![]() ![]() Which, to me, seems like the biggest risk of all.ĭon’t get me wrong. Doubly frustrating there’s a Risks and Challenges section at the bottom of the campaign that lists supply chains, “customs and shipping regulations” and “pandemics, natural disasters, or other unforeseen events” as risks, but fails to mention that the product doesn’t currently work as shown in the videos. It appears that the pen is now able to handle multiple pen strokes, and that the capture is robust enough to recognize the pen strokes as the word “hello.” It is still a ways away from being as accurate as is shown in the Kickstarter video.Īnd herein lies the crux the Kickstarter videos are full of sleek, extremely well-produced videos, photos and product visions, with nary a developer kit in sight. It briefly shows the handwriting as captured, and shows that the company has made significant progress since I tried the device myself in April. A couple of days later, the team provided the below video, which appears to show a prototype of the pen running wirelessly and connecting to the app. I also asked the Nuwa Pen team to record a video that shows the current version of its pen. The team provided a photo of the version of the pen that was used to create the results shown in the Kickstarter video, and asked that I not share it more widely, citing that “it exposes our MCU, which isn’t public information.” The photo shows a pen with a ribbon cable running to a box the size of a deck of cards, which is then connected to a laptop with a USB cable. The key challenge we’re working on is the time needed to get the embedded software more compact.” So yes, the product will function as well, as shown in the video. The development has been accelerating, which helps us to predict our timeline with much more accuracy. “We have completed most of the complex tasks and developed a functional pipeline in controlled environments. We now aim to ship the first batch in December and the Kickstarter batch in March, which is later than initially expected since the miniaturization was a challenge we’ve managed to overcome,” Tuinier said in the statement. ![]() In this same line of thought, we also needed to update our delivery timeline, which was more in line with our development. We’re now adding to our funding through Kickstarter to extend Nuwa Pen’s future. As for financial risks, we did face some uncertainties early in the project, but our showing at CES helped to mitigate those. “The difference is that we have more control and flexibility with the larger version, particularly regarding camera development. The Kickstarter campaign’s backers noticed that none of the materials provided by Nuwa on the campaign page shows the product actually in use. So while the version I showed you is smaller, the internals are consistent,” Tuinier explained in an emailed comment today, after the Kickstarter campaign went live, and I asked him whether he perceived the risks were significant. Internally we have a development version with the cameras being operational – they are crucial but take significant effort to perfect. “We’re using a consistent hardware tech stack and fine-tuning the embedded software to flash it (integrate it) on the compact version I showed you. I asked the company whether it was worried that what it was trying to do might prove to be impossible. On a basic level, Kickstarter itself says that “hardware and product design creators are required to show working prototypes of their projects” and requires that product creators “show backers the development of your product, both honestly and transparently.” I am definitely not the arbiter of whether Nuwa Pen is falling foul of Kickstarter’s rules here, but I believe it’d be hard to argue that this Kickstarter campaign is good-faith honesty and transparency. This sort of thing is, incidentally, also the reason why I very rarely cover Kickstarter campaigns here on TechCrunch. ![]() This is challenging for a number of reasons. And as someone who was spectacularly bitten by a crowdfunding hardware project I tried (and failed) to deliver myself, I also believe in the importance of being honest about the delta between what is real and what’s part of the product vision. On the one hand, as a pitch coach and storyteller, I understand the importance of storytelling. I’m finding it hard to reconcile that a video called “the journey so far” contains a lot of “we will be able to” statements rather than an accurate representation of, well, the journey so far. As you can also see - there’s virtually no similarity between my awful handwriting and what the Nuwa Pen captured. At the top, you can see what the pen and app captured. ![]() I wrote “write” and “test” and drew a shape. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |