Being quite the newbie in this community, I look left and right, and I'm amazed - so much work, love, sweat and tears, so many personal relationships and identification points with the products, so much realized potential. Awesome. And in a way, dangerous. So this is going to be a bit of a rant from an outsiders perspective, based on experience from other industries. But if there's flame, I'm willing to accept it
Well, okay, the community spirit. It brings me back to a discussion I had many times, talking to former clients in the engineering business. People that were so involved and convinced with the quality of their ideas and products that their belief was summarized in that old movie quote:
If you build it, they will come.
And that, actually, simply, is not true.
The world is full of prototypes and innovations that failed, because people did not understand what they did, how they could use them, and if they were worth the money. I won't try to give you the full argument on that, there are
others which have done a much better job at that - but it's a thought that keeps nagging me when I see the discussions here.
So, from my perspective: Where does the Pyra stand?
It's a great product, with a ton of versatility and flexibility, in some concepts technologically far, far advanced from the current offerings on the market. And that's it's problem. There's no single simple use case for the non-geeks, non-emulation-gamers, non-linuxites out there to make them prick up their ears. It's already there - that is good, so we don't have to go the route of the "minimum viable product" anymore, but it has cost a lot of effort, and the finished Pyra has it's price point - which currently is the main cause of hurt. If marketing gets rolling, that point has to be explained.
And no, in my opinion, marketing has not started yet. The current press kit is informative, but lacks the hook, the shiny phrase that editors look at and say: Hey, that'll catch reader traffic. What the press releases did was to tell the world,
that we, umm, ahh, have a cool thingamahoochie that does, er, whatever you like, and more, especially because you can, like, change it and kit it out with parts that don't exist yet. And sorry, it's a bit pricey. But everyone that bought it's predecessor liked that one too, so it's gonna be BIG.
(By the way - everyone? This community has 22.000 members, and I read something about 6.000 Pandoras sold in all - where are all these people? Not 10% of those preordered?)
If a marketing campaign starts, it might be helpful to ask for advice, and to form some kind of strategy. Yes, we all hate those catchphrase workshops, flipchart drawing games, and boastful verbiage - but it doesn't need to be the full-blown suits-and-powerpoint-approach. Let's think about what people want, and how they understand tech. Let's not try to explain open OS's, modularity, SoC architecture, emulation and multi-interfacing - people who look for that will find the Pyra anyway. Currently, that's 3-5/day.
I like that statement
rygD coined: "
the value of a full-size laptop, but the price of a flagship phone".
That's a message even my dad, our neighbor's hillbilly kids, and their dawg would understand. I'd like more of that. Unless - and that is the other old idea I'll pull out of my hat as a parting gift - we fall for the second misconception in the innovation market, and decide that THOSE are not the customers we want. Not in our nice, familiar community.
Anyone who feels personally attacked now, I'm sorry: No, I don't mean you. What has been achieved here, and by you, is great. But that's no reason to not make it even greater.
