Hi. My name is Mike Koenigs and I'm ?that marketing guy from reByte?. I was doing some searching on Google...noticed this discussion and thought I'd respond to some of your comments.
I'll also apologize up front in case I'm intruding...
We started selling reBytes in quantity last June using online marketing only. Our goal has been to keep a low profile, be sure the product was stable and that there was a market for the thing. And as a startup, we?ve been doing everything guerrilla-style. No fancy magazine ads for us because we couldn?t afford them.
Over the past few months, we've had an opportunity to sell a decent number of units, get feedback from our customers, make improvements and enhancements. We're about to release a fairly major update in a few weeks (1.2) that takes care of the majority of our customer's concerns. We're in beta right now and anticipate a release in a couple of weeks.
After that, we'll be focusing on getting reviews and publicity.
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Nosferatu's comments:
"If you do a search on Google, they are advertised in a lot of places. However, I have yet to come across a review other than the one you just posted. I can't imagine them selling a whole bunch of these things if it hasn't hit at least one major tech review site. Word of mouth is a huge thing. If you have problems finding information on Google, you aren't doing a good job. This type of device definately seems to be geared toward the "enthusiast."
Personally I really like the concept of this device and would like to purchase one, but I would have a lot less hesitation if there were a few reviews on it first.
Perhaps we should suggest it for an Anandtech future review?"
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We haven't pursued any offline media or reviews simply because we didn't want to blow our chances on a bad review before we gathered feedback from as many customers as possible. Like you so eloquently said, ?word of mouth is a huge thing??we didn?t want to take anything on before we felt confident that we could handle the response or responsibility.
We?ve always thought we had a pretty good idea but wanted to be very sure the majority of our customers did too.
And the fact of the matter is our primary focus has been to build a dealer and enthusiast network before getting larger exposure. To be frank, there isn't a substantial, sustainable business selling single units on the web to "techies" for $150?not when you figure the overhead involved in support and running a business. There?s a million ways to spend money, but not as many to keep it!
reByte is part of a solution and it needs technically-competent individuals to build boxes, set them up and provide support for people who don't want to care or know how to do anything very technical. Setting up a wireless router with a web interface is nothing for guys like you but the majority "doesn?t get it and doesn?t want to."
Now we're ready for reviews.
As for the "www.build-a-snap-server.com" site--yes, I did register that domain. One of our dealers wrote the content for that site a while ago and offered it to me (I?ve known him for 15 years, he?s a great guy and sells systems from his web site,
www.clonebox.com). I felt it answered a lot of questions we received on a regular basis from many users and provided some insight on the installation process.
We're a small company, formed by some computer and consumer electronics enthusiasts. We've all dreamed of building cool gadgets for other enthusiasts, home users, SOHO and small business owners. Most computer users (including us) have the same issues: we don't back up our computers often enough, our data isn't in one place and we can't get at it remotely when we need it most. That was the "seed" that started reByte.
An in case you?re wondering, we started in the basement...no rich uncles, no silver spoons in our mouths. We just started building units and selling them.
I know I've chatted with a couple of you when you?ve sent inquiries through our site. I'm more than willing to offer any one of you an AnandTech discount on a reByte. Just send an e-mail to mike -a-t- rebyte dot com and I'll take care of you--just mention this board. If you don't like the unit, you'll get your money back with no questions asked.
That?s a shameless plug. But I want you to know we?re serious about getting feedback and help from folks like you who create buzz.
Right now I'm looking for reviewers, dealers, affiliates and a part-time crack Linux developer to add to our team. Like any company, we more ideas people to execute them.
I'd love to learn more about how to go about establishing a relationship with Anandtech for product reviews. Any thoughts or assistance from any of you would be greatly appreciated.
I'm all ears for suggestions, recommendations or ideas any of you have, whether it?s about this post, our product or ideas you?d like to see in a device like ours.
And if you think you have an application idea that you think should be embedded on a reByte system *and* have the technical skills to write or design it, let?s chat.
Again, I apologize if you feel as though I?ve intruded or overstepped any boundaries in this post.
Yours,
Mike Koenigs
Director of Marketing
reByte.com, LLC