Originally posted by MET student carlo trentadue on 20/01/2020
Have you ever wished you could check those email attachments from a laptop instead of your Smartphone? Or perhaps you wished you could edit that document with a full keyboard rather than a small touchscreen. With Superbook, you can.
Superbook is a universal laptop dock that uses the speed and power of your Smartphone and marries it with the display and tactile nature of a laptop. By plugging your phone into this ‘skeleton’ laptop, you can use your Smartphone’s capabilities to transform it into a full functioning laptop. These capabilities would encompass, but are not limited to, cell data, Wifi connectivity, bluetooth functionality, and file sharing.
The cost of the SuperBook is $99. This could provide a innovative avenue for schools, boards, and/or districts. Every student is in possession of a Smartphone; by putting a collection of Superbooks in classrooms, schools could be combatting the issues of technological inequity, the cost of classroom technology, and wireless infrastructures.
The pitch video can be found on their Kickstarter page: The Superbook – Turn your Smartphone into a Laptop
The idea that this Superbook can transform an Android smartphone into a laptop sounds fascinating.
Despite the known fact that this product was not successful, I do think that this sales pitch is presented fairly well. The COO of Andromium well justifies the need for a Superbook. He affirms the power of a smartphone in hand but touches the pain point of having to deal with small screen and limited interface. The affordability of the Superbook and the possibility of having the same experience of working on a laptop is definitely appealing. The presenter in the video is passionate about the product, which is a plus point.
The flaw however, is evident in the fact that the pitch does not make claims to reinforce credibility in the product using specific data for differentiation, and the presenter does not exude confidence and preparedness in conclusion. Hypothetically, if I had to think as a venture capitalist, I would perhaps invest in the venture going by the usefulness, functional merits, affordability and appeal of the product; and also taking the successful background of the people heading Andromium into consideration.
No, I would not have invested in Superbook – not even in 2016. I do not believe this venture offers compelling value for the product they are proposing. I see three problems with this venture: the novelty of the product, the price point and its placement. I do, however, feel they have promoted the Superbook very well. Their pitch video is visually appealing, confident and personal. Their pitch likely appeals to gadget lovers, school trustees and café owners, which might explain Sentio’s success with its Kickstarter campaign. Nonetheless, I question its appeal to major investors and here’s why.
1) Product – I do not think Superbook fills a market need. Stripped down to its parts, a Superbook is a screen, keyboard, trackpad, some ports, a battery and an Android app.
This seems more like a complimentary bonus for purchasing a new cell phone rather than a game-changer innovation. This is not a new technology. Superbook belongs to a group of gadgets referred to as “lapdocks,” and Motorola was first to the market with this idea in 2011 with the Atrix 4G, but it never caught on, perhaps because it could never compete with actual laptops for a similarly low price. This brings me to my next point price.
2) Price – While watching Sentio’s video pitch, the skeptic in me asked, “Why would you get this instead of say… a $250 Chromebook which has a screen, keyboard, trackpad battery, and can access all your files via the cloud?” A Chromebook can do everything that a phone-connected laptop can do and more, and you don’t need to carry two devises. The appeal of the lapdocks isn’t really that they are sensible option price-wise but that consumers might be participating in, what could be, the future of computing.
3) Placement – Smartphones have gotten so advanced that many previously heavy tasks like video editing are bottlenecked by the cramped user interface rather than by the performance of the actual hardware. Imagine workstations at home, work, school, your favourite cafe and that red-eye flight to Toronto where all your data could be streamed via 60 gigahertz Wi-Fi from your phone. This vision is likely the future of BYOD work environments, but I feel the phone-cable-desktop experience, as suggested by Sentio is just not there yet as a true alternative to Windows, Mac, Linux, or Chrome portables. I feel they missed the mark with their placement targeting average users and instead attracted tinkerers and gadget hounds that might see $99 for a Superbook a compelling value.
No I would not invest in this venture because the pitcher’s missed an opportunity to refine the definition of their market, their solution has as many (or more?) drawbacks as the pain point it’s attempting to solve, and I think the presentation was misleading and disingenuous.
The Pain Point:
This was probably the best part of their pitch. I think there is a legitimate pain point here, even specifically in higher education where it’s not uncommon to hear of online students taking a course exclusively with their smart phone and encountering issues. I also think most can relate to trying to do something more robust (ie: editing a video) on a smartphone and finding it to be incredibly frustrating.
Market Definition:
It seemed like they were trying to pitch this to “everyone who owns a smartphone”- and I just don’t think most people who own a smart phone want to unlock its computer potential. However, in education, there are definite access and equity gaps that a product like this might solve. One thing it made me think of was international schools in low income countries where students only have access to smart phones. However, for this market, they probably would have had to lower the minimum requirement specs for the phones, and lowered the price point of the accessory.
I think this could have been more convincing with one (or 2) specifically defined markets/customer groups and I think those groups do exist.
Elegance of their Solution:
There are a number of missed opportunities with the solution they presented. First, why design it to look exactly like a laptop and include (unpopular) features like a trackpad but no mouse? I don’t even really mind that it was a “wired” solution but I think an innovative accessory like this would do better to differentiate itself from more traditional laptops, and aim to also solve problems laptops may have. For example, maybe it could have boasted a detachable keyboard, and a screen that could orient in different ways; it definitely should have included a touchscreen and a wireless mouse. I liked the idea that it would charge the smartphone while connected, but the battery life was pretty under-whelming. I think the designers should have considered specific use cases and designed something more unique. For example: watching a movie on your smartphone- in this case, you likely just want a bigger screen that can sit at different angles and perhaps something to enhance the audio experience. I think making it look and behave exactly like a standard laptop was a huge marketing mistake because at the end of the day it comes across as a very limited ‘not laptop’. There are a few glimmers of the right kind of thinking, with the phone charging function and the ability to program the proprietary software; but at the end of the day, I just feel like this is a bulky accessory that’s not a good as a laptop.
Misleading and Disingenuous:
I really didn’t like that they called it “a device” in their pitch, when truthfully it is an accessory. I also didn’t think the presentation portrayed excitement or passion for the product. It felt stiff and vague.