Loan Campaign

[Rob F]

Hi, so I just wanted to start a thread on what I'm attempting to do. The last few months a lot of improvements have been made in the hardware and software and now things have been going smoothly, so now I'm ready to step things up a bit. 

I'm trying to secure $12,000 to improve and grow the business. I'm not looking for a hand out and have plans to payback everyone who contributes over time. I've tried getting funds from the typical sources but without having you can't get so that didn't work out. I made a listing in the web store with all the details, you can find that here.

https://www.robo-tank.ca/en/Crowdfunding...-p171.html

If you can't help don't worry or feel bad about it, I completely understand. If you could post it on social media or the web that helps a lot.

If you have any comments or suggestions feel free to post anything about this here.


Thanks

[fietsenrex]

Sorry, if i had such amount of money i would pobably had spend it on a big ass reefer :D
Hope you can source the money and expand the hobby into a business.
Maybe some day rival APEX or GHL as far as controllers go

[Rob F]

haha that would be one big reefer.

Yeah one day I'll get there, I'm already there in my head just need to get everything done haha...

Big thanks to everyone who has contributed, I'm putting the money to the side until I can build up a sum.

[japayton42]

Have you looked into some of the actual crowd funding sources? I have been on indiegogo for a few years and gotten my hands on some great tech just like yours. We just bought a new house and while most people are picking out couches and drapes we bought a 90 Gal aquarium with a custom stand and canopy. As I get the hardware setup I will be working toward getting one of these.

Check out https://entrepreneur.indiegogo.com/how-i...rketplace/ and get some funding.

If you need help with advertizing and SEO let me know, I would love to help. I do a lot of coding and SEO in my spare time.

[Rob F]

Hi japayton42, welcome to the forum and congrats on the new house, setting up a new aquarium sounds like more fun that shopping and hanging new drapes. :) Thanks for your tips. I have tried using kickstarter in the past to try and raise money to make cases but it didn't work out, got me some sales though so wasn't a complete loss. The problem with crowd funding that way is I would need a lot of pledges because I don't make much off a controller at this point and it would take a long time to fill all the orders so I'm trying to secure a loan of some sort. I'm grateful for the customers who have contributed to the loan campaign so I have some money to do things but hoping to raise a bit more. I need to update the loan campaign as I have different plans that won't take as much money and maybe serve me and everyone better.

My new goal would be to update the circuit boards as I'm finally happy with the features on them. They would have the Arduinos, Ethernet and RTC integrated but I would want to hire a professional to design the boards so all the t's are crossed and it's done properly. I also want to have a PH circuit embedded as well and then I would love to have an add-on conductivity, ORP, dissolved oxygens and co2 circuits. I currently direct customers to Atlas Scientific for those circuits which work good but they are very expensive and when people buy them all it hurts because I know Atlas is making more money on them then I make on the controller and it can be complicated for users to setup the circuits, that would be a win-win for everyone.

I'm working on a circuit board for the power bars so assembly is easier and safer and something I can handle as its fairly basic and will be good till I grow more and can get them produced. I've also been advised by quite a few people a server for the controller probably isn't something I want to setup myself as it can be difficult because of security on the server. For that someone has generously offered to host it for free as they have a small data center so that might happen soon, even if I have to pay a few hundred a year it would be worth it. The word soon with me doesn't have a lot of value at this point though, it's only me working on the project and I have other work I need to do to pay the bills so time is my biggest enemy but I'm getting closer to being able to focus on this full time.

I appreciate the offer with SEO and is something I could use soon, I've haven't done much on this but the basics. I've been happy with the volume of sales I have, I never wanted to much as I'm still developing and when problems arrive its much easier to handle, thankfully problems with hardware has dropped dramatically, now if anything happens its little things like bad connections in headers with the Arduinos or Ethernet shield which would be solved with those embedded and also speed up assembly time, it takes just as long to solder all the headers as mounting the components. So yeah I'm almost at the point where SEO and advertising would be nice but I need a few more months to get more software development done. I don't want all my time spent on assembly and no coding. For advertising I've contacted a few aquarium forums in the past and might be a good solution with a small budget and obviously a targeted audience, if you have other recommendations for advertising I would be interested in hearing of them. I took a quick look at the link you posted and I see that could be a method of advertising and probably bring in a few sales. Youtube has served me well with web traffic and sales despite the fact I have crappy old videos, I think once I get better videos up that would help quite a bit but again I've been putting that off because I'm happy with the current amount of sales I'm getting.

[Rob F]

Hi, I wanted to give you all a big thank-you for your contribute to the campaign I was running, I really appreciate it! I removed the campaign today and as you may have seen the goal wasn't reached but that's ok as plans have changed to the better so it all worked out. I'm very grateful for the $1,380 that was raised and I'm starting to use it to update the hardware. I'll be reimbursing you all in the next couple months.

Thanks again for your support!