If you have been following us on Twitter, you might have noticed that we were live tweeting from Singapore a week ago. We were at Echelon 2014, one of Asia’s largest tech conferences, to share Ambi Climate with conference goers, attend sessions and pitch on the main stage. Six of us attended from the team – Julian, Tim, Mathis, Kannan, Kelvin and Liz – and found it to be a very valuable trip.
Two aspects of the conference in particular were most meaningful to us. The Echelon Startup Marketplace, which served as an expo for participating startups to share their product, provided an invaluable platform for us to speak face-to-face with a great range of potential customers, from corporate representatives to investors to regional startups to early adopters. As Joe Zedah, of AirBnb, once said: “Whenever you get stuck, go talk to your customers.”
With Echelon’s attendance rounding out at 1,700 attendees and the Marketplace operating from 9am to 5pm both days of the conference, the Marketplace invited heavy foot traffic to our booth giving us the chance to hear what struggles attendees have with their air conditioner, while sharing what they can do with a device like Ambi Climate. The feedback from these interactions was significant and will certainly play an important role in how we plan to shape the next phases of Ambi Climate’s product development.
We had also decided prior to the conference that we would launch our beta trial at Echelon and offer 100 free devices to the first 100 conference attendees to sign up. Before the conference started, we had 30 signups. By the time Echelon was over, we had over 150 signups and no shortage of offers to buy our demo unit! We’ve just sent out our first email to the Echelon beta testers and are looking forward to mobilising for our next milestone: crowdfunding!
The other aspect of Echelon that proved to be rather exciting (if not completely nerve wracking) was partaking in the Launchpad Startup.
Remember when we participated in the Hong Kong Satellite back in March? And managed to take home both the Judge’s Choice and People’s Choice Awards? (Yes, it was a nice surprise to us too!) That event served, quite literally, as our launchpad to pitch on stage at Echelon.
Similar to the “mini pitches” we were sharing in the Marketplace, Julian was tasked with pitching Ambi Climate to a panel of judges (and an audience of 1,700) alongside nine other startups from the regional Satellite cities. While we have been involved with other Hong Kong-based pitch events, this was the largest pitch event for us so far.
Undaunted, Julian was able to craft his pitch in a way that made the problem Ambi Climate solves digestible enough for a large audience to understand it in under six minutes – and memorable enough for them to vote us People’s Choice, again!
Attending Echelon and being able to pitch as a Top 10 startup was a timely motivational boost for us to swiftly move ahead with our development timeline for Ambi Climate. It’s an exciting time for us at Ambi Labs! As we continue confirming the details of our upcoming crowdfunding launch, we hope you’ll support the next phase of Ambi Climate and join us in bringing delightfully intelligent AC to homes everywhere!