Rocketbook is bringing old technology and merging it with new technology. The main product at Rocketbook is a notebook, which you write in like a normal book, but then with a specific app you can upload each page to the web, to such applications as Google Drive. Then when you are done with the page, you place it in the microwave and the pages are wiped clean, all to be reused again. Moreover, they now have a variety of items on their site and they are even giving free pages away, which allow for you to scan pages through their app. Joe Lemay, along with the other founder, Jake Epstein, brought the idea of this notebook to Shark Tank in 2017, but failed after offering 10% of the company for $400 000. They then went on to Kickstarter, where they set a goal of $26 000 and raised $1.8 million. Rocketbook has now obtained the title of the number one selling notebook on Amazon.
Joe is from Boston, he attended MIT and Cornell; prior to his venture he worked Salesforce, and his idea came about due to him bringing the incorrect book to a meeting. Joe and his co-founder were old friends and they continue to be a team today. In looking at the website for this product it can be difficult to find out much about the team that Joe and Jake have built around them, however you can see that it is a team that is community driven as there are several images of them doing activities throughout the Boston area, and most importantly, it is a team. Again, to support this last statement, there are several images of members doing activities together, whether it is work related or just building connections outside of work.
Forget the notebooks, how about those Rocketbook Beacons?! Kind of seem gimmicky, but so very practical at the same time. I have several whiteboard pix on my phone right now that I’ve taken that are intended for Google Classroom; it’s just those few extra steps that it takes to move them from my album to my Drive that slow me down. Being an MIT student, I would say that Lemay has the knowledge and influence to pull off some great and useful products. The promotional videos are clean and fun too!
Hold on, could you use the Rocketbook Beacons in a reverse kind of way on a regular whiteboard and an app that could make it into a smart board?
That is a good question, but I don’t think so. It is quite crazy the amount of different products they now sell. I do question some of the products, such as the backpacks, as they seem quite different from the notebooks and beacons.
Perhaps like the action sports industry where money isn’t made in the hard goods; rather, the money’s in the soft goods – the swag.
Joe Lemay did what I always wondered was possible as a child. The creation of the rocket book seems out of a childhood spy movie, or something Tony Stark himself would curate. Joe’s dedication to creating an overall affordable product that is versatile and reuseable is noteworthy. In a world moving online, some feel paper and pen notes are on their way out, whether due to lack of transferability, storage or the environment. Rocketbooks allows you to have the best of both worlds. Further his creation of Beacons brought Rocketbooks into my classroom with your ease. His history of trying the more traditional media, with success in new form shows once again that if the public believes in your product they will fund it.