From Zero To Kickstarter In $5k

From the FAQs:

> "Can you send the notebook back to me after you've scanned it?"

> Currently our scanning process isn't setup for this yet. Unfortunately our notebooks are cut on the spine as part of the scanning process, so we can’t send the physical copies back. We will send you the digital copies which you can keep forever though! Returning your physical notebook after scanning is something we're looking into adding in the future. "

So, some folks would pay more to have you rebind their notebooks using spiral binding or something, even the cheap plastic binding that school teachers use to turn kids writings into little books.

I really like your discovery that "paying for a Facebook ad that links to another page on Facebook was much cheaper than linking to something off site."

Very clever way to test your idea on the cheap.

LiveScribe: A pen that writes on paper and saves a digital copy of everything. Also, records audio. You touch your pen to your writing and it will play back the audio that was occurring at the moment you were writing that word.

You can use the digital copy of your writing in OneNote or EverNote and it can read your handwriting allowing you to search.

My issue on this one, and I emailed them a question about it on KS, is the privacy issues I see here. Before I'm going to trust sending a notebook full of private thoughts or business related content to an unknown company I need a pretty ironclad guarantee that the content is going to be handled appropriately. I love the thought of being able to refer back to my content digitally over time, but I don't dig the thought of some stranger getting their hands on my personal thoughts and being able to blackmail me with it down the road.

They said that their scanning partner is built with security/privacy in mind, but I need details before I'd just stick a private notebook in an envelope and mail it to some strangers, never to be seen again.

Awesome idea, I hope you're able to bring it to other countries soon.

I like to keep notes and drafts on paper every now and then but not enough to fill a full notebook a month. It would be great with an infrequent alternative where I receive 2 books and one return envelope in the first batch. When I'm done with the first one I return it and continue with the second book. And when you receive my book you'll scan it and send me a new notebook and return envelope and charge me for it. Basically the same as now but I can keep notes in my own pace.

This is great user experience thinking...

"We also made them the exact size of the iPad mini, as a lot of people will probably be carrying these things together anyway."

While they do the syncing for you, I'd have good success with Whitelines. You can buy their notebooks off of Amazon, they have an Android and iOS app, and sync to Dropbox, Gmail, and Evernote pretty nicely.

http://whitelines.se/

I still see the benefit in this, and wish them luck.

An online course in preparation for future Kickstarters:

https://www.udemy.com/reaching-your-kickstarter-goals (free preview)

https://www.udemy.com/surpassing-your-kickstarter-goals ($29 course)

I backed one of the instructor's early projects; right now he's doing a GPS tracker. Take a look to verify his credibility: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/richardhaberkern/gps-coo...

> "we do some OCR shit so it's searchable"

That's a great idea. I've seen the author's handwriting in the post and OCR may be trickier than they think.

It seems like a neat idea, and I really like this insight into their KickStarter campaign. It feels gently wasteful; I don't think most people are going to do anything like 60 pages per month. I wonder what's going to happen to all the blank pages? (Perhaps this is just my perception though.)

And notebooks sometimes contain historically important bits of information. I'm not sure how the future people will feel about having a scan of the notebook that someone used to design some important thing, versus having the actual notebook.

The realization that a new notebook is on the way in a month would probably prompt me to write more, just to use up the notebook. That would be a great way to force me away from my little glowing screens for a little decompression time.

I would instantly buy into this sort of thing for notetaking in university classes.

Is there an option for three notebooks over three months, rather than one notebook each month?

Just backed. I actually love this idea. I often jot things down on notebooks when planning an app or just need to work through something. I don't always need to refer back to it, but usually when I do it's a month or two down the road and I can never find it in my stack of notebooks. This will be great for that purpose, and I don't really need to keep the old notebooks anyway. Hope you get funded!

i feel like people, especially designers, would want their originals. could you offer to send back the notebooks with the next package you send out?

Neat story. Do you run the notebooks through some sort of OCR, like you mentioned in your Gchat conversation, or did you scrap that?

Thanks! I sent my own Kickstarter out for official review just last night (http://planetoz.net/kickstarter) but I'm going to give this a deep read as soon as I can.

Also, who provided that character art in the animated example?

So if you want to succeed your crowdfunding campaign you have to basically spend money first. I mean, this whole post is about how they happilly spend $5k to get in a position where they can raise money..

So what's next? Crowdfunding the kickstarter campaign?

Could also consider an environmental approach recycling the old notebooks sent back in?

Fun to read :) I love these 'startup journey' pieces.

Didn't Evernote and Moleskine team up to do exactly this? How does Draft compare to the E&M offering? How does Draft expect to compete with E&M?

I love the idea but nnnngh, some of the screenshots of the scanned results from light pencil sketches? There's a lot of data being lost there.

great insight into the process.