Author Topic: Kickstarter, Triggertrap ada camera trigger.... Calls it quits...  (Read 29835 times)

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Offline MasterBuilder

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Re: Kickstarter, Triggertrap ada camera trigger.... Calls it quits...
« Reply #50 on: March 17, 2015, 07:53:57 pm »
They should open source and publish whatever they've done to this point.

They have, its over here:
https://triggertrap.reamaze.com/kb/triggertrap-redsnap/ada-open-source
 

Offline rx8pilot

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Re: Kickstarter, Triggertrap ada camera trigger.... Calls it quits...
« Reply #51 on: March 17, 2015, 07:58:09 pm »
STEP files are a bit lame. SolidWorks files are much more useful since minor changes will likely need to be made depending on how it is manufactured.
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Offline SmokeyTopic starter

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Re: Kickstarter, Triggertrap ada camera trigger.... Calls it quits...
« Reply #52 on: March 17, 2015, 10:11:09 pm »
STEP files are a bit lame. SolidWorks files are much more useful since minor changes will likely need to be made depending on how it is manufactured.

As someone who needs to share 3D CAD files a lot, I've found STEP is pretty much the standard.  Just going STEP cuts out the whole chain of emails where people say they can't open whatever version solidworks file you have and all that other hassle.  It may not be as easy to modify, but it sure is universally useable as it is.
 

Offline rx8pilot

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Re: Kickstarter, Triggertrap ada camera trigger.... Calls it quits...
« Reply #53 on: March 17, 2015, 10:16:10 pm »
STEP is a great format, don't get me wrong. It's just like getting a PDF file and you want to change the middle paragraph a little.
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Offline SL4P

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Re: Kickstarter, Triggertrap ada camera trigger.... Calls it quits...
« Reply #54 on: March 18, 2015, 07:18:36 am »
The bit i don't get is that if you have a genuinely commercially viable idea, why do you need crowd funding, and if it isn't commercially viable, how is it going to work just because it is crowd funded??
I've faced exactly that problem...  demonstrated the first level of disclosure (and sometimes working prototypes) to 'interested' corporate parties - sometimes very substantial multi-nationals - and as soon as their legal / risk management people see it - I get a photocopied letter back that says -

"We do not accept or entertain unsolicited offers of intellectual property"

- i.e. we don't want to know what we don't know - in case we may have already been thinking about it already - but we don't know, so we can't look at what you're doing in case it overlaps what we may or may not be doing.
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Offline Corporate666

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Re: Kickstarter, Triggertrap ada camera trigger.... Calls it quits...
« Reply #55 on: March 18, 2015, 12:25:31 pm »
I've faced exactly that problem...  demonstrated the first level of disclosure (and sometimes working prototypes) to 'interested' corporate parties - sometimes very substantial multi-nationals - and as soon as their legal / risk management people see it - I get a photocopied letter back that says -

"We do not accept or entertain unsolicited offers of intellectual property"

- i.e. we don't want to know what we don't know - in case we may have already been thinking about it already - but we don't know, so we can't look at what you're doing in case it overlaps what we may or may not be doing.

Well I do exactly the same thing (in my business).  I'm not interested at all in helping someone else bring an idea to market.  There are many reasons, but in a nutshell... there just isn't anything in it for me.   I have a profitable business that took me years to build up.  The person approaching has.... what?  An idea?  Ideas are worthless... executing on ideas is where the value lies (which is why so many of these dolts on KS and IGG can't get it right - because it's not easy).  It would be a stupendously bad idea for a profitable business to engage with a lone inventor when the former brings so much to the table and the latter brings nothing.  Not to mention, I don't know any businesses who don't have any idea how they are going to grow and are looking for ideas.  So not only area ideas worthless but they're not really something most companies are even looking for.
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Offline SL4P

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Re: Kickstarter, Triggertrap ada camera trigger.... Calls it quits...
« Reply #56 on: March 18, 2015, 12:46:59 pm »
I think you missed the part where... I offer to present under an NDA etc - a working hardware prototype (or in the case of software a functional POC) for them to review as relevant/suitable to ...
buy outright
licence
take equity
... we never get to the offers, as they have no idea of the product capability!

The weirdest case I had was a multi-national auto component supplier actually went most of the way with me (almost a year of presentation, negotiation etc) and eventually they hit the same barrier!  The car manufacturers wouldn't accept their presentation unless the car co had expressed a need for such a product development beforehand!  it's just their protocol?!
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Offline Corporate666

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Re: Kickstarter, Triggertrap ada camera trigger.... Calls it quits...
« Reply #57 on: March 18, 2015, 01:02:11 pm »
I think you missed the part where... I offer to present under an NDA etc - a working hardware prototype (or in the case of software a functional POC) for them to review as relevant/suitable to ...
buy outright
licence
take equity
... we never get to the offers, as they have no idea of the product capability!

The weirdest case I had was a multi-national auto component supplier actually went most of the way with me (almost a year of presentation, negotiation etc) and eventually they hit the same barrier!  The car manufacturers wouldn't accept their presentation unless the car co had expressed a need for such a product development beforehand!  it's just their protocol?!

Sorry, I wasn't commenting on your case specifically when I said ideas are worthless - I realize you took it further than just an idea.

However, in terms of prototypes and such - they are much better than mere ideas, but they are far from what most inventors (in my experience) believe they are worth.  In a licensing deal, the company gets to do all the hard work and give up some of their profit for their trouble (usually right off the top too).  But with in-house developments, they don't need to do that, so it makes licensed deals mostly worthless unless it's a solid bit of technology that is already patented *and* the patent has been tested (untested patents are mostly worthless also).

Couple of cases in point (again not speaking to your specific product or pitches).  I had an acquaintance contact me about 5 years ago with a "massive, multi-million dollar idea".  I refused to sign an NDA and after much back and forth, he eventually said he was "going to hang his ass out and trust me with his baby".  Turned out it was LED home lighting.  No shit, just LED lighting for home.  It wasn't as prevalent back then as it is today, but it was most definitely being done by tons of major players at that point.  I had another inventor whose idea was tubes containing LED's that would be used for accent lighting on cars.  And again, it had been done ad nauseum already.  Another one was special arrows for hunters containing a transmitter that would allow you to pinpoint your kill (I guess deer run for a ways before they collapse and die after being shot).  Pretty much technologically impossible, certainly for a price that would make it sellable, but he was sure it was a billion dollar idea.
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Offline JuKu

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Re: Kickstarter, Triggertrap ada camera trigger.... Calls it quits...
« Reply #58 on: March 18, 2015, 01:12:57 pm »
I think you missed the part where... I offer to present under an NDA etc - a working hardware prototype (or in the case of software a functional POC) for them to review as relevant/suitable to ...
buy outright
licence
take equity
... we never get to the offers, as they have no idea of the product capability!

The weirdest case I had was a multi-national auto component supplier actually went most of the way with me (almost a year of presentation, negotiation etc) and eventually they hit the same barrier!  The car manufacturers wouldn't accept their presentation unless the car co had expressed a need for such a product development beforehand!  it's just their protocol?!
Been there, done that, on both sides of the table. No company should or would accept unknown IP with any restrictions. There is way too much legal hassle in case they already have or ever in the future want to do something even slightly similar. The only way to do this is to get a patent or even application for one filed and then present what you have without any strings attached. Or, in some limited cases do what chip manufacturers do: Show what the chip can do, detailed datasheet under NDA.

It is a very unwise business decision to sign an NDA without knowing exactly what is covered, in small details. Big companies didn't get big by doing dumb things.

I've run a consumer audio business more than 20 years and attracted more than my share of inventors and wannabes. My standard answer is "Show it to me. I f it is useful, I steal it i I can (if you have a patent, I can't), or if it makes more sense to buy it or hire you than steal it, I might do that. I won't sign anything." Nine out of ten walk away, none of the rest have ever shown anything both new and useful.
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Offline SL4P

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Re: Kickstarter, Triggertrap ada camera trigger.... Calls it quits...
« Reply #59 on: March 18, 2015, 01:38:33 pm »
Sorry accepted!
The approach I most often follow is to prove it can work / be done...
and acknowledge integration by the buyer will likely involve complete reengineering to fit their supply chain, form factor and other constraints...
They may use my algorithms or not... up to them if they pay the fare.

Provisional patents allow you to open the door quite a bit at low cost for decent protection of innovation.
Cheers
« Last Edit: March 18, 2015, 01:41:09 pm by SL4P »
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Offline SmokeyTopic starter

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Re: Kickstarter, Triggertrap ada camera trigger.... Calls it quits...
« Reply #60 on: March 18, 2015, 08:39:19 pm »
Note to self..  start company to make hunting arrows with transmitters in them. 
 

Offline EEVblog

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Re: Kickstarter, Triggertrap ada camera trigger.... Calls it quits...
« Reply #61 on: February 18, 2017, 12:20:11 am »
The developer of the failed Trigger Trap product was on a podcast explaining the whole saga and why it failed:
http://thisweekinphoto.com/triggertrap-saga-itl-07/

 
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Offline f4eru

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Re: Kickstarter, Triggertrap ada camera trigger.... Calls it quits...
« Reply #62 on: February 19, 2017, 07:38:10 pm »
The weirdest case I had was a multi-national auto component supplier actually went most of the way with me (almost a year of presentation, negotiation etc) and eventually they hit the same barrier!
"a year of presentation, negotiation etc" is very very far from starting a series project in the automotive world.

The typical product cycle from a supplier is :
1) idea
2) concept study
3) strategy planning ( does it fit the strategy of the company)
4) patent, if applicable
5) talking with5-6 OEMS under NDA
6) having a demonstrator made
7) talking with 1-3 OEMS under NDA
8) talking with 1 OEM under NDA, relizing he doesn't need or want it
9) talking with the other two OEMS under NDA
10) having one accept, finally
11) 2 Years development of a series product
12) 1 Year validation and adapting the production line
13) first SOP

total : 6-9 Years.
Usually 99% of ideas don't make it to step 10. Cancellations happen between step 1 and 9 usually.
Your idea made quite a way.

Offline mikeselectricstuff

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Re: Kickstarter, Triggertrap ada camera trigger.... Calls it quits...
« Reply #63 on: February 19, 2017, 07:58:28 pm »
The developer of the failed Trigger Trap product was on a podcast explaining the whole saga and why it failed:
http://thisweekinphoto.com/triggertrap-saga-itl-07/
Listening to that, it seems the fundamental problem was they had no in-house electronics people, and were relying entirely on a subcontractor who were either incompetent, or were cynically taking advantage of being given a woefully inadequate specification.

AFAICS the product was basically little more than a flexible timer with a few simple interfaces, and its own UI.
How they got to a $100 BOM and 1% of their intended battery life is beyond me.
It wasn't mentioned if they'd made good on their earlier promise to open-source everything.
 
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Offline donotdespisethesnake

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Re: Kickstarter, Triggertrap ada camera trigger.... Calls it quits...
« Reply #64 on: February 25, 2017, 03:22:14 pm »
The developer of the failed Trigger Trap product was on a podcast explaining the whole saga and why it failed:
http://thisweekinphoto.com/triggertrap-saga-itl-07/
Listening to that, it seems the fundamental problem was they had no in-house electronics people, and were relying entirely on a subcontractor who were either incompetent, or were cynically taking advantage of being given a woefully inadequate specification.

That sounds like an unfair characterisation? The design was done by Cubik Innovations, who had already worked successfully on a previous version of Triggertrap. The picture detailed here gives a different view https://medium.com/triggertrap-playbook/how-a-half-million-dollar-kickstarter-project-can-crash-and-burn-5482d7d33ee1#.ynlshzrrv. There is only a little hint there of problems with the designers, but indicates feature creep caused redesign. This is also alluded by Cubik themselves : http://www.cubik-innovation.co.uk/trigger-trap-ada

Quote
Both Triggertrap and ourselves were thrown a few curve balls during the development of Ada, the benefits of Kickstarter meant that Triggertrap could keep in contact with their customer base directly, but this did mean a change in dynamics. Triggertrap had a set of extremely complex specifications and expectations from their customers, so the race was certainly on to smooth any bumps in the road which appeared along the route to getting The Ada into its backer’s hands.

Quote
AFAICS the product was basically little more than a flexible timer with a few simple interfaces, and its own UI.
How they got to a $100 BOM and 1% of their intended battery life is beyond me.
It wasn't mentioned if they'd made good on their earlier promise to open-source everything.

That's a good question, the design is here https://github.com/TriggerTrap/ada. It appears to be based on ATXmega128? It seems to be professionally presented. Possibly Arduino based.

I think this is an interesting case study of why things go wrong, and Triggertrap seem to be quite genuine about the failure and not hiding anything. I think the main thing is that a lot of business plans assume a fairly plain sailing - with little added for contingency, which is usually swallowed by all the tasks that were under estimated. If you get a "perfect storm" of problems - there is simply not enough contingency. Crowd funding can bring punters quickly but also leads to feature creep.

Another key thing is the "upside down" nature of mass production. If you have tooling that costs £50k, you can't start with a small run and ramp up, because the unit cost is whacked and few people are willing to pay for it. You have to hit production at day 1 with 50,000 units to get the unit cost down. That is a tough ask.

I wonder if anyone is working on an open source version.
« Last Edit: February 25, 2017, 03:24:22 pm by donotdespisethesnake »
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Offline mikeselectricstuff

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Re: Kickstarter, Triggertrap ada camera trigger.... Calls it quits...
« Reply #65 on: February 25, 2017, 04:32:42 pm »
Regardless of the actual detail - any company going into something like this without in-house electronics expertise, even if only to keep specs under control and realistic, is taking a colossal risk.
Considering how much they've watsed, hiring an engineer would have been small change.
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Offline donotdespisethesnake

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Re: Kickstarter, Triggertrap ada camera trigger.... Calls it quits...
« Reply #66 on: February 26, 2017, 02:06:25 pm »
Regardless of the actual detail - any company going into something like this without in-house electronics expertise, even if only to keep specs under control and realistic, is taking a colossal risk.
Considering how much they've watsed, hiring an engineer would have been small change.

Certainly agree with that. I think a problem that an earlier project was successful, without realising the risks they were taking. This is described in his "lessons learned" summary:

Quote
Lesson 5: Get the right skills.

We thought we had all the skills we needed to deliver this project. We were incredibly wrong. As soon as the Kickstarter money hit our account, we should have hired an experienced hardware product manager.

Lesson 6: Don’t be naïve.

Towards the end of the project, we engaged an extremely experienced hardware project manager, both to discuss how things were looking, and to see if we could salvage the project.

To kick it off, I figured I’d ask him how we should have run this project. The challenge we set him: “If you have £300k to develop a consumer electronics product, how would you go about it?” He looked me straight in the eye, blinked twice, and said “I wouldn’t. Not with a budget of under £1m.”

In my experience, having in-house engineers is not necessarily an advantage, if you don't have the right management skills. It is easy for bad managers to indulge in feature creep, and the engineer usually feels obliged to accommodate, rather than say "no way, that was not in the original spec".

I did actually work for a start-up as the sole engineer (the rest marketing/management), and it was pretty hopeless. Requirements changing every day, no spec of any sort, completely ridiculous expectations of cost and timescale.
Bob
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Offline ebastler

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Re: Kickstarter, Triggertrap ada camera trigger.... Calls it quits...
« Reply #67 on: February 26, 2017, 07:24:19 pm »
They are paying a hefty price for the failed Kickstarter campaign now: The Triggertrap company is going out of business. (They predate the project by several years, I understand, had up to 15 employees at their peak, and have some simple hardware + phone app products for photographers.)

https://medium.com/triggertrap-playbook/triggertrap-going-out-of-business-faq-988112eebfef#.ot5lsmhr2
 

Offline donotdespisethesnake

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Re: Kickstarter, Triggertrap ada camera trigger.... Calls it quits...
« Reply #68 on: February 27, 2017, 03:36:32 pm »
Well, that sucks.

It seems that Triggertrap started 6 years ago with a more successful Kickstarter that time. Without knowing all the details, smart camera remotes seem like quite a niche market.
Bob
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Offline rx8pilot

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Re: Kickstarter, Triggertrap ada camera trigger.... Calls it quits...
« Reply #69 on: February 27, 2017, 05:20:29 pm »
In my experience, having in-house engineers is not necessarily an advantage, if you don't have the right management skills. It is easy for bad managers to indulge in feature creep, and the engineer usually feels obliged to accommodate, rather than say "no way, that was not in the original spec".

I did actually work for a start-up as the sole engineer (the rest marketing/management), and it was pretty hopeless. Requirements changing every day, no spec of any sort, completely ridiculous expectations of cost and timescale.

Having in-house engineering does not guarantee success. Not having in-house engineering is very risky as @mikeselectricstuff pointed out.

I have tried to outsource engineering that was totally out of my league, and it failed. We hired in-house engineers for totally projects and they failed as well. The primary reason is the person (former partner) had little to no understanding of challenges and could not manage the projects. That was when I decided to push the partner out and dust off my EE skills. I can design reasonably complex systems on my own but more importantly - I can manage a team based EE project now that goes well beyond my personal skills. Without the in-house understanding at a practical level - we would be doomed. I would not know what to ask for or know how long things take. I would struggle to understand the difference between a good engineer and a bad one.
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