Rabbit Proto - Start-up journey
3D printed circuits
Date: 2014
Location: Stanford, CA
Project: Rabbit Proto
Team: Alexandre Jais, Manal Dia, Rohan Maheshwari
Role: CEO, Product Lead
Rabbit Proto was created to make available to the general public, the 3d printing of conductive material technologies for faster prototyping we had been developing since the ME310 project. We were selected to participate to the d.school launchpad program which guided us through the launch phase of the company and allowed to maximize the impact of our efforts to make Rabbit Proto grow. When we started working with the launchpad team before the course started around February 2014, Rabbit Proto’s work had mainly been focused around the development of the hardware prototype which at that point was fully functional. However we were lacking two critical things: a go to market strategy for our initial product as well as an audience. The first thing we did was to build a landing page that would allow us to test initial messaging and pricing on traffic we would drive to the page. We used unbounce for that initial version and were able to A/B test extruder prices for example.
Rabbit Proto first landing page
Through the initial sign-ups we were able to contact initial leads and learn more about them. The Launchpad approches focuses on converting leads to paying customers as fast as possible in a true lean fashion to get this kind of invaluable feedback as fast as possible. We ended up segmenting our product line and now needed more traffic to validate the demand for our products.
Rabbit Proto product line
Before pushing for a larger outreach campaign. We tried to delve more into Rabbit Proto's values and attitude. What were the communities we felt we were gravitating around (makers, designers, hackers)? what were the strength of our team and how we could communicate to that next batch of leads?
Rabbit Proto Mood Board
Our initial landing page was underperforming and the most useful nuggets of information came from anonymized testing data generated with usertesting.com, watching people go through our website as they were asked questions and listen to their reactions. What stood out was how cryptic that first landing page ended up being for most people. This led to our landing page redesign and a refinement of our messaging: we were the company that brought electronic prototyping to 3D printers.
Rabbit Proto refined landing page
We felt that we were ready to test our work on a much broader audience and issuing a press release seemed like the boldest and best way to do that while doing an outreach effort that would go far beyond our individual networks. We sent the message that I have copied below to key influencers in the 3D printing/maker/consumer electronics world and then waited to see what would happen. We made sure to have enough content on the website already there for them to use, were they to want to write a little something about us.
The response we received from the press was incredibly positive and soon many tech blogs started writing about Rabbit Proto which brought many eyes to our page.
The two immediate consequences were that we were able to use these articles as data points for how people understood what we were doing and iterate on our messaging: Rabbit Proto prints real electronics, or 3D printed circuits, resonated particularly well with our audience.
We were also able to generate interest for our pre-orders, which was a big achievement as real interest from real people was shown to pay for our devices.
A few of the media outlets that wrote about Nascent Objects
Rabbit Proto test printer installed in a Stanford dorm for a week-end of testing
What we ended up doing for the months that came was to prepare to ship units and use the leads that we had generated to put the device in front of as many people as possible, literally.
That meant inviting them our invite ourselves to have them test the printer and prototype with it in a variety of format. The most memorable one was when we left the printer and a camera with undergraduates for a full week-end and collected their feedback at the end. Report can be found here. We also participated to events like Maker Faire where we would ask visitors to sketch ideas of prototypes to build with our machine as well as start-up week-ends where the machine would be present with us making it work for the people needing to build prototypes.
Rabbit Proto @ LimeLab
Visitor @MakerFaire sketching a product idea to be built with Rabbit Proto.
Maker Faire visitor
Using this feedback we refined both our device and our roadmap with the goal of shipping units and raising funds. Our work definitely paid off as it was able to attract the eyes of investors as well as interest from another company, Nascent Objects, who ended up acquiring Rabbit Proto. The customers that paid for their device also ended up receiving their unit over the summer.
Lastly even after Rabbit Proto's acquisition the project keeps on living with Rabbit Proto's Github repository. We receive questions from time to time with people asking for help to integrate the Rabbit Extruder.