Eating Glass, Staring into the Abyss

Part 2 of 6

Momenta
Momenta
Jul 27, 2017 · 4 min read

2016 started with a promise to myself and my wife to “see if Dangle was real or not.” I figured doing so would require a modicum of sacrifice and be a part time endeavor. I was wrong.

My new digs in the heart of the tech district…

Flash forward to November 2016 and I’m trading consulting to a machine shop for a desk. I’ve been without a day job for eight weeks and I’m fully committed to building an elegant, useful prototype. How I’d get there?

At the beginning of 2016, I paired up with an electrical engineering wizard, Marcus, and we killed off the original plug-in concept due to its clunky form factor and the realization that nobody was going to dig through their belongings to plug in something to chat. Its successor was Bluetooth powered and borrowed elements from the popular Italian bracelet design. Each link would have a snap-in charm and each would send a unique signal to a user’s phone allowing access to a chat environment only accessible by those with the same charm.

First stab at the Bluetooth bracelet

We spent hundreds of dollars and hours of work validating the Bluetooth keying functionality. Along the way, I had an opportunity to exit my day job and focus full time on the “Dangle opportunity”. The champagne was on ice as printed circuit boards would soon to be en route from China.

But the more I looked at the numbers, the more they didn’t make sense. In my gut, I knew the idea could be better.

What numbers?

Let’s start with reliability. The bracelet concept required each port to have 1) a chip set 2) power source. The ways in which such a bracelet can fail were not limited to, but included: battery life, battery reliability, printed circuit boards and circuitry connections, circuit boards and battery connections, and water damage.

Size was another issue. Despite our best efforts, we could only reduce the size of circuit board and battery to approximately an 1" by 1" x 0.5" cube. The market for people who want to wear a King Kong sized bracelet isn’t exactly huge.

The first bracelet prototype, machined from aluminum (without the plug-in charms)

Building out a supply chain and noodling on hardware to software communication was a comfort area of mine, and despite typical development issues, I was confident. But producing good looking, retail ready design? Software development? Relation to the target market? Those skills were definitely not in my wheelhouse.

This wasn’t a sudden realization — I’d known the team of Marcus and I were lacking in those areas for some time. And although I had talked to a few folks about filling that gap, we hadn’t yet found the right people. This was soon to change.

Finding a Team

Mark Lancaster was an old friend who I hadn’t seen in almost a decade. I posted a message on Facebook about needing help with a side job and his brother recommended him. Clicking on his LinkedIn profile, I was pleasantly surprised to see the last decade had morphed Mark into a top flight UX/UI developer.

Soon Mark and I were discussing the concept over a few/many beers. Mark was intrigued by the initial concept of using a physical device to control permissions, but felt the Bluetooth concept was impractical and overly complicated.

“How many times have you had problems pairing your phone to any device? A lot. I bet it’s a lot.” — Mark

Not only that, but on the software side, he felt the chat app market was “over-saturated” and not the best angle of attack. There’s already GroupMe, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Line, WeChat, Kik, etc etc etc. It would be difficult to carve out a slice of this market.

The same month, I was combing through LinkedIn for someone to add strong product design chops and marketing wisdom. After reviewing dozens of profiles, I reached out to Julie Oldbury. Julie had a great mix of operational knowledge, a taste for jewelry, and experience in launching a tech startup. Julie and I had a few exploratory phone calls that culminated in a meeting where she agreed to join the team.

Our new team enthusiastically planned a meet up in December. I was stoked, looking forward to mobilizing the new crew for an early 2017 Kickstarter. Little did I know that my plans were about to be blown to bits.

by Travis Ziebro

Call To Action

Do you believe in a technology experience that allows you total control of your memories? Do you believe that the items you own and wear should be special?

Momenta allows you to store your moments on beautiful heirloom pieces and share them as you choose. Be notified first when Momenta goes to Kickstarter!

Momenta

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Momenta

Life’s moments involve different people at different times. Keep those moments safe, secure & shareable. http://yourmomenta.com

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