Marketing Is The Only Thing That Matters

After arriving to Measurand for my afternoon shift one day last week I was somewhat surprised to find out that I needed to go get interviewed by a software consultant that had been hired by the company to review our software processes. His name was Alan I think, and he turned out to be a pretty friendly guy. We briefly introduced ourselves, and immediately found out that we were both working toward similar goals; both doing consulting work and working at regular jobs to help make ends meet while trying to become successful entrepreneurs. He has progressed further than I have, as I believe he mentioned something about actual customers. His business involved setting up smart lighting systems for large buildings, in order to use less energy and save their customers money. It sounded like a great idea. Then, after I briefly described what I was doing with AMOS, he gave me these sage words of advice:

"Nothing else matters except marketing. None of the other shit is important; it doesn't even matter if everything is working right, you can fix it later. Seriously, marketing is the most important thing. If you don't do it right, you've got nothing."

I smiled, nodded, and said something like "Hmm.... OK." and that was that. The significance and truth of his advice didn't really sink in until later, after the interview was over and I went back to working at my desk. I'm kind of like a "fish out of water" when it comes to marketing.

(Unfortunate minnow found dead on the deck of AMOS a couple of days ago.)

so finding customers might be a bit of a challenge. Fortunately though, In Nature Robotics was recently accepted into the Venn Garage program (http://www.venninnovation.com/en/venn-garage), a mentorship program offered to small startup businesses in New Brunswick, to help them validate their idea, acquire early adopter customers and initial funding, and prepare their startup team for successful entry into leading accelerators. Hopefully over the next year, I'll pick up some good marketing tips and knowledge from people who have done it successfully in the past. I also applied to the Creative Destruction Lab accelerator program (https://www.creativedestructionlab.com/program/) to their Oceans stream, based in Halifax (https://www.creativedestructionlab.com/streams/oceans/). Last week I had a video interview with a few people from there, and will find out by October 2 whether or not I got in.

AMOS spent another 4 days on its own at Woolastook this past week, and collected some good temperature and  pH data (https://www.innaturerobotics.com/sample-data-1). Although it has been a while since I did a very crude calibration of the probe with some kitchen vinegar and tap water, it does seem as though the water around Woolastook is a bit acidic. Apparently that's not uncommon in this particular part of North America. On Thursday, AMOS set a new single day distance record of 12.25 km.

The weather is currently quite cloudy and rainy, so I have AMOS back home where I'll see if I can fix some intermittent low voltage issues on the +5 V supply, and maybe hook the GPS antenna back up. There seemed to be a few spots around Woolastook where finding a GPS signal was a bit of a challenge.