[Marketing] Ideas / Plan

[Gerald A]

Hi Nikolaus,

On Fri, Dec 30, 2011 at 2:48 PM, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller <hns at goldelico.com
> wrote:

> Am 30.12.2011 um 19:22 schrieb Ed Kapitein:
> On 12/30/2011 06:59 PM, Gerald A wrote:
>
> What I think is lost in all of this is the question: Who is the intended
> customer?
>
> Currently: those who own a GTA01 and GTA02 or are willing to give it away.
>
> There are approx. 18000 units out there waiting for a potential upgrade to
> a
> GTA04 board. And we just have 56 group tour orders within 6 weeks. This is
> 0,3 %...
>

 Well, 18000 is a pittance of the 4.6 billion cell phones, and a fraction
of the
500,000 smart phones.

Since part of the issue seems to be attracting numbers, I was thinking of
ways to
attract people who might otherwise might not be interested or be able to.

> For me, I don't have time right now to assemble a Freerunner and a GTA04
> to get a working phone
> "with possibilities". I want the completed package, then end result. The
> neo was shipped with the slogan
>
> This takes approx. 15 minutes. Rarely more. And we have an installation
> service if you don't want to
> DIY (I would appreciate if there will come up local resellers or hacking
> groups in your area).
>

Does this 15 minutes require soldering skills? (I think it does).
I personally am not averse to trying to solder -- it's something I want to
learn more about. But your "average linux
geek" probably doesn't want to. But they still might be enamored by the
prospect of an open phone.


Well, to me it looks as if you own a GTA01 that is not used? Maybe you
> could think about donating

it to someone who urgently wants to have a new case for a GTA04?
>

I actually do hack on it once in a while. I had written lots of primitive
utilities for it, but never got it
working as an actual phone.


>   My thoughts too, set up a kind of micro credit, where people can lent
>> money, lets say 100 euro, and  with that money build the phones.
>
> Once the phones are made, more developers can develop different aspects of
>> the phone and people will see the GTA04 become more mature.
>
> i guess you must be Dutch to come up with a micro credit plan in
>> west-europe ;-)
>>
>
I'm not Dutch, but I like the idea of micro-funding, and I am aware of
micro-credit.



> Well, the problem is not to get a credit to produce the devices in
> advance.
>

My "block" system, which is really close to the micro-funding that someone
referred to on Kickstarter.

But what about this idea: Group Tour orders with partial payment.
>

My idea/kickstarter would allow something like this -- "here, let me give
you some money, and
return 'something' of value in the future". It allows even smallish
donations -- in kickstarters case,
they give you a keychain. I'd rather allow it to be used against a future
product, like a complete phone.
I guess you could sell power adapters for ~$10, which if people didn't top
up you could give away.


> What do those of you think, who still hesitate to subscribe to the group
> tour to upgrade
> your existing GTA01 or GTA02?
>
> PS: Taking too much credit is what the Greek state did do wrong. They are
> no
> longer able to pay back neither the interest rates nor the credit without
> subscribing
> to another credit.
>

The "Group Tour" is now advertising a price of 474Euro (approx $600CDN).
For this, I'm getting
some neat upgrade bits, and I have to pitch in my $300+ Neo. For this
price, I could buy two
non-open but complete iPads.

It's just passing through the holidays and things are tight budget wise
here, so I'm still waiting
to see. However, I'd pledge $100 for a more complete device "later", even
though it might never
get to completion.

As for your Greek example -- almost every country in the world uses credit
to finance their
Government. And this goes for business too -- in one way or another, most
businesses use
credit. Politics aside, just as you have to manage how much power your
chips consume, just
as you manage the number and purpose of your chips, credit has to be used
wisely. And
wisely used, both chips and credit can yield wonderful results.

My idea wasn't pure credit, though -- it was a kind of investment in a
future device, rather
then the "kit" of today. My thought process was to move the game forward,
the "kit" is
the first step, but the eventual "phone" is what people are after. If you
let people pledge
towards what they want, you can fund what you need to get there.

I thank you for your ideas and response -- and I hope that we'll get your
kit out the door,
either with or without my idea.

Thanks!
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