Commence HN: Quell (YC S20) – Immersive gaming and combat workout

We’re Cam, Doug, Lorenzo and Martin, co-founders of Quell (https://quell.tech).

Quell is an immersive health sport which guides gamers by device of an thrilling, effective combat workout at home. Gamers combat enemies with a low-cost wearable which uses neat resistance bands to simulate staunch combat coaching. Our blueprint is to be Peloton meets gaming meets boxing, at 1/10th of the worth. We launched on Kickstarter the day long previous by, and would treasure it whereas you occur to checked us out! Right here’s the hyperlink: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/quelltech/quell-staunch-ga…

We began building Quell because for us, divulge wasn’t relaxing; it was as soon as work. We’d tried your complete stats tracking apps and the biking simulators, however they weren’t treating that root undertaking. Over time, as the novelty wore off, we were left with the feeling that working out was as soon as mild lifeless and unlucky.

As gargantuan gamers, gamification regarded treasure an evident resolution. We regarded at what was as soon as taking place in this position and felt that divulge games tended to compromise on the divulge or the sport. We believed that, if lets assemble each factual, lets make one thing we’d are desirous to play. The entirety in the market was as soon as focussed on running, biking or yoga/pilates, so we went with boxing as a extra intense and cathartic different.

We realised that Quell might well perhaps additionally be a staunch commercial as soon as we began talking to individuals about divulge. All individuals was as soon as facing the identical two complications: barriers, and an absence of reward. The absence of immediate rewards in the occasion you divulge methodology that or not it is a must to propel yourself the utilize of long-time-frame advantages, and most of us are contaminated at this. On high of that, reputedly little barriers treasure climate, skedaddle, blueprint-up, knowledge and tools sharing delight in a big impact on individuals’s skill to commit.

The crew began working together in February, however we all had varied things occurring. Cam had correct left his profession in administration consulting to develop a form grasp’s. Martin was as soon as wrapping up his PhD in sensor tech at Oxford. Doug was as soon as building a commercial offering a ways away working and trend retreats. Lorenzo was as soon as doing a form grasp’s to pursue a profession in prosthetic type. None of us had the monetary stability to make this our beefy-time job, so we decided to develop the product over a year or two in our spare time. After a month, we applied to YC with zero expectation of being current. Our notion was as soon as generally a punching win with a show camouflage camouflage, and we knew it wasn’t where we well-known it to be. We saw the YC application as a forcing mechanism to effect some rigour leisurely the commercial, and an thrilling experience to war by device of.

Then Covid hit, and the target market went from ‘of us that don’t treasure divulge’ to ‘of us that don’t treasure home divulge or running spherical the identical park every day’. We went into overdrive, the utilize of all of our days off and lunch breaks to develop the product. No subject all this effort, the tempo was as soon as glacial. The total workshops closed all over lockdown, so we had no tools. We were separated in varied formula of the UK, looking to develop hardware by device of Zoom. Then YC current us, and lets sooner or later focal point! We left our jobs and levels. All individuals moved into Cam’s apartment. We bought a 3D printer, a stitching machine and a bunch of electronics and textiles. We spent all day every day looping by device of talking to customers, collating insights, designing and prototyping.

We learned that no-one well-known the bother of a punchbag, however every person cherished the foundation of feeling the gratifying physical resistance of punching one thing at home. We constructed a wearable which applied customisable resistance to punches by device of swappable elastic bands, and it landed smartly. We began having a gaze at computer vision to translate player punches into the sport, however our doable customers hated the foundation of developing a camera. After hundreds of hours spent punching the air in our lounge, we found that lets assemble excessive-accuracy, low-latency gesture recognition by device of a neural rating applied to inertial measurement items in the gloves.

We made a transient video and internet position with our first prototype (hyperlink here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hrIegPSxko2JPzsztm_1UmV4iRO…), then began advertising and marketing on Fb and Instagram to detect how it landed. The response was as soon as implausible, with CPA coming in 75% lower than our benchmarks. We opened pre-orders to envision whether or not these individuals would convert and got fifty orders in the first month. After drafting our bill of supplies, we settled on a imprint of $200 for the wearable and $10/mo in subscription prices, which works out at not as a lot as half the widespread fitness heart membership. With 55m active gamers paying for a fitness heart membership pre-covid, we estimate a market dimension of $18bn.

With the financials sorted and the early market validation complete, we felt confident in building in the direction of a Kickstarter. For the last month, we’ve been working keen on turning tips into notion art into sport inform material, making the product survey and feel ethical, capturing the video, writing the reproduction, pricing, costing, and increasing our signal-up list. We launched our Kickstarter the day long previous by, and delight in recieved over $60k in pledges in our first 24 hours. It’s seemingly you’ll maybe check out the beefy video of our unique prototype at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/quelltech/quell-staunch-ga….

We’re continuing to develop the hardware and the sport in parallel, and would treasure to hear what HN loves and hates, as smartly as any questions you might well presumably additionally fair need. We’ll be on here each waking hour (UK time) to reply as almost right this moment as humanly imaginable. Thank you!