(37) It's Alive!

My designer and I met and reviewed the first fully-assembled prototype - complete with mismatched screws, a nail and sawed-off rivet acting as a pin, and several of the parts slightly off, not long or short enough, and overall looking very much like a prototype. But it works, the fundamental design and load/stress-accommodating characteristics are right, things "snap and lock" when they should, and the whole assembly looks pretty cool. It'll look really cool once it gets the right metal connectors, and is all nicely polished up, colored (SLA prototypes are this off-white color), with logo. And, after a year and a half, there's still nothing remotely like it on the market, though the groups and forums I monitor obviously still need it. Patent-pending: 6 months and counting.

One of those Yahoo groups is really active; I posted a helpful "lure" (a post with some nice, helpful information, directing those who want more info back to my site; this is called "fishing for natural links", where you establish links to your site over time from relevant, willing online associates or contacts - search engines really like this). This posting, in 2 days time, generated nearly 50 unique visits to my site! Too bad I'm not ready to sell anything, or have affiliate referrals set up yet for me to earn income from. What's most important, though, is to establish genuine credibility and a good reputation within the online communities you hope to generate business from - first, before trying to sell, second.

Protype re-runs next week, then we'll be seriously testing - I think we'll have to do one more prototype run, with the work being colored and polished, to get an idea of the final product look and feel, and how stickers, labels and/or logos would be attached. I think the initial packaging will have to be pretty plain; I simply don't have enough working capital left to do much in this area right now.