Hardware startups are popping up all over Hong Kong – and it’s easier when you have creative children around you all the time.
We chat with Hugh Bell a former a software developer that moved to Hong Kong in 2004 to startup a company designing, manufacturing and marketing Laserpod – and has 3 children, who are 8, 6 and 3 years and were all born in Hong Kong. His passion is color. Lots of it. And on tablet preferably.
What is your startup?
My startup is called Coco Color Company Limited. We have developed a new coloring stylus for kids called the coco color. It allows kids to color, doodle, sketch in apps on touch screen devices. The color you choose on the stylus is the color you use on the app. Just press a color button to choose the color you want to use. Each color button has many shades. To change style and size of stroke, just press a style button, from pencil to marker, crayon and paint. It’s a complete coloring set in one stylus.
Our vision is we love to color and we want to spread our vision to help budding artists from all over the world to develop their artistic skills. The coco color puts your kid in control of what they what to color, doodle or draw, when they want to do it.
The coco color is designed to be a friend of any color, doodle or art app out there. 3rd party app owners need only install our SDK and their users can use the coco color on their apps.
The coco color stylus is patent pending. It is also a platform for other uses. It’s a remote control for touch screen devices, a magic wand. This might sound paradoxical, but think of the fun we can have and how apps can be developed which can be controlled remotely. I see it as part of the evolution of how we can interact with apps going forward.
I have 3 kids 8, 6 and 3 years old. Like most kids, they love coloring drawing and doodling with pencils, markers, crayons and paint. They also spend a lot of time on their iPads. But when they want to color, doodle, draw or write on it, it’s back to the finger again. Even if I want to learn a foreign script language, I can use a pen and paper, but on an app it’s back the fingers.
As a parent, I want my kids to be able to develop their artistic skills using apps in much the same manner they do with regular art supplies. That is using tools and motor skills – hence a stylus. But, every app keeps the colors and and style tools on the screen, which often takes up valuable screen real estate.
All other stylii on the market are developed for professional artists, industrial designers and adults in general. They market themselves on pressure sensitivity and most all the tools are still on the apps. Also they cost around US$100.00 each.
Kids don’t worry about pressure sensitivity. In any case most kids press quite heavily when coloring, drawing and doodling, even when writing. What they care about is coloring, drawing and doodling. The coco color gives them the colors, the tools and more importantly the control to create what they want. The coco color delivers a complete set of art supplies in one stylus. And it will only cost US$30.00 or less. So it is much more affordable and more accessible to a wider audience.
Who are you targeting and how big is the market in HK/Asia?
Firstly, it is important to understand that we have both a product and a platform. In this question I will address the product – the coco color stylus for kids. I will address the platform in the next question The platform is a remote control for interacting with apps on touch screen devices.
The coco color is aimed at pre-schoolers to kidults. Anyone can use it. It really is fun and it gives one a great sense of control. It’s like you are creating on the fly. It works just as well on any touch screen device, no matter the operating system.
Forrester predicts that by 2017 there will be approximately 1 billion tablets installed on the planet. That is already owned by people. This figure does not include phablets or smartphones. So the market really is growing.
The coco color is also designed to be a friend to other 3rd party art apps already out there. We are not trying to woo people away to our app. We are trying to spread the benefits of the coco color to other apps that both parents and kids already love. The owners need only install our SDK to recognise our stylus. There is no pairing involved. Just press a button and go
This increases the potential market and assists other apps to enhance their offerings. In fact each app can decide what the buttons can do, whether it is their own color palettes, glow colors or patterns which are becoming very popular these days.
One of our revenue streams will be to co-operate and partner with 3rd party app owners. They can market the coco color to their loyal consumers. However they do are not required to purchase any stock or warehouse any inventory. We will drop ship direct to their customers and app owners can earn a healthy commission on each coco color sale. It offers 3rd party app owners an additional revenue.
What are your future plans for your startup?
The coco color platform is remote control for interacting with apps on touch screen devices. It is remotely controlling color, stroke style and size. So if we can control these factors, then you can see we can also remotely control direction, speed, images, animations, video and audio.
Our growth strategy with the platform is to collaborate with larger brands and develop bespoke remote controls for their apps. Imagine Angry Birds and Tom Cat being controlled remotely. Imagine a Harry Potter Magic Wand which can interact with their apps. Some of these brands have customer markets larger than major countries. Rovio has over 1 billion installs. The App Store alone made more revenue in 2014 than Hollywood. The app market is growing exponentially and touch screens are just getting bigger. Our product and platform is currently patent pending.
1 Benefit and 1 Challenge in the HK startup scene?
Hong Kong’s startup star is on the rise, so startups can benefit from lots of the traditional business infrastructure, already in place in the city and surrounding region.
One of the biggest challenges is that many traditional Hong Kong VC and PE funds are established along very specific lines with their investors. Each investment must satisfy the fund’s IRR level and many startups do not generate such returns in their early cycles.
Coco Color on Startbase.HK: Coco Color
Hugh Bell on Startbase.HK: Hugh Bell
