CA6 Kickstarter Brainstorming

[Maurice]

I have a few more quick videos I want to shoot (valve module, vibration module, light module) and then I plan to move onto the Kickstarter project.

Here's my current plan for goals on the Kickstarter:

1. Offer a basic kit that just includes: 1 hoteshoe flash cable, 1 camera cable, CA6, and dev module for $160
2. Offer an plus kit that includes everything above plus: 1 more hotshoe cable, beam, light, sound, and valve (1 solenoid) modules for $280
3. Offer an everything kit that includes everything above plus: 3 more camera cables, 2 more hotshoe cables, 3 more solenoids, projectile and vibration modules for $400
4. Offer a beta program that includes all of the above plus ships you an early beta version August 2018.  This would be limited to 10 people and would cost $800.

Since I'm doing the beta program I would probably want time to get feedback from those users and wouldn't ship the final CA6 until May 2019.  If I don't need to do a lot of updates I could probably ship sooner, but I do want to have some time to adjust things based on the beta testing.

I don't want to offer a ton of different configurations.  I've learned from other kickstarters the logistics of a lot of different options adds up to a lot of pain during shipping.  But I'm up to changing these configurations if people think other options would work better.

Then for the video I want to target around a 3-4 minute video.  Here's a brief outline of what I think I'll do:

• Start with music and nice photos.  Let the music drop away and my voice will give a introduction to what high speed photography triggers are
• Photos might be lightning, birds in flight, popping balloon, projectile shots, water droplets
• Maurice showing off the CA6 and briefly mentioning all the ports and wifi connectivity
• Spend maybe 30 seconds each showing off two of my favorite modules (maybe valve and projectile?)
• Maurice talking about the commitment to making it open source and benefits of that
• Closing comments about how this enables photographers to take new kinds of photos
  

What else should I cover in the brief kickstarter video?  I will put links to all the CA6 videos I've been making (there is well over an hour of content in these for people who want in depth understanding of the software and all the modules.

I'm sure things will change by the time I post it to kickstater so don't complain when I final post the project to Kickstarter and it doesn't match this.

Feedback?

[Tom Spine]

Totally understand wanting to keep the configurations simple. 

Have you considered, though, offering kits that are geared toward specific use cases? For example, I'm primarily interested in water droplet photography and would love to see a kit that maximized just that aspect... say, 1 camera cable, 3 flash cables, multiple valves. I can totally live without beam, sound, & vibration. Dunno if I'm an odd case or not though.

--Tom

[Maurice]

Hi Tom,

Yes, I've certainly thought about this.  The problem is there are a ton of different use cases people will want to customize.  To be fair, water droplets is probably one of the most common uses.  Still I worry if I start opening it to different uses I'm worried people will want their use case added to the list and then I could easily get to something like 10 more kits.  One thing I'm considering is keeping it to these simple kits, but then making it so people can add more parts to their kickstarter orders.  I've never allowed that in my previous campaigns because it messes up my shipping.  However, maybe in this case that's a way to handle this.  The prices for the added on parts would probably be a little higher but still probably less than retail.

One other problem with having too many options on kickstarter is people can't figure out what they want.  I suspect that would be a real problem if I had 10-15 different options.  With the 4 I listed above I think it's pretty clear what the differences are and people have a progression on what to buy. The valve module is the most expensive module for me to make.  So dropping off those other modules won't save you a huge amount.  Of course if you really need multiple solenoids then the premium for the everything package starts to add up.

[Tom Spine]

Thanks for the thoughtful reply, Maurice. The ability to add on parts would rock, but I totally understand if you decide against that because of the headaches. If push came to shove and you only offered what you list in the original post, I'd probably opt for the everything kit just to get the multiple solenoids.

No matter what you decide, you will NOT get any complaints from me! I'm just so thankful you are doing the project!

--Tom

[Maurice]

Thanks for the feedback Tom.  It's really useful to hear these arguments since they will certainly show up during the Kickstarter and having more time to think about a response is super helpful.

[Maurice]

I am getting close to posting the kickstarter (hopefully in the next few weeks).  If anyone here wants to help review the video and other details I'll be posting to Kickstarter feel free to contact me requesting this: https://www.dreamingrobots.com/pages/contact-us