Importantly, it's a time of reunion with family and friends
The "αble" series was created to relieve communication stress and promote communication.
We do our best to keep prices as low as possible so that you can "spend your money on family and friends".
It all started with the stubborn persistence of a small Japanese venture company (freecle Inc.), who wanted to keep the price as low as possible so that you could "spend your money with your family and friends The Story.
Contents
The story began with the thoughts of all members who have a hearing loss in their families.
In October 2018, before we started selling "αble-aid" through crowdfunding, we conducted depth interviews.
Out of the participants in the listening session, we asked about 60 people who are aware of hearing challenges what the ideal price of the product would be, and found that "more than 90% of them are looking for less than $30,000".
At that time, all of us who have family members with hearing loss felt strongly that we wanted to respond to our customers' wishes, so we decided to price the product at 29,800 yen (excluding tax) in order to respond to our customers' needs instead of setting a price based on the cost of the product.
Failure in China. Making a fresh start in Japan.
The "αble-aid" is equipped with the world's latest high performance and small size chip to provide advanced features (e.g. communication focus function) not found in typical wireless earphones and sound collectors.
Due to the high cost of procuring this chip, mass production has initially begun in Shenzhen, China.
We have been invited to participate in the alliance program of Foster Electric Co. Although you'll be introduced to them, compared to major manufacturers like SONY and Panasonic. It took us five months to find a factory because of the low sales volume. (We were unable to do business with the factory we were referred to.
When we started mass production prototypes, the quality was uneven and we were unable to provide the products to our customers.
After more than a month of working in China to manage and monitor the factory's operations, we were unable to solve the problem in a radical way, so we decided to completely halt production, ignore the cost, and start over in Japan.
This was the lesson I learned at that time.
Even after returning to Japan, the hardships have not gone away, but we have been able to communicate closely in Japanese, and we have learned a lot of lessons. This makes it easier to find and address problems. (After all, communication is important!)
Summary
The "αble" series was created to relieve communication stress and promote communication.
We do our best to keep prices as low as possible so that you can "spend your money on reunion with your family and friends".
Your smile is our happiness.
About "αble-aid"
You can hear it. So, it's funny.Voice communication with your loved ones, no matter where you are.
"αble-aid" is a new communication device with a unique focus function that allows you to focus on the "voice of the person you want to hear" in noisy places.
Author
Sosuke Kubo
freecle Inc. / Chief Exective Officer
After working at IBM to develop products using advanced technologies such as AI and IoT
In April 2017, he founded freecle Inc. with six patents pending.
As product manager for the "αble" series of
We lead product development.
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