$50K/Month – App-powered Desktop Time-tracking Dice That Makes Time Tracking Easy – Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Hey there entrepreneurs, my name is Sushant and welcome to Treptalks. This is the show where I interview successful e commerce entrepreneurs, business executives, and thought leaders, and ask them questions about their business story, and also dive deep into some of the strategies and tactics that they have used to start and grow their businesses.

And today I’m really excited to welcome Pavel Cheshev to the show. Pavel is the co-founder of TimeFlip. TimeFlip is an IOT solution that assists people with personal time management and productivity control. It is an app connected polygon designed to make time tracking as easy, intuitive, and flawless as possible.

And today I’m going to ask Pavel a few questions about his entrepreneur journey and some of the strategies and tactics that he has used to start and grow his business. So thank you so much for joining me today at Trip Talks. Pavel, really

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: appreciate your time today. [00:01:00] Thank you. Thank you for the invitation.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: My pleasure. Likewise. Um, so before I go into your story, uh, story, because your product is a little bit unique. Um, why don’t you just share a little bit about the product itself? Uh, it seems like you have one there. Yeah. You can show it on the video. Yeah. And then maybe kind of describe what, what exactly is the purpose of this product and what, what is the problem that this is solving?

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: Yeah, okay, I’ll start a little bit, uh, like before that, uh, that point, how we created it, um, because we… Um, I was working with a fab lab. Let’s say small fab lab doing, uh, some custom, uh, custom works. And we also ideated, uh, things around electronics and hardware, uh, applications like smart home control, uh, wearable devices, uh, et cetera.

And like. From time to time, we would ideate around certain [00:02:00] market area. How can we solve this or that problem on how we can add something on this market with the use of hardware? And one day we realized like in such brainstorming that we all use time tracking app somehow, but there is no device to do time tracking other than the smartphone.

So, uh, we thought it would be a good idea actually, because time tracking is a sort of the, not the most pleasant task to do, you know, people force themselves. And, um, we are big fans of, uh, enchanted objects, uh, concept by David Rose from M. I. T. It’s, uh, it’s about making digital apps appear way more natural to humans through a physical interface, right?

You’re more, uh, kind of likely or you like more to interface with interact with the physical object. Uh, so we came up with this idea, which is Kind of think of it as a 21st century smart block. So it’s a part of the guy [00:03:00] drone. You mark the face it, uh, with your activities. For example, this is meeting. If I have a meeting with you, I put it like this on the table and it will record the time, uh, for the meeting when I want to switch.

I just flip it to another task and we’ll record the time. It’s totally, um. Autonomous, so it has the built in memory. Uh, you don’t need to have the app or screens, uh, to interact with it. But similar to fitness trackers, you can open the app. It will pull all the data from the device and you will have the analytics, you know, integrated with your calendars.

You can export data, et cetera.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Very, very interesting. So, I mean, you’re, you’re, as you said, you know, you’re really bringing a physical interface to a traditional, uh, solution that’s usually like digital or an app based, so very, very interesting, um, you know, in, in the world of [00:04:00] the product, there’s always, you know, this, uh, you know, these days there’s this idea with the lean startup of, you know, getting your idea validated and things like that, because, um, I’m assuming when you had this idea.

Of course, there’s, you know, creating the product itself, there’s some costs associated with that development costs and things like that. Um, what, uh, did you do any kind of like a idea of validation process before you actually decided to build it or was it a relatively straightforward process to put this device together?

So you said, you know, let’s just try it out. If it works great. If it’s not, it’s not a big.

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we, we, we made a couple of, uh, a couple of mistakes certainly on, of course. I mean, I, it was, it was, and still is my. Almost basically first real, uh, uh, startup entrepreneurial experience. So I had to learn everything on the way.

So basically, uh, [00:05:00] we just ideated among us and so we did all the, all the mistakes we have to like friends and stuff like that. Uh, but what we did actually, what was good for us and what was sort of a. Real life customer development and that we have we bootstrapped everything so we didn’t use any investors money.

So out of the pocket, our money plus when there’s two that it’s not enough on one side. And then we need to verify the year. The demand. And we, early on, we launched landing page and we just tried to, uh, get traffic on it and see how people, uh, actually react on that. And we, we started subscriptions, uh, sorry, the collecting pre-orders, uh, on the landing page early on.

So we already started sort of crowdfunding, uh, on our own lending, uh, from the people. So that was. That was a good thing to do.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So you did not actually went, go to like a, uh, a [00:06:00] crowdfunding platform. Uh, because I mean, a device like this, I think would make a good, um, good product for like a crowdfunding platform.

But then I also think maybe this has kind of a niche audience. Like this is not like a very general purpose kind of a thing. Uh, so what was the decision for not, not going to like a crowdfunding platform directly?

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: Yeah, we wanted to be, uh, fast. Uh, that’s one question. We actually were contacted by Indiegogo guys and saying like, but, uh, go, you know, start crowdfunding our platform.

And the thing is, uh, I don’t know how many people realize it, but you really need a certain budget to start crowdfunding. It’s not, uh, like free of charge for you. You have to have… Significant marketing budget to make a successful campaign. Uh, and you have to have your homework actually done too. So you, you go to the crowdfunding platforms when you have thousands of emails in the database already, right?

So [00:07:00] people already, they don’t want, they don’t want failures, right? They want only success stories. So they want to make sure you are creating something that’s already in demand and you have customers for it. Potential customers. So when we thought, okay, we have like, few thousands of emails, people already, you know, uh, paying out for pre orders.

We can do it on ourselves and that’s that’s why maybe also because crowdfunding. I think it’s kind of going down the slope of the of the hype that it used to have previously. Yeah,

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: I mean, there’s definitely I think a lot more competition that there, uh, people kind of pitching their idea. So I think, yeah, you definitely need like your own audience beforehand and marketing budget to be able to promote that product.

Um, I mean, one thing that I mentioned briefly before is like, you know, who is your target audience? Because to me, it seems like [00:08:00] this is not like a mass, uh, you know, it’s like you, you, you probably have a very specific. audience who would, who would be using a device like this, uh, where there’s an extra cost associated with it, you know, almost feels like, you know, maybe product people or, you know, people who are, uh, who have a very specific need of, um, tracking their time, or is it more generally applicable to people who are looking for general productivity

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: as well?

It’s it’s both. It’s both. Yeah, it’s it’s really it’s hard to define. And we are few kind of experimenting with different niches. Um, but generally, yes, of course, it’s a knowledge industry. Let’s say, white collar industry. People having digital professions, uh, most of the people that nowadays work on remote, you know, hybrid schedules, uh, self employed, a lot of self employed freelance [00:09:00] people, uh, users.

And of course, professionals like, uh, software developers, designers, uh, you know, consultants, educators, uh, lawyers that also, uh, account for the bill, bill by hour. They, uh, and and that, uh, that tried to use this or that time tracking software. They are not happy with it. You know, it’s clicking on the screen, uh, clicking button on the screen.

You, you know, you need to install certain software or maybe it’s a kind of spy software that ones are the usual, like, uh, so all these kinds of people. Yes. Um. So mostly like the, the core audience already familiar with the concept of tracking time, right? For, for the business, but also the people who, uh, who would like to stay organized, productive, like students, for example, um.

And yeah. And the, one of the issues we discovered not so long ago is people, for example, suffering from a d h adhd, which is [00:10:00] growing, uh, uh, it’s this condition is growing, right? Everywhere in developed world. So, uh, this can help them, uh, because you can, you can use the Pomo timer and you can focus on certain tasks, and you have, because it’s not just a simple, you know, Pomodoro Tracker, it has an app.

So you have all the, all the, uh, statistics, all

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: the data. I mean, we’re talking about Pomodoro Triumph Timer, I think maybe. Have you ever thought about like, you know, the, the different phases that you have in this device? Um, have you ever thought about like including, uh, some sort of a timer there as well?

So for example, once, you know, when you put this on a certain phase, it actually shows you like how long it has.

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: Yeah. Yeah. We thought of this, but yeah. In terms of manufacturing costs, it’s, it will be, it will be costly stuff. Maybe one day. Yeah, I think it’s also like one. It’s on the roadmap as a potential, uh, potential [00:11:00] feature.

Uh, we are bootstrap, we cannot, uh, we do not produce like in very big quantities to take benefits of the economies of cost. So, in our case, we interviewed that kind of feature that will be called to just make the product cost much more than this. It does

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: now. Yeah. So, so the idea with this device is that when the person is sitting on the desk, they can easily use this device to track the time.

But then let’s say somebody is out, out of office or something like that. Of course, not everybody can carry this with them all the time. So when they’re not in office or at their desk, they still can, whatever app they’re using, they can still. Time track using the app directly, but when they’re at the desk, they can use this one.

Is that the idea? Like it’s kind of a seamless experience.

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: Uh, this is the idea. The, the thing is, uh, the, the app version that we have now doesn’t allow this, but the, the one that we are [00:12:00] releasing soon yet will allow you to track either with the app or with the device.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Okay. Okay. Um, Because, yeah, I mean, uh, you know, with this device alone, I think you’re kind of constrained to the desk.

If you don’t, if you’re not at the desk, if you don’t have the desired device, then you can’t use it.

Yeah,

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: but it can be any desk. You can go to a cafe or whatever, any kind of office.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah, for sure. Um, in terms of, so when you got started, um, you said, you know, of course, this is bootstrapped. Um, can you share a little bit about what did it take to really create the prototype version of it?

Was it relatively straightforward? And then what did it take to bring the product to market in terms of like manufacturing and things like that? Like, did you go to, I mean, for something, a device like this, I’m assuming, um, The best place to go for electronics right now is really China. Um, so can you share a little bit [00:13:00] about, you know, what that process was like for prototyping and then manufacturing

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: for this one?

Yeah, yeah, we might not have started, uh, or might have done some mistakes early on in customer development. But we, the good thing that we decided to really, uh, validate everything really fast. So the first version of it was actually made even. Of cardboard. So we would sell, uh, yeah, kind of cardboard cut out.

The person would like assemble. There was a chip inside assembled by himself or herself, and that was enough already to work with this kind of, so it was very cheap, so we can do it. Really fast and, you know, because every every element of these costs like press malls cost a lot of money if you want to, you know, do plastic injection and previous cases.

So, yeah, we have, uh, fortunately, uh, to our contacts. [00:14:00] We had, we knew some people in China and actually from my current team, there is 1 guy who constantly. In China to kind of interface with the, with the factory. Uh, yeah, we, we work with several factories. Uh, that’s also a kind of safe strategy that you, you don’t assemble everything at one place.

Right? So, uh, 1 factory is doing the electronics. The other is assembling. Then you also upload the firmware and that. Yeah, so it was China, luckily we had initial contact from there, but I think it’s not, it’s not a problem. Once you start something like this, start the landing page that has gained at least some popularity, you will be having a lot of emails from Chinese suppliers to help you.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: For sure. For sure. Um, so when, [00:15:00] uh, when you kind of launched, what was your biggest market? Was it in your own country? Uh, or was it like you were getting emails or orders or interest from like,

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: uh, specific? No, no, no. We, we aim straightforward. We aim towards us and Europe. It’s still like roughly half, half. I would say that.

North America, like Canada also, uh, so North America and Europe in total account for about 95 percent of all sales, and they’re probably half, half evenly, uh, distributed.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Okay, very nice. Um, in terms of investment, uh, to, to bring this kind of idea to, to market, what would you say, you know, as you said, this was bootstrapped everything, you know, getting your first, I guess, batch of inventory and everything.

Um, what was kind of your investment? Um, I mean, I’m, I’m assuming you had one more co founder. So two people like, what kind of investment did you [00:16:00] make? And was that kind of your own personal money? And did you think there was like, Some risk associated with

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: we we we had some we had some business angels money in yesterday.

Uh, yeah, sort of, but it’s A France. So I would say maybe not totally bootstrapped, but it’s still like very, very closely related people. And um, uh, the initial, the initial investment including, including the, uh, the pre-order pre-orders, the money that we collected from the pre-orders, uh, we spent about 1,100 k uh, dollars on that.

So it was pretty, uh, yeah. Yeah. Wow. I mean, 100,

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: 000 is still pretty significant, but I’m assuming you’ve kind of, since then you’ve made, made that return on that investment. Um, so, so initially when you got the order, [00:17:00] uh, can you talk a little bit about, you know, What did you learn about the customer? And since then, have you been, uh, you know, what kind of marketing have you done since then to really drive new customer acquisition, uh, for this, or, or really to get this idea more, bring more awareness to this kind of a product in the market?

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: Right for us. Well, okay. The very first step for us for me was in terms of marketing is to Since we were not on one of the crowdfunding platforms, the very first step was to go on Product Hunt, uh, and just post about the product. And of course you cannot do it yourself, unless you are a Product Hunt hunter, you know, you need specific rights.

So I found a journalist on Twitter, and I mean… I made a list of journalists on Twitter, uh, to post about us and that was a huge, [00:18:00] huge spike of in traffic immediately to our landing page and helping us collect employers. Yeah, then the next, uh, the next big thing for us was visiting SPS Las Vegas, um, uh, that I would recommend to everybody doing some.

You know, uh, some geeky tech, uh, stuff, some interesting, uh, hardware stuff, just go there because they have, I think they still have this Eureka space, uh, which is for the startups and it costs way less than the, than the normal exhibition space. So we, we 5, 000 US dollars and you get the. Emails of all, all media or, uh, you know, all business, potential business partners, retailers visiting, uh, but very, it was very fruitful and we actually, uh, we’re seen by Ted crunch to see it, [00:19:00] but the crunch wrote about us that Okay.

Well,

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: very nice. Um, so, um, in terms of your, uh, sales channels. Have you kind of just is your website kind of the main? Place where people can buy it, or have you tried to figure out other kind of like partnership or other ways of promoting this product as

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: well? Yeah. Yeah. As you mentioned earlier on, that’s kind of that, that’s a particular product that some might think it’s a niche.

Well, yeah, it’s a niche product, but we hope that the niche will grow and actually, uh, offline retail.

But it’s just hard to explain to people what it is about. If you just put it on the shelf, people don’t get it. Make sure that, [00:20:00] uh, so mostly, yeah, mostly it’s our website. We love organic traffic that we always try to get, you know, through search engine marketing and also making publications, giving interviews like to you.

And, uh, that, that’s very, very helpful. Um, that’s one thing we did experiment with a bit of ads on Facebook and Instagram, and we still do, but more kind of tests rather than, uh, you know, the campaign, so most of the traffic is still organic and we love cooperating with, uh, Dropshipping stores or, you know, any retailers specialized in this electronics.

And we have similarly, you know, electronic gadgets, robotics, whatever. And actually, in Canada, we have a very, very good cooperation with robot shop. Dot com. I don’t know if you know about the [00:21:00] site robotics shop, but they’re great. Robot shop.com. Yeah. Okay. They sell like everything, robotics. We are consider robotics for them as well.

Okay. So, I mean, it’s, it’s a bit more than just robotics. So it’s like all, uh, different kinds of gadgets there and it’s, it’s, it’s great platform. We also have similar corporations in, uh, in Europe with couple drop shipping stores. It’s good that I mean, if you can do it, if you can have it, my advice, of course, to do it because they also help you with the marketing a lot and promotion, et cetera.

Um, yeah, what else? Yeah, they the only thing, uh, we could try deal for the for the retail is to do the more. You know, this, uh, more fancy model of retail specifically designed for this, you know, geeky products like the Ata in the US, right? There are clones in Europe of that as well. Um, we will [00:22:00] probably try in Milan, Italy, um, soon.

Uh, because that seemed to have more reasonable conditions, uh, data still is a bit, um, they, they want a lot of margin and, uh, a lot of marketing on our side. So I’m not, not yet sure

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: from the, uh, I mean, it’s, it’s an interesting product. So from a product perspective, I’m thinking, and I’m not, I’m not, uh. Tech, you know, product person myself, but I’m thinking, you know, uh, this is a relatively a simple concept.

I’m, I’m assuming any people who have become familiar with like the Arduino, um, landscape or, you know, their platform, you know, uh, people can, you know, if somebody wants to create this and connect it to IOT, I’m, I’m assuming it’s, uh, it would be a relatively, um. I don’t want to say simple, but straightforward project.

Like people can, if they want to, they can [00:23:00] create it, right? Like, it’s basically, you’re just changing the orientation of this product and you’re sending the data to, to IOT, to an, to a, to an app. Um, have you thought, and I mean, it’s a very interesting call, like from an applications perspective, there could be so many different applications of a similar kind of a device to do other things or interact with the environment or, you know, do other activities.

Have you. Do you think about adding like a different product, uh, to your business that accomplishes a different function, maybe different productivity function or something like that, or you’re completely focused on one product right now and, and,

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: uh, um, really growing. We are more focused on, yeah, we are more focused on, on the product that we have now, but we want to force to, uh, uh, you know, enlarge.

Functionality, uh, for it a lot also through integration integration, for example, with fitness trackers, activity [00:24:00] trackers. Because our productivity obviously depends on our physical state just as well. Um, so there are a lot of, a lot of things we want to do around it, specifically about software, because this is just, in a way you can think is this is a particular way to Also to, to sell your software because the offer something else, uh, just think of, for example, fitness trackers, how many fitness trackers, physical ones you can name six, seven, maybe not more.

And it just triggers that. The myriads of those, they’re like dozens or if not hundreds on the on the upstairs is the same here. When we started it, there was no physical device to do a time check. And now we have 3 on the market to other competitors and, uh. But basically, if you think of time tracking at hundreds again, [00:25:00] um, so our idea further on, like we, we offer you this simple interface, uh, to do like to do to make it easier for you to make it easy and accessible to anyone like want to track time.

Just delays it because he doesn’t like the app. Uh, but we want to have it smarter and we wanna, you know, to have the app not just, um, analytical presenting you your data, uh, but the app that will be educational to you, uh, that will help you, that analyze your work pattern, your ardi the data from other devices and help you become more productive person in terms of, uh, actually making your work less.

But accomplish the same in a short time and have a better work life balance. So we don’t want to, like, our sales proposition, our customer proposition is to work less, actually. Be more efficient. Be [00:26:00] more efficient. Uh, be more efficient, be more productive because you can structure your day properly. Uh, many people do like most of the people do lots of mistakes about structuring their day, daily work.

Uh, we want to solve that.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Um, this, this, this, this idea just came to my mind and I’m very curious because of course you, this is a physical product and because it’s a physical product, it has a design. And of course, you know, um, design, uh, informs functionality and so forth. Um, why a polygon? I mean, I’m thinking the same function could have been, so this polygon, I don’t know how many faces it doesn’t have eight faces or 12 faces.

Uh, 12, 12 faces. I mean, I’m thinking couldn’t the same functionality be a, whatever it’s been achieved, like if it was kind of like a, just a calculator, kind of like a device with 12 different buttons. [00:27:00] Uh, you know, with different, you know, images on that, and all you have to do is like, just press the button that you want to time track.

So why, why a polygon versus like, let’s say a different kind of an interface, uh, form

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: factor? You can do buttons as well. I mean, we didn’t really, uh, Have the possibility to make all this kind of prototypes and test them, but that that what we asked people early on what the easiest interface will be was like they said it sort of a sand clock, but but a smart one.

Okay. That’s why, that’s why polygon, uh, about the number of sites. Actually, we also did that on that very early on the very first landing. So we asked people how many sites they want and initial, like the very. Uh, it’s not the 1st 2nd. It’s actually we we, uh, applied almost simultaneously to versions one.

As [00:28:00] I said, it was the cardboard one and the other one was just we would tell you the chip and, uh, provide you with 3D models for your 3D printer so you can 3D print. Uh, this of that shape and just insert the chip inside. Uh, but people prefer, like, uh, I would say 80 percent would prefer a subsided device.

Yeah, yeah, we had, we had, we had a cube, we had an octahedron with a side and the other.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Um, what does the chip do? Is the chip really kind of. Um, recognizing the direction of, um, you know, of, of this, uh, structure and is that how it detects which, you know, which kind of side it’s on, because to me it seems like that’s kind of the core component of this device.

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It uses accelerometer to understand its position space [00:29:00] and to understand where it is now and how much time it’s taking. Okay.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Very nice. Uh, in terms of your market and fulfillment, uh, to me, it seems like, you know, it’s a European and U. S. as you or North America, as you said, 90 percent of your customers are, uh, in terms of fulfillment, are you fulfilling all the orders from Europe or like, do you have different warehouses in Europe and U.

S. and are there any challenges? Like do you charge shipping, shipping charges in that as well? Yeah,

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: actually, we fulfill most of the orders from China directly. Okay. Well, yeah, it works pretty surprisingly well. So the costs are not that big. They were a little bit, well, not a little bit, pretty much bigger during the pandemic.

That was a little bit painful. Uh, but right now the, they’re going down and they’re okay. They’re bearable. Uh, we also have, um, with one of our [00:30:00] Kind of drop shipping retail partners. We have a, uh, opportunity to have some stock in Europe. So we have stock in Europe as well. We don’t really have stock in the U.

S. uh, at the moment. Uh, but we, we probably cannot, we see the necessity, but actually we deliver, we deliver within three weeks.

So, yeah, and that’s, and that’s, uh, that’s already kind of standard delivery in the cost of the product. If you want, of course you can order something like EDAX, DHL, UPS, and you will get it

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: faster. Okay. So three weeks is kind of like a China specific kind of, uh, carrier that would deliver that, but with an extra cost, let’s say DHL can deliver it much faster.

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Within like three to five days, I think.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Okay. Um, all right. Um, so right now, I mean, is this, uh, Is [00:31:00] this kind of a side project, a side hustle for you, like are you, do you spend 100 percent of your time on this or this is kind of like a, you know, side hustle that’s running on its own. You’ve kind of created processes and so you don’t, you’re not, you don’t have to spend so much time on this.

This is kind of creating passive income for you. Um, oh, and you work on something else. Uh, what, what is the vision for this?

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: Yeah, exactly. Like I said, I would love it to be, uh, self, uh, you know, self-operating. Uh, I’m still pretty much involved in this one. Uh, not full time because I do some kind of, um, startup consulting, let’s say projects from time to time.

Um, and probably, I don’t know, okay, I will not talk about the future, but it would be nice to, you know, they have it operating on automatically and I could do some [00:32:00] other things, but for the moment, confused, like 60, 70 percent of my time.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Wow, that’s still pretty significant. I mean, 60, 70 percent. Yeah,

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: maybe 70, maybe 70 is a little bit too much.

Yeah, like 50, 60 percent, yeah.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Okay, wow, very nice. Um, is there something about this business? I mean, to me, it seems like a relatively straightforward business. So, you know, the product, of course, you know, came up with the idea. I think the most important part was the idea itself. Uh, creating the, the item, I think it’s probably relatively straightforward.

Um, is there some aspect of the business that’s kind of more complicated or challenging that, that does not seem to be challenging on its face value? Or is it, you know, in your opinion, it is a relatively kind of, you know, once you come up with the idea, the idea has a value, you create the product and then you put in the market and, you know, it’s.

Depending on the demand, it’s kind of running on its own.

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: Uh, [00:33:00] yeah, you’re asking like, if it is easy to replicate, if somebody,

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: well, so let me, let me ask you this question. Um, did you, uh, have you created some sort of a patent on this? Uh, or like if somebody,

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: no, no, not really, not really because we investigated it.

It’s actually a build on all, all the. electronic components available on the market. So you don’t, you can’t really panic much about it. So basically when, when your telephone can do the same thing, just as much more complex and, uh, and costly stuff. Right. So it’s, it’s not possible, but I mean, it depends, depends of course, on the market you are.

But how much patents help in the fitness tracker area, for example, nothing. People, people create that create, I don’t know what, what was the first one, Joe Baum or Fitbit, like they obviously patented it. It didn’t prevent anybody else from creating their [00:34:00] own. So yeah, that doesn’t, I mean, it doesn’t make much sense.

It doesn’t, doesn’t cost the effort. It doesn’t worth the effort. Yeah, so. I mean,

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: have you, have you seen any other, have you seen any other competitors, so to speak, come up with like a similar concept? Maybe they’ve kind of seen your concept and improved upon the design or something. Just have you seen any other products doing similar things

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: in the market?

Yeah, we have, we, we have two other competitors. Yeah, doing, doing similar things. One is also shaped, but it has eight sides. And the other is actually, like you mentioned, it’s a button, uh, yeah, it’s a button add on to the PC. Yeah, you, you, you actually, I think they, they are now wireless because initially they were like, uh, you need to, you need to have a cable and plug it into the PC and go with the button.

Okay. Uh, wow.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: I did the product development on, on the [00:35:00] fly.

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: Product ideation. Yeah. Yeah, your question. Uh, it was pretty, pretty straightforward. I mean, maybe we were lucky. Uh, maybe like we, we did right things at the right time. We went to the CS, you know, um, et cetera. But yeah, I don’t wait. We didn’t have. Of course, we have, I mean, there’s a lot of stress when you do it, especially like from the very beginning, you’re always, you know, on the verge of, uh, burning all the money and, you know, not having the money to pay people, et cetera, that happens to every startup, but fortunately, we, as I said, we started pretty early on that That’s what you need to do.

So you are sure that something you’re building has the demand and you more or less can quantify it. You can maybe measure conversion [00:36:00] and understand the project yourself. Maybe, you know, and that

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: how long did it take you from the moment? You kind of came up with the idea to the moment you had like the first version of the product in your hand.

So, you know, everything that went from like having the idea to the product, uh, do you remember how much time that took you? Like maybe a year or more?

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: Um, I think it was about a year.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Oh, okay. So still a decent amount of time, I guess.

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: Yeah, but also, yeah, it’s still, yeah, they, our problem is still that we, we didn’t have any, we didn’t raise any significant amount.

So we had more money.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Do you think it helped to have a co founder or someone else who was kind of sharing the vision and working alongside you? Do you think that kind of helped the process or do you think that if you were kind of the only person trying to bring this Product to [00:37:00] market would have been no, no, no,

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: there’s the no, no, my co founder brought a lot of a lot of expertise and this, um, he also had a background in the, in other hardware products, like 3d printing, Pam.

You already knew this stuff and through him, uh, we had contacts in China, for example.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Okay. So do you, do you do recommend, like, if somebody is trying to come up with a, or creating a startup, it’s better to have a co founder or maybe even multiple co founders who are kind of complementing each other’s skillset.

It’s probably a better way rather than going. And doing something with just

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: on your own. Yeah, I mean, I would not exclude the option if you do it on your own. If you feel confident and experienced, you know, uh, but of course, having a second and third opinion is very, very, very valuable. And also dividing the risk is kind of a smart strategy to bootstrap everything.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So, uh, in terms of, [00:38:00] you know, um, there’s always like, you know, as you said. In this other startup founder this or any kind of business. I think, you know, it’s inevitable that you’re going to make mistakes. There will be failures lessons learned and so forth. Um, what what were some of your biggest lessons learned throughout this?

Process of building this business, creating this product and so forth. What lessons did you learn? What lessons can other startups

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: on? Yeah, I, I basically the, the, the lesson number one, I kind of underestimated the importance of support. I thought of it more as an auxiliary function, almost like we’re developing nice products and that’s gonna fool all the efforts there.

Uh, but, but the client, your client is your best evangelist, right? So, uh. You have to have, um, and if you, if you check about maybe times like some, uh, some [00:39:00] reviews say that, oh, their support sucks. I mean, the, especially in the, in the past, it took them like a couple of days to respond or they, my, my email remained there and not responded.

So that, that was, that was an issue. And actually, you know, they have a small problem. You’re really making it big. If your support doesn’t function. Uh, as it should. So that was number one. You should invest in your support, even though it’s it’s kind of eating, burning the money that you want to spend on other things.

Uh, and the second thing is actually going, uh, we wanted to also like. Test, test, test early on different things and like test, go into Amazon and start setting on Amazon. If you don’t have almost perfect product, no bugs, no nothing, don’t go there. So that’s, yeah. Very quickly, you get bad reviews. They have bad reviews.

People that are not [00:40:00] your, are not like your core audience that came to your landing page, because these, these people are your early adopters. They, they can forgive certain things, you know, uh, you can, you can, you know, uh, keep them waiting for certain features on Amazon. Everybody wants. Perfect product you get better reviews and that actually fires back to everything you’ve created before.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I mean, I can tell you a personal experience very recently from Amazon. I bought a product. It was an, uh, you know, an electronic product. A new idea, in fact, you know, uh, uh, and in an improvement on existing products in the market, and it’s actually a good product. So when I, when I got the item, I think it was like 150 bucks or something.

Um, I tried it out good quality, everything working as designed, but there was like one functionality that was not, you know, they had. Mentioned it in their [00:41:00] manual, which was not working as desired. And so I wrote to them. I got back to them on Amazon and, um, And basically, I guess they didn’t want to get bad review, so they pretty much refunded me the whole amount.

So I think that’s kind of, you know, if you’re on Amazon, you can assume that there is going to be a certain risk. And, you know, you have to be, as you said, your support has to be. That grid where if you have received an inquiry from a customer, you are willing to like refund the entire amount and you’re going to cost basically to kind of learn from that and improve the product.

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: Maybe. Yeah, exactly. The pressure of this platform is a mouth. You have to, you have to count that, that you don’t actually have much rights or options to moderate the revenue. So either leave with them or.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah, yeah. Um, but I think, uh, I mean, it could be a good thing if you can, I [00:42:00] guess, make it as part of your learning strategy, you know, if you’re receiving feedback from customers.

And even if you are refunding the money, if you can incorporate that feedback and improve the product, I think in the long run, maybe it’s, it’s, it can, um, help create a better market, I guess. Um, now I’m going to move on to my rapid fire segment. In this segment, I’m going to ask you a few quick questions and you a…

A couple of words or a sentence or so. So the first one is one book recommendation for entrepreneurs

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: and why? Okay. Uh, if we just pick one, I love mom’s test. Uh, you know, this, this one, sorry, which one is it? Uh, mom test. Mom test? Yeah. When you test like by Robert C. Patrick, I think. When you really test your product idea with your mom.

I mean, you don’t do it. No, I [00:43:00] understand. He’s joking about not doing it. Many people would go, Oh, mom, I have this, oh, friend, like, I have this brilliant idea. And he’s like, yeah, it’s great. Which is not correct. Which is not what your potential target audience thinks. So the book teaches you. About how to actually do customer development, how to ask people questions to understand what they want, not to sell them your product, not to pitch it to them, but to really understand their internal needs.

Yeah. That’s, that’s,

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: that’s awesome. I think, uh, mom test. Yeah. Mom test. Yeah. . No, I, I, I think that there should be easy way to, for people to be able to get feedback on their products. Like just to, um, um, I’m, I’m sure there are organizations out there that facilitate that, but yeah, that’s very useful

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: service.

Uh, no, no, it’s, it’s very to do it by yourself without

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah. Innovative or idea the. e commerce, retail, or tech landscape that you feel [00:44:00] excited about?

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: Uh, in the retail or e commerce, uh, or tech, or tech in general, um, I’m super, I’m super excited, for example, about, uh, about what Elon Musk does, of course. And, uh, in particular, um, the, uh, his brain interface, um, I forgot the name of that, of that startup, because that’s, that’s something neurally crazy.

Neuralink, exactly. Neuralink. So that’s crazy because they almost create in different pieces because we are still with all the technology, all the. And mirrors of data available right now around us. We are the same people as 1000 years ago. So yeah, we can become more productive. We have that interface, you know, unload certain tasks.

So I think that’s the next next word also in productivity.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah. I mean, imagine that [00:45:00] connected with something like, you know, the, what Apple is now going to release next year. What is that, that device, um, the VR, the VR headset, um, to be able to really run a computer, a very high powerful computer using your brain, like you don’t need.

To interface with your hands at all, that will be, uh, that’s, that’s going to be something. Yeah. Um, a business or productivity tool or software that you would recommend or a productivity

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: tip? Oh, a time flip for myself. Yeah. I mean, time flip, it’s still more, uh, more for personal use. Business wise, what I use, I use Trello, for instance, uh, Notion.

Uh, we use ClickUp also to, for, for software development. Um, Um, well, yeah, chat GPT, chat GPT is also very, very, for your marketing efforts, for example, it’s very, very [00:46:00] useful.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Definitely, for sure. Uh, another startup or business in e commerce, retail, or tech that you think is currently doing great things?

Another. Another. Yeah. Any, any other startup or business of, you know, product that you may have tried that you think is, um, you

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: know, you think is okay. Open AI does fantastic things, but, um, well, generally, I would say, uh, without saying maybe names, I don’t remember, but I love people who try to make, if you think about e commerce and retail, Um, Uh, to make it more sustainable, more, you know, eco friendly because it’s still lagging behind a lot compared to other industries.

A lot of packaging stuff, no recyclable materials. So all the guys that do, uh, solve this problem, like big, big, uh, thumbs up.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah, and it’s interesting that, you know, there’s so much innovation coming, but there’s still really not [00:47:00] a proper solution for plastic, right? It’s, uh, I think, uh, yeah, a peer entrepreneur or business person whom you look up to or someone who inspires you.

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: Okay. The first one, trivial Elon Musk, as I said, because it’s just unbelievable how, how much one person can do. But if we start, if we speak about personal, uh, uh, kind of connection to people that I know new personally, then I’m inspired by Mickey Kusey. Uh, I don’t know if you know him. He’s a senior, a senior entrepreneur from Finland.

And he created Waltz. Waltz is, um, is a food delivery, which is big in Europe, that has been recently sold, uh, for, uh, seven billion dollars. Yeah, he did it like, so he was the head of the Entrepreneurship Society of the university. Then he was the CEO of the major Nordic startup [00:48:00] conference called Splash in Finland.

It’s a big one. And then this project, so within like 10, 10 years, 10, 11 years of his work experience after, after the school and the high school. He created that stuff and it’s crazy because, um, it’s not a particularly, you know, a fresh idea to have a food delivery stuff, but it’s obviously about his execution abilities, uh, you know, to, to push this project, you know, to the space, I think it’s the big, the biggest, the biggest deal, uh, that the startup of this deal or tech deal that Finland has.

Maybe after not getting sold to Microsoft. Wow. I mean, yeah. Very

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: nice. Final question. Best business advice you ever received, or you would give to other

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: entrepreneurs? Okay. Um, so think of so many people in startup world and, [00:49:00] you know, also speaking with VCs, they are locked in this framework of, uh, solution and problem, but it’s not, it’s very often much more than that.

So because solution and problem is the rational thing. It’s rational space that we. Take care with the, with our cortex, basically, but I love, I’m reading a lot about brain science and behavioral engineering recently, and the best products, the most addictive ones, of course, they go to your limbic system to your deep emotions and created this, you know, emotional feedback.

So think of it rather than just a problem and solution. Yeah,

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: yeah, yeah, that’s the I mean, that’s that’s a very interesting idea. It’s like, um. It’s like if you’re trying to incentivize a behavior create products that really talk to that limbic system and reward that limbic system. I mean, um, I, I can think [00:50:00] about, you know, in like health sciences or, you know, nutrition and so forth.

I can, I mean, there’s a way to create products that kind of, uh, I mean, the product that exists. Are kind of like they do talk to the limbic system, but they’re like in the negative way. But I think, you know, if you can create, yeah,

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: that promote, yeah. Or they, or they push you, like they, they kind of, uh, promote building habits.

Well, you force yourself, uh, from the, you know, rational perspective, but they’re not actually addressing your limbic system. But if you’re, if you’re creating something like, okay, sometimes it’s just a pure lack like Instagram. Instagram is not a photobank. It directly addresses your limbic system because it’s a social validation, right?

They didn’t know it, but it appears to be that, and it just exploded. Yeah. So, this kind of thing. Think of it that products are not always a problem and solution, and the best ones are [00:51:00] not that.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: In fact, I think, you know, most of the, most of the most successful products are not… You could, you could have never imagined them what they turned out to be.

It’s like, it’s almost an accident or, you know, how people started using a certain product. And that, that’s what, um, and then only afterwards you can kind of rationalize it or kind of rationally improve upon it. But sometimes, you know, the example that you give with Instagram or, you know, TikTok and these kind of like, they’re almost like, uh, accidents.

So right. Well, uh, well, thank you so much for your time today. Those were all the questions that I had. Thank you so much for sharing your story for the, you know, the product that you’ve created, uh, promoting productivity. Um, so yeah, I really, really appreciate your time today and thank you so much for joining me today at TrepTalks

Pavel Cheshev of TimeFlip: really appreciate your time. Likewise. Uh, thank you for the invitation and all the best wishes for your, for your show.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. Great discussion and all the best wishes for you.

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