What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

What could possibly go wrong when we share our whereabouts publicly?

The Guardian recently answered that question when it ran a piece about Strava's publication of heat maps that show popular running routes around the world. "The 'global heatmap' shows, in aggregate form, every public activity uploaded to the app over its history. In major cities, it lights up popular running routes, but in less trafficked locales it can highlight areas with an unusually high concentration of connected, exercise-focused individuals – such as active military personnel serving overseas."

Whoops.

Photo from Strava published by the Guardian. It shows Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti on the top right. On the bottom left is a suspected CIA base.

The Teacups Shook in Their Hands.

A few people responded to my last post about raising $100,000 by pointing out that "every little bit helps" and offering to send checks on the order of $100 or so. I'm humbled by these texts and emails, and gladly accept the offers. My first such check came yesterday, from my friend Rudy in Cleveland. The check was enclosed in this watercolor based on the "Frog and Toad" series:

They were scared. Their teacups shook in their hands.

On the back, Rudy wrote, "Verso, the fruits of stay-at-home fatherhood. I wish you the best of luck and am so pleased to be able to pay a tiny part." Nice use of "verso," first of all. Second, sentiments like this strengthen my resolve and underline my belief that none of us is alone in what we do. Third, how awesome is this watercolor?! And fourth, on a related note, I guess Rudy's gunning of the Father of the Year award. His kids are lucky!

Thanks Rudy. I'm very touched.

With a Little Help From My Friends (and Family)

We’re about to launch a “friends and family” round to ask relatives and friends to invest in this project. We need to raise $100,000 to pay for multiple rounds of prototype development and testing, as well as for the production setup to make a small run of watches. We will sell these watches as part of a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter or Indiegogo.

The production setup will include preparing the molds for the plastic components, the die for stamping the metal back plate, etc. The idea is to launch the crowdfunding campaign when – and only when – we have everything lined up. This way, people who participate in the crowdfunding campaign are putting their money in a sure thing and don’t have to wait too long to get their watches.

Why launch a crowdfunding campaign? Why not just go big and ask venture capitalists for $500,000–$1 million? There are three reasons: first, as a startup, I can benefit from the power of Kickstarter’s or Indiegogo’s platform to spread the word; second, crowdfunding is good for validating the market; and third, I’m not looking for big investors, at least early on. Instead, I want to create a great product, as part of a brand that thinks long-term; I don’t want explosive growth to the detriment of the brand.

Please reach out to me if you're interested in putting money into this round.

The First Prototypes Are Almost Done!

We’ve made big strides on the watch, which, for now, I’m calling Okobo* (aw-kubbo). After months of fine-tuning the user interface, developing the industrial design, designing the printed circuit board (PCB), and figuring out how to make the whole thing water and shock resistant, we are close to completion on our first two prototypes. Don, our electrical engineer, has put together the internal components for two watches, and he’s handed them off to Mat, the mechanical engineer, to confirm the dimensions and then assemble the units based on Jenna’s brilliant industrial design. Don is also translating Kentaro’s app from Swift to C, and then loading that onto the devices.

Jenna's mockup of her design.

The two PCBs (printed circuit boards) that will go into our first prototypes.

Soon we’ll provide a sneak peek at Kentaro’s app, which shows how the watch will work.

I’m thrilled to have reached this stage. The Okobo started as a germ of an idea over 25 years ago, and while I didn’t expect it to spring forth fully formed, like Athena from Zeus’ forehead, when I first launched this effort, neither did I expect it to be so involved. Along the way, I’ve been incredibly lucky to have been surrounded by a great team – Don, Jenna, Kentaro, and Mat – as well by my advisors – Mauricio Acosta, Liz Mefford, Travis Metz, Isabelle Moutaud, Henry Poydar, and Charles Smith. I’ve learned a ton about everything from branding to early-stage funding to user-interface design to industrial design, and I owe it to all these people.

We still have a long way to go, of course. Next up, we’ll go through several rounds of testing and development of the prototypes.

*My grandmother on my father’s side, Esther Peterson (née Eggersten), looked after her nephew, Bud, who called her Okobo.

From left to right: Esther (my grandmother) and her sister, Mimi, and brother, Mark. That’s Bud’s scrawl on the matte.

Hey! I'm Trying to Surf Here!

Did you watch Apple's event yesterday? Aside from the audience's distractingly forced "whooo!"-ing at every other word, and most of the speakers' sad but kind of endearingly nerdy desire to get the hell off the stage as fast as possible when they introduced the next segments, the whole thing was slick. Mind-blowing, really. I marveled at the Apple Watch presenter's call to a colleague on a SUP, and the short ads they showed were gorgeous. One of those ads was particularly amazing: a guy is surfing, and for the first 25 seconds we cut from above the water to below, where we see a wave crash above, everything's in slo-mo, it's all beautiful, the guy is in the moment, and then it happens. Here, watch for yourself:

The first 25 sec. are incredible, right? I mean, look at that wave he's on! And the whole thing is so beautiful! The photography and the music combine to put us right there with him – in the moment. But then we hit the 26th second. He gets a phone call.

Sure, the tech is fantastic. Indeed, it's fantastical. "It's the freedom of cellular"! But what's the absolute last thing you want to happen when catching a wave like that? I mean, aside from getting attacked by a shark? The last thing you want to happen is to receive a $@*#-ing phone call. To have that tether pull you out of your experience.