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The Learn-to-Code Kano start-up, whose products are aimed at turning children into digital manufacturers, unveiled the latest version of its computer construction kit.
With Kano's new flagship product, tactile interactions are doubling, prompting kids to "make their own tablet". The Touch Computer Kit features a 10.1 "HD touchscreen, as well as Kano's now-familiar bright orange wireless keyboard and integrated touchpad.
As touch becomes more and more central to its products, Kano says that the keyboard remains an important component of the product – supporting the textual coding applications that its platform also allows to access, as well as the Drag and drop more accessible. Coding systems that really benefit from a touch screen at your fingertips.
The kit, which Kano generally says (but not exclusively) for ages 6-13, is on sale from today, priced at $ 279.99 – via his website (Kano.me), as well as selected online retailers and retailers.
The computer powered by Raspberry Pi also benefits from increased storage capacity in this upgrade – from 16 GB. According to Alex Klein, the founder of Alex Klein, the main update is about the upgrade. Kano OS, Kano's child-friendly file processor, with extensive support for touch controls. .
Last year, Kano combined touch and keyboard interaction into one product, the complete computer kit – calling it a DIY notebook.
The refreshed version of 2018 looks a lot alike, with enhancements generally behind the scenes and / or under the hood.
"This year's major initiatives are advancing the ecosystem of software and content," says Klein. "How everything is integrated together."
It indicates another coding kit that the team has pre-ordered, and which will be delivered next month – a co-branded Harry Potter gizmo in which children can build a motion-sensitive "coding rod" use it to prepare their own digital spells, aided by Kano software – adding: "With the Potter kit, we bring Kano code – to create a system, the ability to merge and transform engines and physical sounds and particle systems – in tablets. So now we have a tactile interaction model for this electronic product, as well as for the mouse and keyboard. So we brought this software to the Kit Touch computer.
"You can code by dragging blocks with your fingers, you can paint and draw. You can change the pitch of a loop or melody by twirling your fingers up and down and changing the settings with the speed with which the melody changes, playing with the number of layers you can make a beat or a loop using an XY plane of digital audio workstation based on the touch. You can access one of our creative coding applications and interact with tactile interactions. Instead of just using a mouse, a click and a dot, you can create an application that responds to sweeps and tapping and at different speeds. different places. "
"On the touch kit itself, there is also a set of new content that demystifies the operation of touch screens and take off the layer from the screen to show you what's behind it. below, "he adds.
"There is obviously a big hardware upgrade with the new ability to touch it, to take with you. We refined a lot of components, we improved the speed, the life of the battery. But what really matters is this improved software that integrates with all other kits. "
On other kits, the "learn to code" space is now flooded with near-educational gadgets, leaving Western market parents spoiled by the choice of what to buy for a budding coder.
Many more of these gadgets will be unpacked during the holiday season. And while Kano was a start-up pioneer here – a category creator, as Klein says – there is no longer a lack of technology for kids that promises some sort of STEM-based educational benefit. He is therefore confronted with a growing group of competition.
Kano's strategy to stand out in an increasingly contentious space is to fix familiar elements, says Stein – signaling for example the popular Minecraft game – which works with the Kano kit, and to which the entire Kano World community has devoted piracy Minecraft.
Well, apart from the miniature block-head characters, it's hard to find a character more familiar to children than the fictional Harry Potter. So, you can definitely see where Kano is trying to get the coding wand.
"We exceeded our goal of pre-ordering the first month in a day," he says about this future electronic product (RRP ~ $ 130). "There was massive coverage, massive traffic on our site, it was recovered everywhere and we are very satisfied with the pre-orders so far. As our retail partners. "
Potter's co-branding game is certainly Kano's, which is trying to make its products known by extending the appeal of coding nerdy manufacturers to consumers of more traditional children. But the success remains to be seen. Notably because we have seen this kind of tactic elsewhere in this space.
Sphero, for example, is backtracking from co-branded Star Wars bots to a serious education campaign focused on the integration of STEM robotics into schools. (Although Kano would undoubtedly say that a programmable rolling bot is not the same as a full-fledged computer kit capable of performing all kinds of applications, including including familiar and trendy stuff like Minecraft and YouTube).
"We are delighted to see that this category that we created, with this Kickstarter campaign in 2013, has become more than some people initially feared, namely the niche, the" archery "craftsman; and it's becoming a major consumer phenomenon, "he says. "This notion that people want to create their own technology, learn to code and play that way. And not just children – people of all ages.
On the difficult sales front, Klein does not divide the pre-sales figures for the Potter kit at this stage. But the different versions of its main computer kit have shipped about 360,000 units since September 2014. So it's not Lego (which has also evolved into programmable kits) – but it's not bad either.
In recent years, Kano has also expanded its business by offering Internet of Things kits, previewing three devices connected to your code in 2016, and launching Kickstarter campaigns to market the products.
It is a send (the kit Pixel), but the other two (a built-in camera kit and a DIY speaker) are late, so that the sponsors are waiting for their equipment.
Why the delay? Has Kano's priorities changed – perhaps because it focuses on cobranded products (like the Potter wand) rather than creating more of its own standalone devices?
"We've always been committed to shipping the speaker kit, the camera kit," Klein tells TechCrunch. "A big reason for [the delay] Not only is society in a position where we have mass distribution, we have great partners – continually testing new product ideas – and we want to make sure that the products will not just resonate. small group of people, but many, many people from different age groups and interests before releasing them. "
He also points out that all users of both devices who want a refund can get them in full.
Although it also claims that some choose to wait – adding that Kano remains committed to shipping the devices, and saying that for those who are waiting, there will be some extra bells and whistles at the origin specified in the crowdfunder campaign.
The delay itself resembles the market (and consumer tastes) that has evolved faster than expected by Kano. He wants his products to offer more than expected (but without a wand to achieve it instantly).
It's also a trap with the preview of every month or year in advance, of course. But the cost and complexity of physical construction make crowdfunding platforms attractive – even for a relatively established brand like Kano.
"The delay is really regrettable," he adds. "We said they would ship earlier, but what we did was we gave every contributor a full refund on the camera and the speaker if they did not want to wait. But if they wait, they will receive an incredible camera, an incredible speaker. Both will benefit from the advances made in low-cost computing last year.
"The speaker will also have items that were not even part of the initial campaign. On our side, it is essential that these products are absolutely correct and that they feel massive, and that they demystify not only the coding and the Internet of Things, which was part of the business. 39, initial goal, but in the case of the camera and the speaker. These are elements that have been highlighted in recent months, such as voice interaction and image recognition that we estimate if our mandate is to demystify technology and we ship a camera and a speaker. Make it perfect, make it the moment. And for any contributor who does not want to wait, no problem, we will refund 100%.
In addition to reworking his approach with connected devices that may be too ambitious, Kano has other current launch plans – Klein mentioning that other co-branded products will be available year-round. next.
He says Kano is also planning to expand to more markets. "There is an important market for Kano, even beyond our leading position in the 6-13 age group in the United States and the United Kingdom. There is a really strong market for people who are beyond the United States and the United Kingdom and we are now at a scale where we can really invest in those distribution and localization relationships that have emerged since the first year ".
And he has at least the idea of a future Kano device that completely removes the keyboard – and that starts to touch – when we suggest it.
"Are we going to a place where we do not have a keyboard in a Kano computer? I think it's very possible, "he says. "It could be a different form factor, it could be smaller, it could fit in your pocket, it could have connectivity – that sort of thing."
What kind of sounds like Kano is thinking about making a DIY smartphone. If so, you heard it here first.
The five-and-a-half-year-old London start-up is not yet profitable, but Klein is seeing growth that he calls "fairly fast" (noting that sales have doubled compared to last year, a trend this year). year), before adding: "It is not impossible for us to achieve profitability. We have a lot of possibilities. But for now, we're investing in software, in teams – we have partner products coming out like Harry, we'll have more next year. So, in terms of absolute positive EBITDA, not yet, but we are profitable per unit.
Kano concluded a $ 28 million Series B last year – and raised a total of $ 44.5 million at this stage, according to Crunchbase. Does this raise more funding now? "I think any entrepreneur looking to do something big always keeps an eye on the sources of capital," says Klein. "As well as sources of talent."
As a parallel to this C-Suite survey conducted by the Stripe and Harris survey, he found that access to software developers was a greater constraint than access to capital. that this gap – between 1% of 1% that can develop software or hardware and the rest of us – is exactly the challenge that Kano is given as a goal to solve from the consumer's point of view and education.
"In terms of fundraising, we get a lot of investors, we have great investors right now," he adds. "We know that the scale of this particular challenge – demystifying technology, is synonymous with code learning and creating your own computers – requires significant support and we will continue to monitor our progress.
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