u/tincangames

Been at it for a few years now - I’ve got a hardware kickstarter coming up for Zerowriter Fold. It’s distraction-free writing tool purpose built for writers looking for an alternative to the expensive options in the space.

I thought I’d make a post here and talk about the startup stuff. My stats and numbers might help those looking to do similar releases.

And a link to the campaign at the bottom if you want to check it out.

—

I started building an audience in early 2023-2024 with a DIY project on YouTube. Raspberry Pi, keyboard, screen. People liked it - they followed and wanted to buy.

I moved to an embedded system and rebuilt the project on esp32. Launched on crowd supply and did a solid run on devices (about 600 total as of today). Learned a ton.

But along the way, I knew the second step was creating the “mainstream” device people wanted: bigger screen, front light options, better usb support. Stuff that needed a round of hardware design.

—

So, here’s the marketing stats for my launch on Tuesday:

- on pace for about 5000 email subscribers
- on pace for 1000 Kickstarter followers
- 2000 YouTube subscribers
- 1000 person discord server
- 600+ existing customers / users
- good presence on Reddit, and a fairly active dedicated subreddit
- have some blogs and press coverage lined up with the usual suspects, and some local press

My list building has been a mix of organic, referral/word-of-mouth, and paid acquisition. I started paid campaigns for this project about 4 months ago.

Cost per lead has varied wildly - from $.75 USD to $2.50 USD and everywhere in between. Was around $1 stable for months. Last few weeks have been all over.

Lead performance and indicators are good. Email campaigns have close to 50% open rate, high engagement stats and click-through.

—

Things I regret - hindsight is 20/20, but I wish I spent more when cost per lead was lower. Hard to say if my costs went up due to algorithm changes, or because my reach / audience got limited due to fatigue, but the raw numbers and math was good.

If, say, my email list was 10,000+ I’d be in a stronger position.

But hey, I suppose there’s still some time to climb.

—

You can take a look at my landing page here: https://www.zerowriter.ink/fold

Which has links to the campaign if you want to see how it works out.

(…Hand model not me, stay out of my DMs…)

Clamshell design, 60% low profile mechanical keyboard, 6” eink display with user-controllable lighting (think Kindle Paperwhite), custom keycaps. Week-long battery life.

Custom hardware and firmware built only for word processing. Full suite of editing tools: copy, paste, navigation, etc. Makes and organizes .txt or .md files. Custom fonts. Customizable keyboard layout and languages. Saves on SD card, and backs up to internal storage. Full usb support for managing files - or use it as a USB keyboard, in a pinch.

Will it run Linux? No. Command line? No. Doom? No — Well, maybe.

Just boots up and makes text files.

Going with the custom route, away from Linux gets you extreme responsiveness, battery efficiency, instant-on, and great sleep/wake features. Was a lot of work but worth it in the long run. Not every project can do this, but for a writing machine, it makes a lot of sense.

And there’s no perceptible eink lag. Although, honestly, this is getting more commonplace nowadays.

Recently added some cool stuff: built-in fountain and markdown parsing. So, for example, your screenplays look like screenplays as you write.

Been at it for a while, but this feels like a big step forward. I posted my original project here a year or two ago, and this seems like a good time for a follow-up post.

Zerowriter Fold - https://www.zerowriter.ink/fold

Assembled in 🇨🇦

Feel free to ask questions - about anything from this design, to crowdfunding, to working with crowd supply, to… whatever!