public Health and the University of Minnesota Alumni Association. In commemoration of the active lives of the Keyes family, as well as the association with Adam Lansing Dorr, the residence on Lake of the Isles is designated.
Photo Credits:
Circa 1910, Portrait of Charles Frederick Keyes, Minneapolis Heritage Preservation Commission
2006, Minneapolis CPED
Updated: February 2007


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By Jeff Reinke
In light of the somewhat overwhelmingly negative economic news that we've all been inundated with, I found it refreshing when a release to the contrary came across my computer screen. More specifically, it referenced a $160 million investment involving the construction of eight biogas plants stemming from a strategic alliance between Sanimax and StormFisher Biogas.
Oversimplifying the roles of both companies, Sanimax will collect the animal and food by-products, while StormFisher will handle more of the operational and distribution aspects of biogas production, which is converted to energy for heating homes and providing electricity. Additionally, those items that cannot be used in this process are transformed into fertilizer for agricultural use.
So while most look upon things like pond scum, or in this instance meat fat and potato peels, as anything but an opportunity, our marketplace is actually investing significant resources in obtaining and processing these materials to help answer our society's growing need for energy sources. In light of the cutbacks, downsizing and exporting of labor prevalent throughout the manufacturing marketplace as a whole, the processing industry stands out as it re-invests in itself and provides significant benefits as a result.
Although it's impossible to overlook how these new facilities will reportedly offset the equivalent of 120,000 tons of exhausted carbon dioxide, and divert 500,000 tons of organic by-products in creating enough energy to power 20,000 homes annually, what's also impressive is that they will breathe new life into local economies via jobs the plants will have created and the tax base they will strengthen.
So the benefit is double-edged, and offers perspective on how innovative investments in the processing industry not only better the lives of those needing the product being generated, but also stimulate economic growth within our marketplace.
I'm not naïve enough to think that these developments are purely in the interest of job creation and environmental preservation. I know both of these companies are looking for a substantial return on their investment, but it's one that they both deserve. In a time when banks and investors alike are being criticized for poor financial judgment, our marketplace continues to set an example for all to emulate.
The quest towards new power sources and feedstocks is pushing the marketplace forward, and as a result, requiring new and innovative equipment and products for these applications. So while we're in a tough economic period, it has not scared many in the processing field from investing in new ways to become more innovative and profitable. Hopefully the same can be said of you and your facility.
On the wall in my office, hanging beside a wonderfully colorful picture of a dinosaur painted by my daughter, is an Apple Computers ad from the October 1, 1997 edition of the Wall Street Journal. Part of it reads:
"Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify them or vilify them.
"About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent. They imagine. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward."
Good luck to you in your "crazy" efforts as you push the processing marketplace, and its benefactors, forward through innovative and timely investments in your plant and its capabilities.


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User pages: |
Welcome to Obairlann.net, where We're Building The Future Today! Please see the links at left for an overview of the services available here. NewsJuly 10, 2006 - The new server is working great, but needs to be put in its final home. Expect some downtime this coming weekends (July 15th and 16th) as that work is done. July 5, 2006 - New server hardware has finally been brought to bear. Working out the kinks now, and everything should be back to normal in a few days. The scanner stream is still limited to 1 client, alas. Obairlann.net is a subsidiary of Muppetlabs. |


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DS2285 Replacement Specifications:
Equipment Type: GVD, LAND & SEA
Usage: Ground Vehicle Display (GVD), GVD
Platform(s): ITSS
OEM Part Number: DS2285
Thomas Electronics Part Number: 02M309P1
Why choose Thomas Electronics' Ground Vehicle Display (GVD), GVD solutions?
- We can match your specifications to our current design inventory.
- We provide fast development & prototyping.
- Our products are guaranteed to match OEM fit & performance.
- We offer repair & overhaul services for all CRTs & components, including new CRTs.
- We cover military & commercial CRT applications worldwide.
Additional Info
CRT Ground Vehicle Displays are present in nearly all military vehicles, including traditional ground and armored vehicles. These are ruggedized, high-brightness, and high-resolution, designed specifically for vehicles and other rough environments.
CRTs are used for various purposes on land and at sea. Why? Because it's the most trusted technology for military and commercial applications; all our CRTs are fully ruggedized, guaranteed to fit and perform the same as those from the original manufacturer, and are able to be refurbished to keep costs low.
Request Price Quote


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Vedi tutti i modelli qui sotto
This RTD plug sensor is ideal for pressure vessel applications, pressurized containers and applications requiring a temperature sensor with an NPT mounting fitting. The single element design has a 1/8" diameter, 316 stainless steel probe that extends 13 mm (0.51") or 24 mm (0.94") from a 1/8 NPT mounting thread. The M12 connector assures a very reliable connection. Extension cables are offered in different lengths with right or straight angles.


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Imagine not being able to touch a touch-screen device. Tablets and smartphones—with all their educational, entertaining and social benefits—would be useless.
Researchers at Georgia Tech are trying to open the world of tablets to children whose limited mobility makes it difficult for them to perform the common pinch and swipe gestures required to control the devices.
Ayanna Howard, professor of electrical and computer engineering, and graduate student Hae Won Park have created Access4Kids, a wireless input device that uses a sensor system to translate physical movements into fine-motor gestures to control a tablet.
The device, coupled with supporting open-source apps and software developed at Georgia Tech, allows children with fine motor impairments to access off-the-shelf apps such as Facebook and YouTube, as well as custom-made apps for therapy and science education.
"Every child wants access to tablet technology. So to say, 'No you can't use it because you have a physical limitation' is totally unfair," Howard said. "We're giving them the ability to use what's in their mind so they have an outlet to impact the world."
The current prototype of the Access4Kids device includes three force-sensitive resistors that measure pressure and convert it into a signal that instructs the tablet. A child can wear the device around the forearm or place it on the arm of a wheelchair and hit the sensors or swipe across the sensors with his or her fist. The combination of sensor hits or swipes gets converted to different "touch-based" commands on the tablet.
Children with neurological disorders such as cerebral palsy, traumatic brain injury, spina bifida and muscular dystrophy typically suffer from fine motor impairments, which is the difficulty of controlling small coordinated movements of the hands, wrists and fingers. They tend to lack the ability to touch a specific small region with appropriate intensity and timing needed for press and swipe gestures.
The impact of Access4Kids could be significant. More than 200,000 children in the U.S. public school system have an orthopedic disability and have been excluded from tablet and touch screen devices. Current assistive technology, such as Augmentative and Alternative Communication devices, is available to those with motor impairments for traditional computer platforms but not tablets or smartphones.
"We can't keep it in the lab," Howard said. "It doesn't make sense for me to have one child, one at a time look at it and say 'Hey that's really cool' and not have it out there in the world. The real goal is to make it safe and efficient so someone can make it into a commercial product."
Howard is creating a second prototype that aims to be more flexible. It will include wireless sensors that can be placed anywhere a child is capable of hitting them, such as with a foot or the side of the head. User trials for the second prototype will begin soon. Howard says she hopes to have the device through clinical trials starting next year.
So far Access4Kids has received positive feedback from both typically developing children and children with disabilities, as well as caregivers. The device was also a finalist in a recent Intel-sponsored competition and was showcased to the British Consulate prior to the Paralympic games this summer, receiving good reviews.
The project was originally funded through the NSF-sponsored Broadening Participation in Computing Program and then through I-Corps, a National Science Foundation program that aims to translate scientific discoveries into useful products for society. Howard is working on a version of the device called TabAccess for adults with motor disabilities.
Access4Kids also received a seed grant from the Atlanta Pediatric Device Consortium, a partnership between Georgia Tech, Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and the Atlanta Clinical & Translational Science Institute that provides assistance with the commercialization of novel pediatric medical devices and technologies.
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Relax and earn bonus Avios
Earn 1,500 Avios with Worldhotels
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Pilgrim: Church & Kingdom Pack of 25
Book 8 (Grow Stage)
This item is in stock and will be dispatched within 48 hours.
6 units left in stock.
Pilgrim is a teaching and discipleship resource from the Church of England that helps enquirers and new Christians explore what it means to travel through life with Jesus Christ.
A Christian course for the twenty-first century, Pilgrim offers an approach of participation, not persuasion. Enquirers are encouraged to practice the ancient disciplines of biblical reflection and prayer, exploring key texts that have helped people since the earliest days of the Christian faith.
Assuming little or no knowledge of the Christian faith, Pilgrim can be used at any point on the journey of discipleship and by every tradition in the Church of England.
Pilgrim is made up of two parts: Follow and Grow. Follow introduces the Christian faith for complete beginners, while Grow aims to develop a deeper level of discipleship in those who have turned to Christ.
This eighth volume, the final title in the Grow stage, explores what it means to live as a child of the kingdom of God and to follow in the way of Christ each day as a member of his Church. Its six sessions combine simple prayer, reflection on the Bible in the lectio divina style, an article by a modern writer, and time for questions and reflection, and are supported by free online audio and video resources. Pack of 25.


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Edublog Awards Voting is Open:
Celebrating & Paying it Forward
What an amazing & astonishing year it has been for our PLN (that's you, too dear reader!), Geek Tribe, & Librarians! So many of our tribe have been recognized by the Edublog Award Nominations for our achievements in the last year - it's astonishing! This posting is an unashamed and repentant thank you & celebration of what we ALL have done in the last year. Fakey false-modesty is NOT how I roll.
I'm flippin psyched!
WARNING: I use !!!'s & say YAY & AWEsome a LOT
To all those who are looking at this blog because it was nominated - Hi! How you doin? I use these !!!!!'s and AWEsome a lot....or as Bob Edwards of NPR recently said of me after an interview that I "speak almost entirely in exclamation points." Heh heh heh Like Elaine Bennis in Seinfeld - yeah...I own it.
"There's an 'embarrassment of riches' in the education blogosphere!" - Larry Ferlazzo
Edublog Award Voting Ends December 14th
Please take the time to review the shortlisted nominations & vote. You can see who I nominated at My Nominations For The Edublog Awards 2010.
I value the Edublog awards because it is a crowdsourced recognition from your peers, a chance to pay it forward to those who have inspired you in the past year, & great way to stuff my Google reader with wonderful new voices!
I am gobsmacked, honored, & thrilled to my toes to have been nominated by my peers - more about that at below...Ahem! Trying to be cool here....
"We are stronger when we share!"
- Seth Godin via Joyce Valenza
I was SO honored to be nominated in the Best Library/Librarian Blog category (thank you to Shelly Terrell and all of you who nominated me!), but the really important thing about these awards is that they provide an opportunity for everybody to learn about great blogs and other resources out there that can be helpful to our teaching. Last year my blog was named Library Tech Musings...and then in April I made the huge jump and re-named it The Daring Librarian blog. It was a dare to myself - to brand myself, yes...but mostly as a reminder that I - we - as educators, must always be DARING to give our all...to take daring chances...daring to the fight filters, the naysayers, & negative forces, for our most important customers...our Students!
I am SO
NOT Cool!
As always I wish I could be all diddy cool, rico suave, & smooth about these nominations - but that's just not how I roll. I can't! I'm jumpin up & down, going SQUEE! out loud (gave poor Bruno the Rottie at left quite a start) and on the phone with my Mom right away!
I'd Be Honored to Have Your Vote!
To be nominated for the Best Librarian/Library blog with the likes of my mentor Joyce Valenza and Buffy J. Hamilton & the rest of the Geek Tribe is staggeringly AWEsome & amazing to me! I'd be honored to have your vote!
To have the Daring Librarian blog nominated for Best educational use of video / visual gobsmacked me! Sure, I've uploaded some videos to my YouTube channel...Yes, I use pics wherever I can.... I guess my pathological Photoshop addiction is paying off in a different kinda way! Or maybe it was for my growing collection of Comic Tutorials At-A-Glance - whichever...Thank you! I'd be honored to have your vote!
To have the MHMS Tech Wiki nominated for Best educational wiki That wiki has been recently re-named and reclaimed just flipping blew me away! (Confession: BIG MISTAKE or why you shouldn't register wikis under your school name but your own or your brand!) So after nearly 5 years I just re-named it the Daring Librarian's Steam Powered MHM Tech Wiki in a Digitally Shifted World (whew!) Like What the What!? That's SO AWEsome! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! That's the sandbox i started in '06 for my school & teachers when it comes to everyday technology PD! As always, take, use, share! I'd be honored to have your vote!
Team Nominations that I'm connected to and feel passionate about & hope to win you over, too!
The TL Virtual Cafe
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Best educational use of a virtual world: ISTE- SIGMS 21st Century Playground in Second Life - Talented builder Linda Dougherty (aka Eleanor Anderton- SL) created a Victorian virtual playground in second life for ISTE10 that was detailed, informative, and beautiful. She even created a collectors ISTE-SIGMS garden clock as a giveaway!. It was also just really cool..(full disclosure, I helped a little with this - donating furniture, creating a ISTE Tophat giveaway, and my giant Telescope - but the main builder was the amazing Linda) Thank you! We'd be honored to have your vote!
Congratulations to everyone and let's embrace & welcome our new voices and recruit new Geek Tribe members! And no matter who wins the Edublog awards -- really, we all win!
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photo © 2007 Darren Stone | more info (via: Wylio)Ooooh! Tech Tip! The graphic at the very top of this posting was from Wylio: a Creative Commons Image site where you can search for images, re-size and align them, and get the instant Attribution code all in ONE EASY STEP! or as they say it: "Wylio is the original, defacto, extra crunchy, all-in-one picture finder and re-sizer made specifically for bloggers. We are the quickest way for you to get a photo into your next blog post." Sweet!
Thank you dear readers! You are my Geek Tribe, you are my PLN, you are why I get excited to share things...and you are why we are all moving forward in this digitally shifted world - and I truly do appreciate you...and no, I'm not sucking up for votes! Srsly! [grins] but dayum...sure sounded like it, huh? LOL #LoveFest


text:
A pre-launch email list is more than just a marketing asset. It can also be a source of input from soon-to-be customers on how to develop the best product for them.
In this episode of Shopify Masters, you'll learn from an entrepreneur who had a successful product launch by growing a highly engaged pre-launch email list.
Will Africano is the co-founder of GNARBOX: a company that develops products and solutions to revolutionize your multimedia management experience.
Through that email list, we started messaging and surveying and bringing all of those people into the product development experience.
Tune in to learn
- How to find the right co-founder for your startup
- How to build a highly engaged pre-launch email list
- What angel investors versus venture capitalists care about when they hear you pitch
Show Notes
- Store: Gnarbox
- Social Profiles: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram
- Recommendations: Startupers, The O.S. Canvas (Medium.com post), Intercom (Shopify app), AirTable, Trello, Slack, BV Accel (Shopify agency)
Felix: Today I'm joined by Will Afroconda from Gnarbox. Gnarbox develops products to revolutionize the multimedia management experience. Was started in 2015 and based out of Santa Monica, California. Welcome Will.
Will: Thank you Felix, thanks for having me.
Felix: Yeah, so tell us a little bit more about the product, you know. I gave that quick elevator pitch, but what's the product that put you guys on the map?
Will: Yeah, so Gnarbox actually is a rugged back-up device for content creators who prefer to travel without a laptop. You know the whole idea and premise behind it is basically creating a small computer that's optimized for photo and video backup. So any content creator doesn't have to bring their laptop out with them. And with a wifi on board you can actually use your phone or iPad in our dedicated mobile apps to actually manage the files, see the files, even begin edits. So you can prepare your workspaces for when you get back to your computer. Out in the field is definitely where we thrive.
Felix: Got it, did you have experience starting businesses or creating products previously?
Will: No, actually. I did not.
Felix: This is a pretty technical product to start off with. You're talking about software, you're talking about hardware, you're talking about something that is holding lots of valuable data for customers. Where did you even … how did you even begin to decide to go down this path?
Will: Yeah, I think like any entrepreneur it was a matter of trial and error. You know, we started with one idea, and by we I mean me and the other founder Tim Fees. We started just ideating on drives to and from Las Angeles and the Eastern Sierra Mountains and we were going through this process of recording data out in the mountains. Landscape photography, videography, and on our way back, every time we were just in this tangled mess of computers trying to swap footage, create backups, prepare shared editing spaces. So that when we did get back home and go to our nine to five's on Monday morning, we were at least dialed enough to begin editing in the evenings. And preparing a video and the photos that we wanted to capture those moments we were creating on the weekends.
On those drives we started to come up with mobile applications to try and enhance our sharing experiences. But really what we found the biggest problem to be, and through trying to creating mobile apps and web apps, and all sorts of bad ideas I would admit. We really realized that the biggest issue we had was that in the field backup, the requirement to have a computer and be limited on battery supply, and trying to just get files off of cameras and into the net as fast and short as possible. We focused on that, and that workflow. It took us a year, really, before we came up with the concept of Gnarbox. On the technology side we met … it was our fourth founder actually, there was a third and he left along the way. Through one of those app experiences, and there was a new technologist that joined our team.
And he came in with a background of hardware, and introduced the concept of, you know what happens if we take say a Beagle Bone or a raspberry pie and start to hack it together to create this backup device. Then we started to architect the rugged requirements of it, and we did. We created a big challenge. How do you make a computer pack into your pocket, all while being waterproof, you know? It's a high heat output. While being completely waterproof so you're trapping all that heat in. We made a really complex piece of hardware. Yeah, I mean, took an army really. Took the whole community. Everyone we met in our network to get it off the ground the first time. And Gnarbox 1.0 was Kickstarter'ed out and had pretty great success. Over 500k raised in 30 days, basically off of a concept. It took us two years to bring it to market which as delayed significantly. But after that, yeah, we sold nearly 10,000 units of that first one in less than a year. So it was pretty awesome to see market demand.
Felix: Yeah, so you didn't have any experience launching products. It sounded like your partner that you're doing these drives with also didn't have any experience, but you did have a co-founder that you brought on that did have experience.
Will: Exactly. Yeah, it was always trying to find that technological co-founder to bring on, and really help us architect the system and you know, eventually we brought on more and more people and built a team out now, all the way up to 23 people. And primarily software and hardware engineers.
Felix: Yeah, I think it's important that you either partner or build a team or your first, your early hires are going to fill in those gaps that you have. How did you find your … because the part that you guys are lacking was the technical no-how. How you guys could build this thing. How did you find that partner to fill that gap?
Will: Yeah, we were on startupers.com, I believe. And just doing like, speed dating with technologists. And through those conversations really started to hone in on our vision and what we wanted to make and at that point in time it was very close to being like, hey we're going to close the book on our ideas here and maybe move on. Then when we met our founder and started to spring up the hardware roadmap, we realized that it was a mocking … an answer that was significant that helped us finance our operations in addition to solve a market need.
Felix: This website that you were going, that was called startupers.com?
Will: Yeah, I believe it was … I mean, this was a while ago. I believe it was startupers.com. It was a way to meet other people trying to make stuff.
Felix: Yeah, basically if startupers.com doesn't exist anymore, the idea is that there's kind of this partner, co-founding dating site's essentially where you can try to find matches. So what did you guys go into it looking for? How do you determine … especially if it's someone that was there from the very, very beginning. Like these drives you were doing, the ideation phase, and you're bring on someone a little later but still considered a co-founder. What are you looking for in that type of person to make sure that they're going to be a good fit with the existing team?
Will: Yeah, I think in the very, very early stages, its cultural, it's a shared valve and enthusiasm and dedication. Because you're taking on huge commitments and sacrifices and time. So obviously you need to meet certain technological requirements, have certain experience levels. Whether it's bringing products to market before, or being parts of teams and organizations that have done that. Or maybe if it's a software, being based or rooted in similar spaces and languages. But for us, yeah, because we ended up pivoting over into hardware, it was a combination. I think more than anything though it was having experience and having a cultural and dedication fit. It was a shared passion for the problem that we were all facing. And that's really what helped bring us all together.
Felix: Mm-hmm (affirmative). And is this something that you can just find out through conversation or are there other ways that you recommend people to … things that people can do to make sure that there is a good fit before this commitment?
Will: Well, yeah. Sometimes it's a leap of faith because it can create problems and you know, you're splitting equity and there's a lot of history in organizations and start-ups and particular work founders have … they have fall outs. That's a thing that definitely happens and you want to be really cognizant of it going into it. I think you're living in such a high risk and wild west environment you kind of have to go with your gut a little bit. And through a number of conversations that's how we made that decision. We had conversations where within 10 minutes were spinning up so many ideas that we're going to solve so many of our problems within our vision. You know? We just had that shared passion for problem solving and solving this particular problem that we had, and we were coming up with meaningful solutions in those first early conversations.
Felix: Mm-hmm (affirmative). What are some things that you can do to limit things like fall out or disagreements or mismatches later in … after you've started working together, then years later things don't work out. Are there things that can be done to mitigate that?
Will: Well, I'm sure there's a number of reasons that these fall outs have happened. This is only my first company, so I wouldn't imagine … I don't have a ton of experience in understanding how to mitigate fall out. It's personality, it's culture. Maybe the vision and the path of your journey of your organization is going to change over time and if it's not a shared vision then maybe fall out exists.
I would say preventing that just means staying … you know, having really strong communication, we're big advocates of having leadership meetings and weekly stand-up's because as we kind of disperse into our own branches of responsibilities you might lose touch with one another over time. And just making sure you're cornering off time and blocking off time to just keep your relationships healthy. It's really important. And I've actually come in contact with someone who provided counseling to leadership teams, just to make sure tensions never got too high, right? It wasn't someone we ended up bringing on, but just the concept existing was eye-opening to be like you need to keep your relationships strong in order to carry the vision through to the end without those fallouts.
So just doing basic team building and basic relationship and we practice non-violent communication in our organization. We have a deliberately developmental organization taking on some of these more modern practices and studies to just make sure that we're communicating effectively and calmly and rationally.
Felix: Yeah, it sounds like you guys are certainly active in making sure that there is strong communication with these leadership meetings, these stand-ups. What goes on during … what do you want to make sure happens during these meetings to make sure that the communication is strong, that everything that needs to be out there is out there in the open?
Will: Yeah yeah. You know, we have a couple different systems. So we have a weekly standup that is about 30 minutes and then biweekly we do an hour to an hour and a half lunch. And that's pretty frequent time blocks. Sometimes the range of topics can go from things we're trying to implement in the organization, the cultural internal levels. Maybe we're bringing up high level decisions like fundraising, hires and fires, even. Just all of those really impactful decisions, budgeting and forecasting comes up. But in all of those meetings, we have space for open forum discussion. With that, you can bring up anything from, "Hey I'm having this particular issue in my team." Or, "I think as a leadership team we need to improve this." And, "Hey, we're lacking this type of communication." Or just if you have a specific topic or a problem that you can bring it up in that space, it's a safe space. And we definitely are cognizant of it being a safe and really non-heated and calm … just having time allotted to it, right? Being cognizant of it and bought into it is really what it takes.
Felix: Got it. Now, if during one of these meetings there are multiple people that are super passionate about a problem that they think that the company should be focused on solving, how do you guys think about prioritization? How do you decide what the company should be focused on?
Will: Yeah, I mean we have a backlog of things to work on. And what we do is … so we kind of map our tension, organization tensions and priorities and we just try and work through them in a … we actually dedicated a certain amount of time a couple times a year just to bring up tensions and prioritize them. Through these weekly and biweekly meetings we are kind of whittling down that list and obviously things come up a hack. Like, "Hey, this deal is on the table, it's the hottest topic of discussion." And that becomes the top agenda point for the meeting. And just making sure that that meeting exists and we're at a point where most of the founders are just blocking off every minute of their day to just be … in their own calendars, just to be as organized and efficient as possible with their time because it's easy to … without proper planning each week to just get a little lost and lose sight of those prioritizations.
So yeah, just tracking. There's a really great article created, and created by The Ready. It's a medium post. And it's called the OS Canvas, and it's just a really cool way to map tensions, priorities across the entire organization, looking at your organization as an operating system. And this is the tool that we've used to kind of manage what the prioritizations are. Because it just does a simple percentage ranking, and you can get input from the entire organization on these. Everything from structure and space. So what's going on in the office, to purposes and values, the policy and governance, strategy and innovation, people development, motivation, finance and forecasting, targets, and this canvas keeps an active visual mapping of really, the red yellow green in our organization. And red's usually take the highest priority.
Felix: Got it, so the OS Canvas, if anyone wants to check it out we'll link all that in the show notes. Now, I want to take a step back to the very beginning. I think one thing you mentioned was that you guys were … had this problem you were trying to solve and you came up with different solutions. Should it be an app, should it be hardware, what should it be? Can you say a little bit more about this? Because I think this is a situation others are in where they recognize there's a problem, and they come at it with one solution but it might not be the right one. How did you guys know what solution you should be focused on to solve the exact same problem?
Will: Yeah, you know. So one of the things that drove us though was finance abilities. So maybe we had a good idea in the mix for solving a problem that was in our general space of study, which was workflow. And we were really focused on the beginning of this sharing element. So taking content, and I've already made my content now how do I take it from a computer to an environment where I get the most out of my content. At that time Instagram was emerging and really has emerged to be such a powerful application, that I'm glad we didn't go that route. But, it was a willingness to scrap an idea. To just say, "This is impossible given our current resources." Is a way to look at it, like so do I have the financing, do I have the technological means, do I have the team or the expertise or the experience to be able to create this idea.
Felix: So it's almost like the process of elimination for you guys?
Will: Yeah, there was a little process of elimination there for us. And then the other side of it is like is there a need for this? So had we proven that there wasn't demand for it then you know, we wouldn't have gone down that path. Kickstarter provided a really good opportunity to take an idea, basically create a prototype while moon-lighting, keeping our full-time jobs, and working all nights and eventually dropping those jobs once we started to get quick responses from investors. Which, that was the first feedback. Like, we had app ideas we'd been pitching, pitching, pitching, pitching, we had web ideas, cloud ideas, pitching, pitching, pitching, no bites. And you know, as soon as we put this hardware concept together and we felt really strongly about this being a proper solution, and had a clear path to financing with it, even we had Kickstarter-
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Will: … and had a clear path to financing with it, given we had Kickstarter to rely on for that, many crowdfunding platforms for that matter. It became a much easier pitch. Once we made a prototype, we went into our first investor meeting, showed that we could back up files and stream them to a phone with 4K transcoding using the hack [beetle bone], and we got money on the spot, so that became that first point of feedback. With that money, we were able to finish the prototype and start to set up manufacturing. We went to Kickstarter, and that was the second point of feedback. It was like, yeah, we're on the right track here.
Felix: Oh, so you guys got investors even before you went over to Kickstarter.
Will: Yeah, just to get a few things off the ground. It was [small angels]. But that was the first feedback we were given. It was like, would an investor invest in this concept. Could we get friends family angel money from our networks with this concept and with this technological team?
Felix: Got it, so you guys were pitching different ideas, how were you getting in front of potential investors? Where were you going to pitch your ideas?
Will: We went to … The main thing was, obviously, personal networks, but in Los Angeles there's a lot of opportunity, Pasadena Angel, a bunch of other Angel groups that we networked into and, yeah, I mean just never ceasing to talk about your projects and leaving no stone unturned was really what got us to find proper investors. Our main investors, today, actually came through just a friend of ours that we once pitched the idea on because we knew he was connected, and he happened to be on a flight home from a business trip and the guy sitting next to him happened to be an Angel investor who was really passionate about cameras.
He said, "Hey, I've got a friend who's building something, a hardware device in Los Angeles," and got his card and gave him his card and connected us over email. His group's been our lead investor to date, so it's through a series.
Felix: Yeah, I guess that persistence and constant pitching certainly paid off for you guys. Can you walk us through the typical cycle you have to go through to get into a room to do that pitch that in your case resulted in an investment? It sounds like a lot of networking involved. What were the typical steps before you actually get into the room, get to sit down with an investor and be able to get the opportunity to potentially get an investment?
Will: Well, I mean, you definitely need to have a good and ready pitch, that's definitely something that we were always working on and honing and iterating on. Then it was about pounding our just personal network first. Going online and just applying wasn't always the greatest way, even things like Tech stars and maybe the more recognized groups that are out there, just filling out an application never seemed to be enough for us, so it was really about getting an intro. Finding out someone that knew.
We went through our collegiate circles. Looked through those Angel networks and just friends who may be in investment banking or VC spaces or private equity. That helped a lot in the beginnings, but yeah, it really came through like old bosses. You know? Like old dads friends, often times. Just their business networks were helpful. Family friends, uncles, and just, Like I said, just being so persistent until eventually, you got to the right person. When you knew you got to the right person you got the intro to the VC, you had your email, your pitch stack, you got the NDA set up, yada yada, got them on the phone as fast as possible and tried to set up an in-person meeting as fast as possible after that.
Being able to meet them, because in the early, early stages they're investing in people, they're investing in a belief in the problem and the solution, but mostly to people. I heard that so many times, that it's about just making sure you carried passion, dedication, and the expertise, or at least the vision and ability to get the expertise for what you needed. Mapping, "Hey, your money's going to this, giving me the right developers and I know this for this reason," that was what would close the deals. We were in rooms with BCs and we were in rooms that pitch shows and all sorts of different things, but eventually it really shook out to just [cobbling] together a bunch of Angels and family money and family offices ended up being the way we ended up, but that's just because that's who was into it. That was who was into us. Could have been a different path if we had a different idea and different people.
Felix: Were there certain things you maybe we're not doing when you first started pitching that by the end, closer towards to maybe even today, that you definitely want to make sure you hit on whatever you pitch your product, your company, to an investor?
Will: Yeah, just keep it simple. Being able to very clearly articulate who and what for this product is creating and just all the, I think, in my mind, as I've gone through CES now many years and lots of shows and pitched expos, the ones that everyone always gravitates toward are just the simple ideas that you can immediately get in just a few words. Ours is "Rugged backup device for content creators who prefer to travel without a laptop." Just being able to repeatedly say that, there are people that will gravitate to that message and there are people that will not.
Just leading strong with that and having a clear and articulated vision for your product and your organization, that's the root of it. We cater other messages for different audiences. Like there's a different context for the pitch then you must style the rest of your deck to fit your audience. That's also important. You don't just always have one deck, it's always just constant iteration.
Felix: Over time did you recognize that there were common questions that investors were asking?
Will: Yeah, yeah. This was a number of years ago so thankfully this isn't a the forefront of my memory. Yeah, different types of investors if you were interested in different things. When you're in meetings with BCs it was way more money and business planning than when I was in Angel and Family offices which is about vision and team. I was sometimes shocked in VC meetings when you would get these … They would be pushing you and pressuring you and probing you, like, "Okay, would you be willing to relinquish your board?" And we're like, "What are you?" [inaudible] position if it came for the best the organization it asks is challenging questions of "Are you willing to cede to my dominance?" Those were interesting experiences to encounter early on, especially when you're like, "Man there's only three of us right now. We're trying to make this thing a thing. Why does this even matter, but sure I guess. If you're going to give me the money and let me do this, then I'd consider it."
Felix: Yeah.
Will: The other offices they want to see a demo. They wanted to see what we were saying be a thing. Once we got that prototype up and running it was a lot easier for us to pitch and evolve the funding.
Felix: When you were trying to get to these VCs earlier on with the Angel investors, were there gatekeepers involved that made it difficult for you to get into the room?
Will: I don't think that there was a lot of blockers. Honestly, sometimes they would send a junior [inaudible] out to our office, even doing a roundup of LA or whatever it was, if they were from the Bay Area. We've had people come through our office and they kind of acted as gatekeepers, like, "Hey, it's not quite ready yet. Once you get to this stage then talk to us again." That happened. It was great. They gave us feedback on our product, we knew what they were looking for. Maybe it was a specific type of app experience and we hadn't fully vetted that out at the early stages.
We eventually came into the money before we actually got any further with a lot of the VCs.
Felix: Got it. You mentioned that this was being done, all of this was being done when you guys threw away your 9 to 5 and everyone was doing this on the side. What do you think was the most valuable use of your time back then early on when it was just nights and weekends where you can dedicate this time?
Will: Yeah, the majority of the time as being spent developing prototypes and translating that prototype into a pitch. That pitch helped us fund the Kickstart which then helped us fund the next round of funding which funded manufacturing which started gaining us revenue. That revenue and the vision for future products, the 2.0 that's now through its Kickstarter and coming into manufacturing very soon is going to help us fund our series B. Its kind of a cycle and we're just trying to grow it to a point of profitability. Yeah, that's kind of the journey there.
Early on it was just prototype, prototype, prototype. Having that tangible good totally changes your position at the table.
Felix: Now, the prototype development process, you mentioned that going back to it, you guys had one co-founder, it sounded like, that knew how to build this kind of stuff but the rest of you guys didn't have that kind of experience. Were you guys focused on developing the pitch and the marketing and the sales behind? How did the work get split up?
Will: Yeah, so the work got split up early on when we were dedicated on the prototype. Patrick, who is our third technical co-founder, was dedicated to hardware development. Tim actually just taught himself how to code, and we had a couple mentors and freelance helpers who dedicated time to support that. We had a small bit of funding, so some of the harder challenges, like getting our wifi booted up, we were able to outsource some of those. Patrick was kind of doing some of the low level embedded hardware, software. I was doing a lot of the marketing, pitch building alongside Tim and Patrick as well. It was collaborative. Some of the UX design and trying to mop up user experiences and apps.
I came from a consumer research background so trying to map consumer insights and problems to tangible app experiences and solutions was what I was dedicated to early on.
Felix: What point did you guys to quit your day jobs at the same time or when was the realization that you guys should do that, make that jump?
Will: Yeah, we got enough money and Patrick and Tim did at first because they were coding so much. I just held on to mine up until a month before Kickstarter just because I could. I was working remotely too so it helped.
Felix: You guys then prepare for that launch on Kickstarter. Talk to us about that. What did you guys do leading up to the launch?
Will: Yeah, I mean, Kickstarter is definitely a beast. It has a recipe. There's definitely a roadmap to doing that, you can look across many, many Kickstarter's and many, many blog posts and books and guides now to piece together. About 90, 120, comfortably I'd say 120 day preparation period to get a Kickstarter up and running. You've got your video, you've got your pitch design. You've got your title and a short description of your product has to be dialed. Your product imagery and prototyping, so 3D prints, et cetera, and then submitting it to Kickstarter, getting feedback. Getting it approved and kicking it out with influencers and a full marketing plan.
I think one of the key things though is actually building a community going into it. Your relying on your Kickstarter as your place to build your audience is definitely not the way to do it. You need to develop and build an audience that you can bring into the Kickstarter. That was a lot of what we were focused on for really the 180 days, I'd say, out going to the Kickstarter. We had a small Instagram community of passionate creators. We had a shared hashtag. We [inaudible] that community to about 10,000 people, had an email list of about 20K going into our Kickstarter that were all aware of Mailbox as an idea.
We surveyed them to engage them in the user experience and product development. By having people involved they were the first people to back us in the first couple of days, and you have to have a good day one. Without a good day one your Kickstarter is not going to do well. We didn't sleep for three days and had basically a call center set up in our house, in our garage office, and called every single person we knew. Through all that network, kind of pitching that we had for a whole year, about the concept to just try and get the money, we met so many people that were brought into us and into our vision that gaining the support on day one was a lot easier.
I find a lot of time with early founders and people, entrepreneurs, coming out with their ideas, they're very scared to share what their idea is in fear of someone stealing it. It's a totally rational fear, but it's definitely not going to help you with a Kickstarter, and it's definitely going to make it harder to get funding and grow a community and build a network and get feedback even. We talked about it to everyone we freaking could and signed them up. That was the difference maker.
Felix: 10,000 follower on Instagram, 20,000 emails. That's a huge community to have before you guys even have a product. What made them want to follow along with you even though there was nothing that they could essentially get from you guys just yet?
Will: Yeah, they just were passionate about what we were passionate about. I think that's a shared set of values and kind of way of life is what we were founded on, and that's what that community was. Basically, we would repost peoples photos that were tagged in our box and we would just people contributing, collaborated and we talked to all of them. We would post these surveys and get product feedback and have conversations with individuals. One of the early community members, someone who started following us just because they liked our Instagram page, is now one of our software engineers. When we put a job application up, he applied, he was the first intern that we ever brought in from college, and when he graduated we hired him on.
Felix: That's awesome. These 20,000 emails you guys collected, was there an incentive to get them to join? How were you collecting the emails?
Will: That was a combination of things, giveaways, surveys, refer a friend. We did one giveaway going in that was taking that core community and just inviting their friends to get an incentive to win a drone, it was a DGI10 and two at the time. Yeah, we just bought it and put it up for a giveaway to help grow that base, but through that email list then we started messaging and surveying and bringing all of those people into the product development experience.
Felix: I like that, so you guys didn't have a product, you're in pre-launch phase, but that shouldn't stop you from having some kind of incentive for people to want to be a part of it. You first started off with kind of baiting them with a product that might not be exactly the same thing as yours, but it certainly tried the same audience. You guys got a drone and that's obviously going to be a very similar audience to the people that will want to buy your product, they join the email through those giveaways and then from there you were able to pull them more into your universe through surveying. What we're sending them to keep them engaged and get them to learn more about what was to come?
Will: Yeah, we just did surveys. Mostly just, "Hey, here's just ranking problems you may be having, telling us what cameras you have. What's your current workflow or backup solution or editing suite," to gather base data for demographic info, and then having them, I don't know, we would kind of present questions about how they may rank certain feature sets. Whether they were looking for being able to back up and edit on their phone, or, sorry, back up in the field or edit on their phone.
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Section 3 of 3 [00:36:00 - 00:51:38] (NOTE: speaker names may be different in each section)
Will: Or sorry, back up, sorry back up in the field or edit on their phone. Whether it's a photo or video that they wanted. Did they want to continue to edit on their computer, or go to them, we would just come up with every feature we were thinking about creating. Then we'd have people rank and comment on it. It was kind of like a crowdsourcing. We knew pretty much what we wanted to build, but then we would kind of add some objective data to it and just get some numbers to back up and prioritize features so to speak through this community of creators.
Felix: Can you think of something from the survey or data that you collected from the survey that might have led you guys astray. Like the data seemed to say one thing, but then didn't actually play out in reality?
Will: You know I don't think anything really led us astray from the data. There was an audience that was participating in the surveys that gave us information that would either enforce or not certain hypotheses that we had. We will made our own decision sometimes based on what we thought was the correct answer. It wasn't like we went straight off the data. We used it as a weighted part to being forced or not. Certain questions we may have had, but some of the struggles we had was just we tried to bite off more than I think we could chew. That was not a problem of surveys. That was just a problem and I mean this specifically for the first product. I just mean that as a problem of time and resources and just understanding of the technology still. Just like the time it really takes to make something like this that's as hardware and software intensive.
There could have been things we did in the user experience or the feature sets that maybe were pared done enough that, or given more time or thought or testing for example that were vetted to maybe get better reviews there. There were definitely a handful of bad reviews. There were a lot of great reviews and understanding our audience and understanding our resources versus feature sets was something that took us time to hone in on and we really learned a lot from the first product development stages and release. We're so dialed on it now for what we're doing for 2.0. Way more comfortable at scoping and part of what was just the flux and instability as we're growing the organization.
We were adding developers as we were still trying to get a product to market. Once we had that really core group of software team together like we do today, the structure in place and all the resources we need, whether it's actually having a proper in-house UIUX designer, a [inaudible] master. All these important members of a good software team. Having a set culture and way of scoping and scoring and managing agile. All of these things really weren't in place in the early days. It was kind of wild west. Having that in place is so critical.
Felix: Yes and speaking of that and so after the first Kickstarter, I think this was the story that you were telling us which was that you guys shipped that first 3500 units of the Gnarbox and it didn't exactly go as planned. Can you tell us what happened?
Will: Yes, there was a number of problems. First problems at the warehouse level. We had problems shipping out to EU and we had orders got lost. We lost money on inventories that took us six months to claim. Somewhere like $50,000.00 in inventory that was completely lost, that had to file insurance claims on. It took time to get that money back and yada yada. Then the angry customers come from that, because they didn't have their products and we didn't know where they were. It was just a number of mistakes there that we just bent over backwards and did everything we could for our customers to kind of save our image there. The other problem we faced was some of the early units having these kinds of battery failures, just early bug, first units that we thought we had solved. It took us probably four months to solve the initial problem, but there were still a few units out there. Maybe like a hundred total, but still, it's a hundred angry people.
Like I said we bent over backwards. We gave them full replacements. We overnighted them units all around the world and lost some money in the process, but built some loyal customers. One of the saving grace is of those two problems and actually our third problem just being not delivering exactly what every consumer envisioned the product would do. We put out Gnarbox 1.0 and people were assuming it did X,Y and Z, even if we were saying it did A,B and C. They saw it as one thing and we saw it as a different thing. Having that alignment between your customers and your product is just everything. We missed out on that a little bit with the first one. We just didn't meet every single person's expectations which is just a lack of understanding of what exactly they saw it as to them. Also our ability to deliver that in a timely manner.
Those were the three problems and kind of our saving grace through a lot of that was A. Frequent software updates. We were just pounding through software updates from our updates. That was super, super helpful. We were working 24 hours a day it felt like for the first three to six months, just to get the code up to snuff for the people who did have units. Then the second thing was customer support. A couple of us set up an Intercom service, you know awesome app and just live chat and e-mail. We got people on the phone on long conversations and every angry customer that came in. It was just our goal, Tim and I and a couple of the other members of the team on the marketing and support team were just on that thing all day and night. Talking to customers and I think that made a big difference to kind of saving face and building loyalty, because that's what you have to do to come out with.
If you don't have a community that gets behind your product and sure we lost some people along the way. I bet you some of those people came back and back our second generation just because they had conversations with us. We gave them a return willingly.
Felix: Yes. One of the things that you said that I really like is that whoever is closest to the customer wins. What does this mean to you?
Will: Oh that's everything. That means a few things to me. We've dedicated full-time roles in our organization and are continuing to double down on customer research. Constant frequent active participation from every member of the product and marketing teams with a weekly dedicated meeting to review observations in the market that builds a large customer research database with I think, we have hundreds of nuggets if not in the thousands now and a nugget to us is just like anything from a statement we heard in the user experience research interview, on a one-on-one conversation, that we saw a Facebook comment and we're all just ready and seeing those things and documenting and databasing them. Translating who it was. What type of person they are. The persona that we may have denoted them. Maybe they're a professional photographer. Maybe they're a beginner photographer.
Maybe they're a hobbyist, wedding photographer. All sorts of different personas. Documenting them in a huge database and being able to quantify problems, quantify solutions and prove that hypotheses that we have set in our product. Then building solutions that are well tested, so app features, marketing messages get tested in focus groups. Just doubling down on focus groups and beta testing this 2.0 product. Iterating on software and user experiences. There's just so many ways to do that. The Intercom is definitely a huge role of it, is just having active frequent conversations with anybody who wants to chat. People would come in and I'll have the conversation just about the best SD card for their cameras. It has nothing to do with Gnarbox, but they feel comfortable talking to us about getting advice for their camera workflow.
That's what we want. We want people to see us as thought leaders. We want to make sure we're top of mind. That's a common term you may hear. Just whether it's through e-mails and blog posts. Articles that maybe you published on your website or across the web. Having a meaningful knowledge base is all part of good customer support system. All of that just builds into one beautiful picture for just staying close to the customer. I think delivering a product that actually meets the customer needs in the face of competition is the final output of all that. The reviews you get back and all of that will build and the word of mouth marketing you get and that early referencing of your product delivery is going to be what makes or breaks the future of the organization. If you're not close to your customer early on, then you're not going to make it.
Felix: You mentioned that you use Intercom to help manage a lot of this feedback communication with the customer. Any other apps or tools or services that you rely on to help run the business?
Will: Our customer database is run through Airtable, but that's just internal. We're a big [inaudible], but interacting with customers Intercom is our kind of way of doing that.
Felix: Got it. What about the website? How is that, was that designed in-house or did you guys hire a design company for this?
Will: We went through a few stages on the website and we're about to go through another in the process of re-designing the website for kind of the future product that's about to come out. The first time around we hired a highly regarded in the Shopify community. They merged so it was Rocket Code originally and then they merged with VV Excel out of Santa Monica and they're in Santa Monica and Rocket Code is in Columbus, Ohio. Really awesome incredible designers, but this time around, we've hired a full-time UIUX designer for our applications and he comes from a background, one of his previous roles is not in application, but in web, part of merchandising design, Shopify as well. He's actually now creating our website in-house which is awesome and we just have some hired guns to code it.
Felix: Very cool, so you mentioned that you guys are going through another redesign? What is the purpose of the redesign? What are you guys focused on trying to solve?
Will: Yes, totally, so the first one, our first go-round with Gnarbox 1.0 was about creating just a single page, like a single landing page buying experience, one pager. The evolution now of both the product and the organization is just adding way more dimensions to it, so we're no longer providing a single product and a single app but we are developing the Gnarbox 2.0. We're still going to be delivering the Gnarbox 1.0. We have a suite of accessories including battery chargers, replaceable batteries. High end card readers specifically designed for photographers and videographers. Our device has an SD card reader, but many of our users are CF shooters or C Fast 2.0 shooters or XQD shooters as well. Providing shielded USB 3.1, USBC type C readers is an essential part of the whole product experience. That's something that we didn't have the first time around.
UHS2 readers, so having the map speed opportunities for our users to just kind of come to one place and buy what they need for their mobile work flow solutions. Then we're also building an ecosystem of mobile applications, so not only do we have one app called Gnarbox, but we're actually developing multiple apps. The change that we have is now we have the need for a storefront, not just buy now. Which we bypassed the store before in the first go round of the code with 1.0. It was just one thing to buy. From a single SKU to a multi-SKU environment and a multi software experience environment we just need to have more landing pages.
We want to build out our own custom knowledge base. We kind of had plugged in the Intercom one and now we're migrating to a custom built off of Zendesk. We're kind of mixing and matching some tools to custom design a lot of different experiences on the website both for pre-purchase and post-purchase. Yes, there's just a need to re-architect the entire experience.
Felix: Awesome, so thank you so much for your time Will, gnarbox.com. G-n-a-r-b-o-x.com is the website. What's next? What do you want to see the business be at this time next year?
Will: I'll tell you, so this time next year we'll be going into the first full holiday cycle with 2.0 on the market, so that's going to be a super critical time. Our big trade show every year is PhotoPlus Expo. You can check us out this year. That's late October in New York City. We'll be pumping 2.0 pretty hard. There's some stuff in the background that I just can't share. I'm excited for next year. We'll continue to be finding partnerships and opportunities to bring more meaningful app experiences and hardware experiences, but yes next year. You know our goal in 2019 by the end of it is really to just become a profitable organization and relying on e-commerce and direct consumer and proper customer support is going to be one of the big keys to success.
I think seeing a big translation from selling off Amazon and BMH and trying to sell more direct to consumer with upsell involved in that with our accessories is part of what I think is going to make us a successful organization and a profitable organization. Yes. Shopify is a big part of that.
Felix: Awesome. Thank you so much for your time, Will.
Will: Thanks Felix, appreciate it.
Felix: Thanks for tuning into another episode of Shopify Masters, the e-commerce podcast for ambitious entrepreneurs powered by Shopify. To get your exclusive 30 day extended trial visit shopify.com/masters.


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Question & Answer With Chana Jenny Weisberg - One Size Fits All?
A Simple Jew asks:
A friend recently told me a story how he learned that he must use different a technique to motivate each of his children.
Returning home one night after work, he decided to give his kids an incentive to get their homework done quickly. "Once you get your homework done, we can all go out and get some ice cream!", he excitedly told them.
His daughter eagerly and instantly complied and completed her homework in a short period of time.
His oldest son completed his homework after repeated prompting and prodding to hurry up.
His middle son ignored his father. When reminded that he would not be getting any ice cream unless he finished his homework, the son replied, "I don't want ice cream" - thereby removing any power the father had over him.
Have you been successful to find the unique motivation technique for each of your children?
Chana Jenny Weisberg answers:
Every parent wants to raise children who fulfill their responsibilities with a feeling of joy followed by a sense of well-deserved satisfaction.
It is often difficult for young children to feel that joy without parental encouragement to sweeten the new skill they are learning. Different children will face different challenges that parents will need to be at the ready to sweeten. One child has difficulty sharing, another clearing her plate after lunch, and yet another has difficulty finishing his homework quickly, like the child in this example.
Because children are different in personality as well as age, every parent will need to be creative and attentive to figure out how to motivate every unique child in a positive manner.
Here are two ideas about motivating children based on stories from my own parenting life:
1. Age Appropriate Encouragement- My 3rd grader was recently having difficulty remembering to recite blessings before she ate. I thought back to my parenting class, and remembered that our teacher had suggested that every time a child recites a blessing, the parent should encourage the child by calling out with a lot of excitement, "You made an angel!" since every time a Jew does a mitzvah, that creates an angel.
The next time we had a meal together, I decided that every time a child said a blessing out loud, I would call out, "You made an angel!"
My younger children loved it, and started saying all their blessings in a loud voice, and got a wide, proud smile when I said that they had made an angel. But when I saw my 3rd grader picking up a piece of food, and I called out in my best nursery-school-teacher voice "Make an angel!" she became very upset. "You're talking to me like a baby!" and she began to cry with her head in her hands, and ran out of the room.
Children of different ages require different motivational strategies. The Rambam discussed this issue when he described how to motivate children of various ages to study Torah. "When a child is young, the parent should give him nuts and honey and dates. When he grows older and rejects these small gifts, the father should give him fine clothes, and when he grows yet older and rejects these, the father should give him gifts of money. Afterwards, when he grows still older, the father should say, "Study Torah and you will become a leader and be called Rabbi.' And afterwards he should say, "With Torah you will merit paradise.' And when he becomes wise, his father should train him to learn Torah for its own sake."
I decided to try a different strategy more suited to my 3rd grader. I bought a bag of chocolate chips, and before the next meal I placed a row of cups on the table with the name of each child written on it. Every blessing recited out loud resulted in two chocolate chips in that child's cup. My 2nd grader got excited about this idea, and while her younger siblings eat their chocolate chips every evening after dinner, my 3rd grader saves up her chocolate chips for weeks at a time. At present she has 85 chocolate chips in her cup (I know because she counted them last night), and is planning to eat them all Erev Pesach!
2. Ask the Child- I had a child in kindergarten who would wake up at dawn, long before her siblings, but would play with her dolls and draw, and would not get dressed. All of my other children would wake up, get dressed, eat their breakfast, and would be all ready when it was time for me to take them to school. But my kindergartner was never ready on time, which resulted in a lot of nagging by me and crying by her and stress for the Weisberg family all around.
Some days I tried to motivate my kindergartner by promising her a note for her teacher. The promise of a note worked at times, but mostly it didn't. Then I bought her some special chocolates wrapped in shiny yellow wrapper at the store. The promise of a chocolate worked a few times, but then they lost their effect as well.
I had no idea what to do. The situation went on for months and months, and it was only getting worse and worse. Then one day I was sitting with a friend in the park, and she suggested something so simple, so obvious, but yet very, very smart. She said, "Why don't you ask your daughter what to do so she could get dressed in time?"
That very evening I sat down with my daughter on the sofa and had a talk that we should have had many months before. My daughter suggested that we create a sticker chart. For every five mornings she gets ready on time, she gets a prize from the dollar store.
You can already guess the end of the story. With that motivation, my kindergartner became the first family member dressed every morning. To this day, several years later, that child always is one of the first children to get dressed, and has never once missed the school bus.
At this point, I would also like to make a side point that probably a lot of readers are asking themselves. "If you give the child a prize/treat to do something, won't that child become dependent on prizes/treats to do what they need to do?" This is an excellent and very valid question.
But as the Rambam assured us a thousand years ago, and as I have seen without exception in my own parenting experience with dozens and dozens of sticker charts etc., if done correctly, the prize/treat phase is just a bridge to ease the child into a new way of doing things. After a few weeks/months the child forgets about the prize/treat, but continues the new behavior.
One last note in this topic. When a child is difficult to motivate through positive means, our first instinct is often to turn to anger and yelling. There is a place for strict discipline in parenting, but the ratio of negative to positive methods should be like the ratio of salt to sugar in a cake recipe. Or the amount we use our right hand vs. our left hand when hammering a nail into the wall. We need the left hand to keep the nail steady and straight, but the vast majority of the force comes from the right hand. And this is the way it should be in parenting as well.
Raising children is a big challenge and a tremendous privilege as well. Each and every Jewish parent is helping to mold the next generation of the Jewish people. We build our children, and our children build us. This is the work that Hashem gives us in the world to serve Him.
Chana Jenny Weisberg is the author of the newly-released book One Baby Step at a Time: 7 Secrets of Jewish Motherhood and the creator of the popular website http://www.jewishmom.com/


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Saving the Flavor of Fresh Herbs
Whether homegrown or store-bought, there are ways to preserve the flavor of fresh herbs for later
I tend to shy away from recipes that call for more than one fresh herb; they're expensive to buy, and I always end up having more left over than I can use before it wilts. The best solution would be to grow my own, which I have started to do—basil, parsley and dill in the garden, mint in a pot by a sunny window—but not everyone has room (or the inclination) for a garden, and some herb plants don't do well indoors. Besides, only the most dedicated gardener has the time and space for all of the possible culinary herbs they might want to use.
Whether homegrown or store-bought, there are ways to preserve the flavor of fresh herbs for later:
1. Keep them fresh longer. One method does not fit all when it comes to short-term storage. Some leafy annual herbs, especially basil, stay fresher if placed in water, stems down (like a bouquet of flowers) rather than in the refrigerator. Woody perennials, including rosemary, thyme and oregano, can withstand the cold of the refrigerator. Cook's Illustrated recommends stacking them in layers separated by parchment paper in plastic containers with tight lids, or in plastic bags for smaller amounts. Parsley, dill, chives and cilantro can be stored in the refrigerator but should either have their stem ends in water or wrapped in a damp paper towel and sealed in a plastic bag.
2. Freeze them. Some herbs don't freeze well—basil turns black, and cilantro loses its flavor. But hardier herbs, including rosemary, mint, dill, thyme, parsley and tarragon, can be frozen and stored in an airtight container.
3. Dry them. The reason people use fresh herbs over dried is that they often taste better. But there are a few exceptions—bay leaves being the most notable—and, in any case, it's better to dry your leftover herbs than let them go to waste. The Beginner's Guide to Edible Herbs, by Charles W. G. Smith, suggests drying dill, basil, rosemary or sage by hanging them upside-down by the stem and then storing them in an airtight container once dried. Other herbs can be dried on paper towels in the refrigerator. A dehydrator also works well if you have one. Don't bother drying cilantro—it loses its flavor.
4. Make herb butter. Fats help preserve the flavor of herbs, and making herb butter (also known as compound butter) is easy. You just take softened unsalted butter and mix in a generous amount of minced fresh herbs, either singly or in combination, and, if you like, other seasonings. The butter can be frozen in small portions (some people use ice cube trays) and stored for months. The thawed butter can then be used on fish or chicken, in pasta, on vegetables or as a spread. Combinations to try include basil, thyme and dill (recipe at Annie's Eats), cilantro and lime (from Simply Recipes) or nearly the whole kit and caboodle, as this six-herb butter from Chew on That calls for.
5. Make pesto. Basil is the most traditional herb used in pesto, but parsley, arugula, cilantro, dill and rosemary—really, almost any herbs—also work well. Again, leftover pesto can be frozen in small batches to use later. For something different try parsley and walnut (from the Daily Green), tarragon and pistachio (from Bon Appétit) or cilantro and pumpkin seed (from Tasty Kitchen).
6. Make herb jelly. Mint jelly is the traditional accompaniment to lamb, but just about any herbs can be turned into jellies. They can be used as a spread or as the basis for a meat glaze. As a bonus, they don't need to be kept in the freezer. Renee's Garden gives a basic recipe that can be used with any herb. You can also combine herbs and fruits, as in Pie and Beer's tomato-basil jam or Gourmet magazine's cranberry roesemary wine jelly (via Epicurious).
7. Infuse oil or vinegar. Infusing oil and vinegar is a great way to capture the flavor of fresh herbs without preserving the herbs themselves. The Beginner's Guide to Edible Herbs recommends light oils such as olive, safflower or sunflower with strongly flavored herbs for the best results. You simply fill a sterilized bottle or jar about a quarter to a third of the way full with fresh herbs that have been rinsed and allowed to dry, then fill the rest with oil. Cap the container and let stand at room temperature for 10 to 14 days, then strain out and discard the herbs. The oil should keep for up to two months. The process is similar for vinegars: the Farmer's Almanac shares the basic formula.