We reached out to a participant in our second Asia Innovation Tour, Federico Rodriguez (Founder of FRETX) who joined the HWTrek Asia Innovation Tour, August 2015, to learn more about his project and his insights. FRETX launched its Indiegogo campaign on November 2, 2016.
Over the course of the past two and a half years, HWTrek hosted 100 hardware creators and accelerators to visit Taiwan, Beijing, and Shenzhen on Asia Innovation Tour 2016 (April), Asia Innovation Tour 2015 (August), and also on the first tour in April 2014. The fourth tour is currently underway in November 2016 and takes the latest cohort to Shenzhen, Osaka, and Kyoto to meet manufacturing industry experts, see assembly lines in China and Japan, and gain insights about their consumer markets for smart, connect devices. Learn more about the Asia Innovation Tour Winter 2016 here.
Please introduce yourself and your project?
My name is Federico (from Argentina) and I’m the founder of FRETX, a French startup that develops a fun and dynamic product for those who want to start playing the guitar as fast as possible. FRETX is a hardware device that attaches to a guitar and lights up the spot to place your fingers so you can learn your very first song in less than one hour.
The hardware device is controlled by a mobile app that contains the songs and exercises, as well as letting YouTube teachers connect their content to our device.
Our Company believes that people can learn and share new skills by engaging with technology and without a previous technical background and with the most entertaining experience ever.
What’s the inspiration for your project? What problem does it solve or address?
Started playing the guitar when I was 15 and I still, at 33 years old, dislike reading music notation or tabs. I’ve seen many of my friends going through GuitarHero without the real experience of playing the guitar and thought that we should really make something in between and get more people into playing music.
What solutions did you use for hardware design?
We started our prototype with an electronic textile, but after clashing with the reality of its cost, we decided to go for flexible circuit solutions. Most of the first prototypes were handmade plus the help of Arduino and Digi-Key.
What solutions did you use for prototyping?
Real prototyping got a bit difficult because we did not know many things about electronics, so platforms such as HWTrek really helped out to reach suppliers and become more professional in our communication with the supplier companies.
What resources have you used for sourcing and supply chain management?
HWTrek and Alibaba.
What were the most difficult things to source for your project and how did you source them?
Understanding the scope of their work and reliability of quality
Is your team co-located or do you work with remote team members?
I work with remote team members in Pakistan, Malaysia, France, and Singapore
What tools, if any, do you use for real-time collaboration on your project (with team members and partners)?
Mainly Slack.
What’s the greatest challenge working with a team?
Keeping everyone motivated and sticking to our vision.
What have been the significant challenges or obstacles you’ve faced on the project? How were they resolved?
Remote team management and cash flow were the main issues. We solved them with investors and hiring teams.
What have been the significant challenges or obstacles you’ve faced on the project? How were they resolved?
The main issue was to face the reality that having a perfect product from day one is not possible. So after lots of UX testing and customer insight, we got into the fact that we could have downgraded the product and features a long time ago because they were not important to any of our customers.
What are the takeaways and lessons learned from working on this project that you’d like to share with other hardware startups?
Lots of UX design at the beginning will save your startup from adding crazy features. We spent a nice chunk of time developing crazy stuff that we thought were awesome but just made it harder for people to understand and use.
Once we decided to have a product that teaches you how to play the very 20 chords in 1 hour, we got rid of a bunch of things and made it happen.
Keep in mind: UX is everything.
What advice would you give yourself if you could go back in time to the beginning of your product development?
Start testing and community building and find co-founders from day one.
If you are planning a new version of your project or future devices, what will you do differently?
I’ll recruit the team and put them together in a hack house for 2 weeks. 1 day on the production of prototype and 1 day of user testing during the 2 weeks before going fast speed or pivoting.
We all know the phrase “hardware is hard.” Is there something that was much easier than you had initially thought when you started out on your hardware journey?
Yes, you can outsource a bunch of stuff through freelancer.com rather than look for local teams.
What trend do you see that is changing your sector/industry or what shift would you like to see happen?
There is a lot of Buzz nowadays in new experiences and channels to distribute music and entertaining content so it fits our startup vision as well.
I would like to see more open hardware and open software around the hardware ecosystem so we can link easily between devices and grow our products value.
What’s next for your project?
We’re launching on Kickstarter in September 2016. We’re totally concentrated on that task now.
You joined the HWTrek Asia Innovation Tour to China and Taiwan in August 2015, what did you learn or what are the significant takeaways you have from the experience?
That some manufacturers help you a lot and you need to convince them to work with you in the same way as to convince investors to back you. Hardware is hard and it’s great that it is like that. Otherwise, competition will arise easier. Certification and all those legal problems need to be understood as well as manufacturer capabilities.
And now for something completely different, fun questions:
What are your ‘go-to’ sources for tech information and news? (Do you have any recommendations for a must-read/watch/listen to article, book, blog, film, or podcast, etc.?)
As a small fast read content that is super helpful to startups, I would recommend the Persuasive Presentations from HBR, which really help me on my slides and presentations. Storytelling is way more powerful than a nice looking render guys.
What’s currently on your playlist?
A bunch of Tame Impala and Hot Rats from Frank Zappa. Amazing record. Also, I have dug into some Japanese guy named Aoki Takamasa.
What fuels you (coffee, tea, or….)? When you’re low on creative juice, what is your #1 method to get back on track?
I play the guitar with Open G tuning that has a super bright open string. Also, I started to skateboard some weeks ago and I’m loving it. Both activities really make you feel relaxed and good ideas come inside.
While currently living in France, you’re originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina; what do you recommend for a visitor to Buenos Aires (place to go/see, what to eat)?
Definitely meat and Mate for drinking. We’ve been doing that for the last 500 years, so we’re good at it. There are also some hidden gems like eating pasta. A bunch of Italians came over and the legacy stayed with us.
If someone goes to Buenos Aires, one should go to a Milonga, which is a place where people dance the tango, get a glass of Fernet, see the crowd dance and enjoy talking to the portenos (natives of Buenos Aires), maybe the most sociable crowd in this world.
And, one last fun question: What gadget would you love to have from your favorite science fiction film or book?
Real-time holograms such as those in Star Wars.
