We went to Las Vegas last week with
high hopes and modest expectations. We had some good momentum coming
from the CBNC coverage (The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch - thanks guys!)
that had aired the prior week, and were in the NY Times as well. While
we had scheduled numerous
blogger/press briefings, our basic goal was to have some
great conversations and generate a little more buzz and exposure. What
actually
happened was something else entirely.
In a nutshell, we hit a nerve
at the show, fired up the imaginations of a good number of people and
ended up winning CNET's Best of CES award for Emerging Technologies.
Just re-reading that sentence gives me the shivers. "We won what??"
It's a little surreal. I had always pictured that as something
reserved for huge companies. On top of that, we had a lot of coverage,
from individual bloggers to large outlets, well exceeding our
expectations. For a glimpse of the coverage
we received click here.
When I started Bug Labs it
was based on a vision where everyone had the opportunity and ability to
easily build whatever gadget they could imagine. I felt that if Home
Depot could turn us all into home improvement gurus we could do the
same for technology. I expected that message to resonate with a core
group of technologists and early adopters. What I wasn't expecting was
the more mainstream response we received at CES. I was (and still am)
a bit flabbergasted. The possibility that my original vision might not
be
quite as geeky as I thought is disorienting - but awesome!
So why did this all
happen? I don't have a precise answer, but our
superb marketing team (Jeremy Toeman and Mehrshad Mansouri) laid the
foundation by making sure we were well prepared and busy talking to
influential bloggers, press and others. Our product itself was ready
to go with some great applications and demos thanks to our crack
hardware/software development and QA folks. But those two things
weren't what tipped the scales in our favor. To be honest I don't
know what did. The best word I can think of to describe the result is
combustion. I think people were just ready to hear what we had to say
and were excited to spread the word. We came out of that event more
excited than
ever and a bit surer of our mission. At the end of the day, people
like stories (and products) that put them in the driver's seat and
that's what BUG is all about.
I want to sincerely thank everyone
who came by our booth and took the time to speak with us. We value
your thoughts and feedback, took a ton of notes and will hopefully
count you among our customers in a few weeks when we start shipping. I
very much look forward to keeping you all informed as we head towards
that moment. Please do not refrain from jumping into the
conversation. We want to hear what you have to
say!
