[konschubert]

I often wonder into which of these two categories I fall with my epaper calendars.

On the one hand, I’ve been working on this product for four years, put every free minute into it, and it still doesn’t make enough money for me to quit my job.

On the other hand, the product keeps getting better as I work on it, and I have now sold 500 of them.

But sometimes I feel like I can’t keep going like this. Two jobs and a family is just too much.

I think I should either quit my job and properly focus on it, relying on savings until the sales can support me. Or put the project into maintenance mode (I will keep the lights on for at least 10 years, no matter what).

What would you advise me to do?

This is the product: https://shop.invisible-computers.com/products/invisible-cale...

[ajkjk]

Sounds like a marketing problem. It wouldn't be weird at all to see that at every bookstore in the country. So why isn't it there? Are you focusing on making the product better forever, instead of getting it in front of people, or tuning it to what they are most eager to pay for, or tuning the website to get more sales? What beliefs are causing you to make that mistake? Are you scared of those parts, and therefore avoiding them and convincing yourself they're not important?

It sounds like you wish to be able to live off this work, yet you're not modeling the gap between where you are and where you want to be correctly (clearly, or you wouldn't be asking for help). So yes, you are being stubborn, but that doesn't mean the project is doomed. Just that you need to step back and look at the problems holistically.

[konschubert]

Two things:

I am not sure if marketing is the bottleneck or the product itself - I have been getting inconsistent feedback on that.

On the marketing side, I’ve been trying to make the website better and i have been playing with Google and instagram ads. I don’t even dislike marketing - but I don’t think I’m very good at it. I could try to pay for this competency, but I’m scared of losing bunch of money.

[ajkjk]

Well, I'm no expert, but I can say what I think. First, your product looks awesome.

But I do think the landing page is a _little_ less good than it probably could be, but I'm not sure I can say exactly why. I bet there is some company out there that could take this thing from an obscure product to a Christmas staple, if they got their hands on it. Maybe there is a way that you could do it in a profit-sharing way so you're not taking a financial risk yourself. After all that is the point of venture capital also: they fund the endeavor and then own part of it.

My one suggestion would be de-emphasizing "you can do whatever you want with it" and emphasizing "here are the things that you can easily do with it". Because most people aren't gonna do any customization, or at least, will be intimidated by that. The ideal impression is that I might impulse-buy it because it's a cool desktop calendar, but then use it in other ways afterwards, and power users might get it for the customization features.

(couple other small things: that _particular_ NYT article makes kind of a weird impression. Maybe make something that doesn't involve a picture of Trump? People hate Trump and they hate seeing pictures of him also. Also, the phrase "an acquired taste" is not worth including. Black and white is stylish! someone who wants that is going to already know they like it.)

[konschubert]

hey, thank you for the comments. I think these are all good points.

I will try to get some help with marketing, maybe also find a distributor etc.

As you pointed out, I am especially struggling around the question of how to market the different features, and how much to market the customisation options.

And I will try to choose a more neutral article for the website photo. I didn't think about the impression it could leave.

[rvbissell]

That's cool. The news front-page screenshot & calendar use-cases appeal to me. (Although, it seems like I could just do the news FP thing myself, with "Any image URL", rather than your $3/mo service.)

Is it touch interactive? Like, can I tap on a cell in the calendar to see "... and 2 more" details?

Can I easily create my own replacement frame?

Can I hang it on the wall in a manner where I can rotate between portrait & landscape orientations, and have it react in an appropriate way for the running app?

Is there an SDK for app development?

[konschubert]

You can probably create your own frame if you are careful when you open it up.

It has no touch. If you change its orientation on the wall, you have to change the orientation in the phone app.

There is no sdk but there is an api one can use for connecting third party apps.

[jimbobthrowawy]

Are you using something like an ESP32 to run the thing? I ask because a lot of them have a surprising amount of random sensors tacked on, like accelerometers. (capacitive, and hall-effect sensors too) Auto-orientation is probably a thing you'd need to design for though.

[dvt]

This would probably kill it on Instagram ads honestly. Price point is a tad high, but it's like the perfect "not sure what to get someone" gift.

[sitkack]

Price point is high? Based on what? I'd say the price is too low for the expected volume.

[BeetleB]

Resolution is fairly low. You can get cheaper Kobo's with higher resolution. Here's a 7" one:

https://us.kobobooks.com/collections/ereaders/products/certi...

Kobos are fairly hackable, and I suspect one could program a Kobo to do the same as what he is doing.

[sitkack]

Exactly, the market he is trying to serve has the customer as his own competitor. That is a bad position to be in. I wouldn't want to be my own customer, would you?

Two recommendations.

1) Go wireless with enough power for like 500 screen updates for 6 weeks between recharges.

2) Find a market where your customers can't make the product

[dvt]

> Based on what?

Based on it being a semi-impulse buy, since I don't see many people explicitly searching for "framed programmable e-ink calendar."

[konschubert]

I’ve tried instagram ads and it didn’t work. But probably I just suck at marketing.

[nucleardog]

What’s the refresh rate when displaying an image?

It’s been on my todo list to do something like this to help my four year old get some insight into “why we do things when we do them”, but she’s still at the age where a calendar/clock/general sense of time are a little difficult to understand sometimes.

My plan was to set up a display that was more “kid friendly images annotated around the outside of a clock” and maybe some bars that fill/empty as we get close to certain things (like bedtime) so she has more opportunity to understand how much time she has left and decide how she wants to use it.

If it refreshes frequently enough, this definitely looks workable for that for the time being and still serves a purpose in the future as a family calendar.

Which I guess also raises the question—how much of this is dependent on cloud services? Obviously the website display, but could it fetch and render an image or ICS file without an internet connection?

(None of this is probably helpful as far as evolving the product, just asking because you’re here and clicking a buy button would take a thing off my todo list.)

[akomtu]

A few ideas:

1. Talk to some decent designers. The wooden frame feels a bit dull. Make the frame customizable.

2. This isn't just a calendar, but a todo list where you and your wife can add things to buy or to do, from your phones. This screen on the wall makes the list real.

3. This screen can show home stats: energy and water usage, weather, etc.

4. Add an option with touch screen. Removing a todo item by touching the screen is better than finding your phone and connecting it to the eink screen.

[joelfried]

I would advise you to plan out the options to the best of your ability, then have a long conversation with your spouse presenting those options.

[breck]

1.) I don't like your name. Your computers are not invisible. They are definitely visible. If you were making an Alexa/Siri smart speaker computer that you hid in the walls, that would make sense to call it Invisible Computers.

But your computer is a screen. The definition of a screen is something you look at.

2.) Simplify your workflows: combine with your github profile. This is clearly your passion. Own it. Move all the invisible computer repos to your own GitHub repo.

3) Tell us _why_ this product keeps you going. What do you hate about tech that keeps you working on this for four years?

I love eInk. Have been following it since I read about eInk in Hiawatha Bray's Boston Globe column when I was a kid. I think I may have been one of the very first (if not the first) to buy the new Daylight computer (though I completely forgot about it until they emailed me recently). I had a couple of Remarkable 2s. I think there's many great things there, and your bet is directionally correct, just need to pivot a few things slightly.

[konschubert]

I'm not sure about the name either. I think I need to get some help with that.

Out of the blue, what would you call it?

[breck]

> what would you call it?

It depends what your long term vision is?

What is the essence of your product? What won't change in the next 5 years? 10 years?

Is it the wood bevel? If so, maybe something like the "Core Display" or "Tree Screen" or "Forest Frame".

Do you not care about the bevel at all and it's the zen of the eInk? Then maybe call it the Zen Screen or Air Display.

[prewett]

First, change the image at the top of that link to show the different apps. Right it's calendars until below the fold (on a desktop), and I didn't scroll down because "eh, physical calendar, not interested". Also, apparently I did not read the text very carefully (maybe because clearly it's a calendar, it says so in the link) and didn't notice the "other apps" bit for several minutes.

However, I don't think the market for this is very large, especially at the current price. How many people have enough events per day that they need a calendar? Plus, my phone already has a calendar, and it has reminders so I don't even need to look at it. If I were married maybe syncing up calendars could be useful, so if that's the use case then put that in the picture. I don't get the whole show-a-website thing. I know HN likes putting the NYT on their wall, but I just don't get it, especially at 125 dpi. A photo, okay, but B&W and 600x480 is not what I'm looking to spend $150 + $3/month for. Also, anything with a subscription is right out. Reliance on external servers is right out, sooner or later that server is going to go away.

The problem as I see it is that the things you put on your desk/wall are either art, 300 dpi color photos, whiteboard for todos, clocks, and calendars. This only really fits the last two--except that there is no option for clocks (say, clock and clock+picture)--and $150 seems kind of expensive for that. Expensive compared to what $150 could buy me, given that a synced up calendar is just a click away on my browser and integrated into my phone.

Since you asked for advice, I'd say you have a cool hobby/craft/maker project, but not a saleable product. Pivot or quit. For instance, if you want to try the hobby route, you could make it to fit standard picture frames of a given size and offer one yourself for extra, and make it assemble-yourself. Saves time on your part, reduces costs, so you can sell it cheaper. Provide a download to setup a local server, and an option to display a PNG (= inexpensive way for users to write pixels directly) via USB or something. I don't know if that's a good idea, but it seems like a wider market.