KickstarterForum.org

Hey guys,

It's something that really came out of a simple idea and motivation. Now it's been on Kickstarter for 6 days.
DrinClock could provide a cup of warm water right upon waking you up in the morning by basically combining a thermal system and an alarm clock. Feel free to check: https://goo.gl/7m7vrI
First question would always be......who does that? Drinking a cup of warm water in the morning.....not Coffee??
Well, my girlfriend does that and that was the idea originally came from.
However, a more convincing way is to simply google "warm water morning." The 18,600,000 results will self-explain why it might work rather than I type a long long article and you'd probably fall asleep.

We've hired a PR company to help us since we knew, in the very early stage, it's critical to really reach such audience although we know they are out there......but apparently the result doesn't good so far. So here I am, trying to figure another way out.

Any thoughts would really be appreciated!

p.s. Right now, what I could think of and have been doing is to really get in contact with some bloggers and journalists one by one.

Keep on fighting and good luck to your campaigns as well!!

Best,

Hi Rick,

I checked out your KS page. I like how you created a product based around your girlfriend's needs - v cool!

The video looks slick, there's alot of text and the images look great. I can see you've spent alot of time on this.

I can't give you too many compliments as you want to know what's wrong, why you aren't getting many backers.

For me, I'm confused by a number of things:
- What's a Drin? Means drink?
- If I put water in overnight, wouldn't the water be stale?
- I heard of drinking water (hot?) with lemon, I think Gwyneth Paltrow does it and recommends it on Goop (perhaps you could target her readers?)
- Does it make any noise when boiling?
- What's the health benefits of this, any stats/proof/helps teeth?
- Can I change the alarm sound?
- Can I connect my phone to it? Program it to make a cup of tea before I arrive home...
- Can it be customised, like the cups/mugs you see in Starbucks
- Does it have a lid, can I take it to work with me...

My feeling is you've limited yourself with just hot water (which can come from a bottle dispenser instantly too). Why couldn't I use it for hot chocolate, coffee, tea, or even the steam from the water boiling to brighten up my face...multi-uses would really sell this product, plus you can use these multi-functions when contacting journalists too.

Hope this helps!

So far what has the PR company done? If you need help, feel free to contact me via the link below. All the best!

Hello giftsandcoupons,

Thank you so much for the valuable feedback. Apology for the late response as I’ve been trying my best to get in contact with lots of bloggers with the my time after daily work.
I think it’s such a good opportunity you are providing here so I can really show how and why DrinClock is designed this way.
To start with, I’d really like to emphasize the fact that DrinClock is originally designed to be put on your nightstand and safety will always come first. Just like the petrochemical plant I’m working in. Without safety, you just can’t run it. Safety will always be above anything.
With that in mind, you’ll see why it’s been designed this way and with such “limitation. However, I don’t really find “limitation” appropriate for current situation because we really do have specific “targeted” audience and as I stated the thing is that we are having trouble to get in touch with those “targeted” audience. We do know what we are really heading to.
I don’t intend to make it sound like an argument but would really like to answer all the questions you have one by one with honesty. I truly hope with all answers provided, you’ll see DrinClock is something that’s truly been designed by engineers who really cares not just the profit it could make but really the customer’s life. (I used the word “not just” because we know there’s no way to separate cost from engineering.)

And really thank you again for your suggestions and comment because such questions wouldn’t just be from you but also many other people. I really really appreciate this opportunity.

- What's a Drin? Means drink?
The word DrinClock is simply a combination of two words, Drink and Clock. https://youtu.be/DCK2j7XgxMs

- If I put water in overnight, wouldn't the water be stale?
Good point as it’s been discussed in so many articles. Based on our understanding, it sometimes depends on the water quality you’ve been using, temperature or even the time you really left your water there, and as you can too many factors would came into play. More often, people don’t even perceive such taste change, such as me. We won’t be able to change all that possibilities for getting water stale. However, for DrinClock, we tried to tackle the factor that overnight water might sometimes react with the air if it’s open to the atmosphere. So, that’s part of the reason why the DrinClock is designed to fully seal the water inside the mug, while the main reason is to really have spill proof which really earn it the right to be on your nightstand, not Kettle. We’d expect the water to have minimum contact with air. It’s like you are storing water in Brita overnight, but now you are storing it in the DrinClock and it’s further sealed.

- I heard of drinking water (hot?) with lemon, I think Gwyneth Paltrow does it and recommends it on Goop (perhaps you could target her readers?)
Thank you so much. I’ve also just figured it out during these days and I’d try my best to get in contact with her. Wish me good luck^^

- Does it make any noise when boiling?

No, it doesn’t because the temperature only goes up to 149 degrees Fahrenheit and it’s by design. The fact is, we designed the DrinClock this way so it could be safely put on your nightstand. By “safely” we mean not the function we claims and be able to reach, but we meant a piece of your mind when having something that heats up stuff next to your head. You wouldn’t want to put something that boils next to the head of people you love and so wouldn’t we. If it boils, then it really becomes and high temperature and pressurize container next to your head. It’s really like putting a reactor plant next to your home and telling you it’s totally safe because it’s been engineered and certified and it won’t affect anything. Thank you for bringing this up so we could really share how and why DrinClock has been designed this way. Safety always comes first and that’d always be the core value of the products we make.

- What's the health benefits of this, any stats/proof/helps teeth?
It’s been stated in our campaign and here are some of them:
Warm water first thing in the morning detoxifies your system
Plain water is known to be required daily for good health
Plain water promotes weight loss and weight management
Plain water promotes healthy skin
In fact, if you google warm water in the morning, you could really see tons of articles talking about it. Hope you enjoy.

- Can I change the alarm sound?
Yes, you’ll be able to change the ringtone. The sound presented in the video is really for demonstration. What we do within our current budget and our quote with our manufacturer is to have 6 built-in ringtones. However, we know that ringtone does matters so we’ve already planned for that in our stretch goal. If you look at our reward tiers, some of them are made for having such feature actually.

- Can I connect my phone to it? Program it to make a cup of tea before I arrive home…
That’d be awesome, wouldn’t it? However, to be able to connect phone to it, it requires extra module and app creation which would really involve more extra budget. We don’t really have that in our prototype, so it wasn’t included in our original quote with our manufacture and thus it’s not been reflected in the total budget estimated. But we’d really like to have that in our stretch goal as we are getting more feedback from our backers.
After all, the original design is made for people who wake up thirsty in the morning and would like to a cup of warm water right away. For people who’d like to have a cup of tea right away when getting home, we’d really have to reconsider all other factors when making DrinClock. For example, the temperature limit of our product, the material selection, or even try to come up with some awesome mechanism for the tea infuser. As you can see, that’s what we called “divergence” and it’s something we need to treat carefully with the limited resources we currently have.


- Can it be customised, like the cups/mugs you see in Starbucks
It’s been designed to have our specific mug for it and there’s good reason for it. It’s all about safety. If you use any mugs, we couldn’t really have a sealing device that fits all of them. Furthermore, other mugs wouldn’t have all the features we have made for you. For example, the bottom portion of the DrinMug is specially designed so it decreases the possibility of letting your hand touching the heating zone. Details like these were really planned to be discovered by customers who had used DrinClock and there are a lot more^^

- Does it have a lid, can I take it to work with me...
That’s exactly the same comment I heard from my mother when I share this product with her in design phase, during the time that prototype has not even been made. Therefore, it’s actually been planned to be one of the stretch goal and we really glad that you might want to see that happens.

So far what has the PR company done? If you need help, feel free to contact me via the link below. All the best!
That’s why we were so frustrated with the service of the PR company. Two of them were the PR releases to people who doesn’t really know about the benefit of drinking warm water in the morning. We identify such issue in the very beginning in our critical path and that’s why we choosed a professional PR company to help us. If we can easily reach those people, why should we hire the PR company? If such company can only suggest us to modify the purpose of the product we make, are they really doing the job right? It’s really like if you’re trying to sell specifically fried chicken finger in your restaurant, you need to at least target it to people who like “chicken” or you can try to convince people who doesn’t like fried chicken to start like it. But now, what would you think if your PR company come in and tell you: Hey, maybe you should start adding beef as sides as well because we failed to get in touch with those people who like chicken, and people we’ve contacted with were telling why eat chicken?

Best,

Wow a huge reply to my comments! I read it all, the last part about "chicken" I didn't get though.

I think I meant in terms of marketing, who have you reached out to and connected. My feeling with alot of these campaigns is that it's easy to get "adsorbed" into it and not step back and think of who would really find this useful.

If it was connected to a USB or an iPhone, I'd love it. Because there would be so many multi-uses.

I do know about the benefits of water, not so much warm water though.

You need showcase the differences between you and a kettle. Perhaps it's the safety aspects or the time saved, but competiting against something as common as a kettle, then imposing a certain cup size etc., means you're limiting who would want this type of product.

Should the clock be angled or adjustable? If I'm in bed surely, a clock angled downwards would help me see the time. Whilst if I'm standing up, a clock angled upwards would help.

Normally I don't ask alot of questions on this forum, but I think you've got the potential to do something "more" with this project!

Dear giftsandcoupons,

Thank you so much with the comment and the compliment.

From this campaign, we learned a lot about what doesn’t work and what might work in the future from people like you.

We’ll take all comments we had collected with great appreciation and come back with a better one! It’ll take a while, but I just want to let you know that your valuable comment and attention in our product means a lot to us.

To people who just saw the post here:

After all, a failure in a Kickstarter campaign doesn’t necessary mean a failure in the product or the idea. That’s what we believe. So we are not planning to stop here. Meanwhile, while we are preparing for revising the DrinClock, I’m sincerely inviting those who are interested in the idea of DrinClock, please send us any comment you have or what you’d like to see in your morning at info@drinclock.com. Whether you are a tea lover or warm water lover, we’d love to hear from you.

It’s the end of our campaign but the birth of our new DrinClock. We’ll come back and see you soon!

Best,

Thanks for your comments. Actually I'm now advising Crowdfunding projects full time! It may not seem like it, but we have a team and everything. I prefer to be "hands on" and do the research on finding influencers.

If you decide to relaunch, feel free to get in contact