nuka meetup in San Francisco
about 6 years ago – Thu, Feb 20, 2020 at 11:35:56 PM

Hey backers,

We started nuka as a passion that we wanted to share with the world and you were the first people who supported us and we want to keep that connection with you!

Now we are in San Francisco. Last week we participated here in the StartupGrind conference.

It's a great opportunity for all of us to meet in SF and see each other in person, share our emotions and show our products.

We talked with some of you during our customer discovery and we completely fall in love. All of we’ve been talked with is really creative and extraordinary persons. We are really appreciate to work for such people like you and this offline meeting is a great opportunity for nuka’s creative community to meet each other. You are the first ones we want to share our vision and future of nuka and we want to tell you all ups and downs we have experienced and are experiencing in the past 2.5 years of making nuka.

We want to meet with you in San Francisco this weekend (on 22 or 23 of Feb) and we want to hear suggestions from you about a suitable day and time!

Click this here to join our event this weekend. Get your friends, let's all get to know each other, it's gonna be fun! 

And here are some memories from StartupGrind:

It wasn't all for nothing! || new notebook samples || nuka in Silicon Valley || mobile app || unscrewable pencil tips || delays on Chinese production
about 6 years ago – Mon, Feb 10, 2020 at 11:04:33 PM

Hello backers🖤

⚡️Let's get straight to the news⚡️

Every day we don't compromise to create the best stationery. We are making a product that you will love to experience with, not just an item. It's hard to do it with understanding all responsibility and promised deadlines, but the result that we got is worth all the effort! 

Finally, we got new samples and they are golden! Yes, here is something to improve and fix, but it's really huge step looking backward. Thanks to each of you for supporting us and waiting for it! That gives us energy to fight with everything that interferes us to produce and deliver the product that we want to use by ourselves.

Here they are, new version of nuka notebook and pencil prototypes that we told you about on the previous update. These prototypes were produced in the factory that we have chosen for mass production. 

We made the experience of opening, writing and using the notebook completely different which you never feel using any other notebook!  

Here is a new logo design and now it's volumetric!

 We increased the length of the fold place and it improved notebooks openability. 

Now it have suitable thickness to put proper magnets and close securely. Listen to the sound of magnet mount closing!

Delays because of coronavirus in China

We ended product R&D and development on 90% and have been waiting for the end of Chinese holidays (1st of February) to order golden samples to check and implement all issues solutions that we developed to make sure that the product is ready for mass production setup.

But as you may already heard there is an epidemic of the new virus in China and because of this holidays were extended on 30 days (till 30th of February) so far.

So the timing of product production is moving on 30 more days and the start of mass production will be at the beginning of March and start of delivery planned on April

Unscrewable tips

We came up with the idea of the new product- pencil’s changeable tips with different thicknesses. It will allow to use our pencil as a professional tool for artists and to choose suitable thicknesses for any needs like on regular pencils with different hardness.

New app functions

Here are some more new features of the nuka mobile app. This is the only demonstration of available functions and we plan to change the UX design of it and make it much more convenient and understandable.

Many thanks to our dev Max🔥

Here is available app functions:

• Page border recognition
• Scanning
• Crop and size adjustment
• Preset filters 
• Creating virtual notebooks 
• Assigning tags and names to scan
• Search by tags, names and notebooks
• Custom covers
• PDF export of scans and notebooks and share

Now IOS version is 90% ready. Working on the Android version. 

nuka growth

Meet Andrew, nuka growthspecialist. He experienced in startup growth, planning, team growth, sales launching and hiring.

Working hard together to make nuka top of mind stationery!⚡️

nuka on StartupGrind in Silicon Valley 

nuka is ready to blast US market and now we are on StartupGrind 2020 conference in Silicon Valley. 

We would be happy to see you at our booth on StartupGrind on the 11th of February, booth #81.

New delivery dates || Special early bird prices for the backers || Trip to Taiwan || Product updates
over 6 years ago – Wed, Dec 11, 2019 at 06:22:29 PM

Hello backers,

During improving our products and communicating with the factories to start production we figure out that our Kickstarter timing wouldn't be enough to make proper products. 

Before the Kickstarter campaign, the team of our accelerator significantly helped us with product design and prototypes. After the Kickstarter we've been working with Chinese and Ukrainian prototype houses and factories to finalize the products and move to the mass-production stage but every time we've been getting fails and big delays.

At that point, we decided to find an experienced engineer for our team who would fall in love with nuka idea we are.

Meet Nikolay- CTO in nuka.

 New delivery dates

To the end of this year, we will end product development and prototyping stage. We would want to start mass production straight after it, but factories don't work in January, because of the Chinese holidays.

We are planning go to China to run mass production in February. Production has to take approximately 1 month, so products have to be ready for shipping in March.

Early bird discount price for add-ons of eternal stationery packs

Because of this delay, we want to give the opportunity to all our backers to buy additional eternal stationery packs for a special price!

To get the pack of eternal stationery for special $59 early bird price- follow the link and choose secret perk on Indiegogo (retail price will be $89).

Trip to Taiwan, looking for manufactures

Previous month we got back from 1 month trip to Taiwan, that we won from Taiwan ministry of innovation during pitching competition in San Francisco this year.

In Taiwan we've been looking for manufacturers for mass production, prototyping, improving our products and negotiating with factories, local crowdfundings and distributors.

Now we work together with 6 manufacturers in China and Taiwan to start mass production as soon as possible! 

 We already have calculations from 3 of them and waiting for golden samples from each to define a suitable factory for mass production.

Here are some hot updates about what’s going on:

Cover

We changed the construction of the new cover, so we can place stronger magnets inside and make a notebook close and hold an eternal pencil securely.

Also, we tried to put bigger hardness of the cover, but we've got bad results and when the cover was folding it started cracking.

Now we already produced a new version of the cover with the suitable thickness and hardness and it already in the way from the factory.

Paper block

We have some more news about our new technology of getting pages of the paper block together.

Recently we've got a small-sized sample of the paper block that durable enough and opening properly. 

Now we have a prototype from one of the factories we are working with of the full-size sample made by this technology. Can't wait to test it personally!

 Pencil

We already came up with the final construction of the pencil and already tested the strength of the magnets that can safely hold a pencil together with a notebook.

Also, during this time we were testing different types of  covering pencils:

After these tests we decided to stop on anodizing. 

Mobile application

In nuka mobile app we already have working front end part, function of determining page boarders, scanning and creating of virtual notebooks.

Take a look:

WebSummit

Directly after Taiwan trip we went on the biggest technology conference in Europe- Web Summit.

We had booth there and got tonnes of positive feedbacks from the customers, many new distributors and business opportunities!

Surveys are coming! Chance to get extra packs same to your pledge level price!
over 6 years ago – Fri, Nov 15, 2019 at 12:13:50 AM

Hi everyone!

We have 2 great news for you:

• You will get the surveys nearest days
• now every our backer can order extra packs of eternal stationery for the same price as they were pledging 

1) We have just transferred all your pledges to BackerKit, a backer survey management tool!

This week, you’ll receive an email from us with a special link to your BackerKit survey for your pledge level (don’t forget to check your spam folder as well). You don’t need to create a BackerKit account to fill out your survey. It’s really important to respond to your survey since we need this information to fulfill your rewards.

When you receive the email with the survey:

• click the survey link to respond
• answer the questions about your reward preferences
• provide shipping information
• and purchase add-on items if you like

Also, in case after you respond to your survey, you want to put other shipping address you can go back later and change it at any time before we close the surveys and begin shipping.

2) We are giving an opportunity for all our backers to order eternal stationery for the same price as they were pledging. For example: if you were pledging for early bird price $59 for the pack, you can order extra packs for the same special price

To do this, you just need to choose to add ons you like during filling your survey.

We will be adding more "add-ons” like magnetic bookmarks and we will post about them in updates so you don't miss them.

Paper block construction || new team member || nuka x CES 2020
over 6 years ago – Thu, Oct 03, 2019 at 12:05:49 AM

Hello to every eternal stationery early adopter!

Here are some hot updates about what’s going on:

Paper block

We developed technology for getting pages together using special welding instead of regular sewing and gluing.

 It made notebook paper block much more technological and durable compared to the regular notebooks. This thing made pages really hard to tear off and simplified the manufacturing process

 Mobile application

Previous month we’ve got a new member of our team. Meet Max, Mobile Application Developer at nuka!  

 Now we are waiting for the last pre-production samples from the Chinese factory before mass production launch. Can’t wait to show you the results!

Creating the best stationery in the world is a very challenging mission and it took a bit longer than we expected. So our new goal is to improve the products, launch mass production and start shipping to the end of this year.

Also, we have some more great news:

This weekend we took part in the largest Ukrainian IT conference "Lviv IT Arena", there we had a stand at the startup alley and taken part in the pitch competition and won a grant to participate in the CES 2020.  We will be waiting for all of you there!