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Late 2013. Working as a sales executive at Salesforce.com, co-Founder Joe Lemay forgets to pack the correct notebook for an important sales meeting.
#meetingfail
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Most of 2014. Looking for a solution Joe tries out electronic pens and smart notebooks. Nothing feels quite right. Joe wonders if there might be a need to create a new product.
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December 2014. At a local pub, Joe meets up with buddy and product developer Jake Epstein, pitches the idea for the “cloud connected paper notebook that keeps us organized”. Jake and Joe get to work the next day.
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March 2015. Rocketbook announces the microwave-to-erase Rocketbook while at the 2015 Launch festival. During rehearsals, famed angel investor Jason Calacanis scoffs at the product, says to Joe, “Who do you think you are, the Elon Musk of notebooks?”
While on stage, Jake and Joe launch crowdfunding for the Rocketbook Wave which goes on to raise a total of $1,889,030 between Kickstarter and Indiegogo. IndieGogo funding used to build the first books, the app and integrations with Google Docs, Dropbox, Evernote, email. Kickstarter funds used to build second batch of books, plus integrations with Slack, Box, iCloud.
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The Rest of 2015. Following a successful raise of crowdfunding dollars, Jake and Joe refine the Rocketbook Wave materials and hire firms to conduct extensive QA testing. It starts to become clear that it will be a lot harder than Jake and Joe believed to refine the product and deliver a notebook that erases properly and safely in various microwaves around the world.
Rocketbook announces to backers that Rocketbook Wave deliveries will be later than estimated. Backers respond with a mix of encouraging comments and death threats.
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September 2015. 5 months later than the estimated ship date, the first Rocketbook Waves begin to ship to 28,000 IndieGogo backers. R&D challenges are over, but the team now needs to hustle to fix major glitches with manufacturing, fulfillment vendors.
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February 2016. With all manufacturing and fulfillment glitches fixed, Rocketbook launches a Kickstarter campaign to finance the second batch of Rocketbook Waves and integrations for Box, iCloud and Slack. |
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April 2016. Rocketbook Waves are shipped to Kickstarter backers 4 months early. It feels awesome. |
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May 2016. Rocketbook graduates from Techstars Boston startup accelerator.
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June 2016. The first Rocketbook web site launches, and Rocketbook Waves and other products are available for general sale online.
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August 2016. Rocketbook Wave becomes available on Amazon.com. |
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October 2016. Jake and Joe get kicked out of a national office supply store while filming the legendary Everlast video
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November 2016. Rocketbook climbs to be the #1 selling notebook on Amazon.com, beating out brands such as Moleskine, 5-Star and Mead |
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December 2016. Rocketbook is a popular Holiday gift. Techno Claus features the Rocketbook Wave on CBS Sunday Morning, blowing away all sales predictions. A week before Christmas, all inventory is gone.
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April 2017. The Rocketbook Everlast raises over $2.5mm in pre-orders, breaking Wave records as the #1 office/school product in crowdfunding history. Units begin to ship to early backers |
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12 comments
We are from UAE and would like to buy Rocketbook exclusively for this region.
Can you please share more information about this.
I was in London last week and few of my friends were using the same and I am really excited.
Thanks
Shabeer Mohammad
Managing Director
+971554701666
smohammad@globalbeamtelecom.com
Would you be interested in introducing your books to the premier journal company in the Promotional Products Industry that could help you sell your products through the corporate channel…we manufacture journals now and we warehouse and decorate with corporate logos…see my site
www.castellimagnet.com we can give you immediate exposure to over 2,000 promotional product distributorships and have 20 sales people selling it each day to the industry!
We are the real deal. Fran Ford President…480-643-0859 fford@castellimagnet.com
Love to hear from you
Fran Ford Jr
Just saw this on Shark Tank. Sell to college students! We take notes so much in paper notebooks still. This would be a great way to help conserve trees and make our notes digital for the future!
It would be great to make a day planner that will work the a calendar app.
I saw you on Shark Tank last night and thought it was great! I lost most of my sight 12 years ago and honestly I miss writing. I do have a question about how the information comes across on email or Slack, is it in my handwriting or is it somehow transformed into type? This is a very important question for me since my computer cannot read handwriting. Anyway if you are selling to Martians I want to be a Martian. :)