Crush The Memory is a killer blend of AI-powered hardware and software that helps organise your brain and creates a digital twin as never before. It’s so good I’ve backed two, with Crush now in the final manufacturing stage, and deliveries in early October – please watch and read the summary and transcript!
Have you ever had a great idea, but didn’t take the time to write it down or otherwise record it?
What about using a digital voice recorder, only to have all these voice notes you need to transcribe? Of course modern phones now that voice recorders that can transcribe what you said, but how do you organise this all in a meaningful way?
And how do you get insights from AI without needing to copy everything into ChatGPT first?
Crush The Memory, from inventor, innovator, CEO and manufacturer Erik Kaiser is the device to do just that, and here’s my affiliate link that takes you straight to Indiegogo, where everything is explained and where you can still get Crush at a discount before it goes on retail sale.
As you’ll see from the video interview a little further below, which after which is the full transcript, this is quite an impressive piece of hardware AND software, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and with the app now available in the iOS/iPadOS App Store (and Google Play next week), you can start using Crush right now, and right on your phone, even without the dedicated Crush hardware that makes the experience so much better.
First, let’s look at the 2 minute video that explains what Crush is and how it works. You can see my previous interview with Erik here, and after that is the interview I did with Erik yesterday (Sat 20 September 2024) – please watch, and read on!
Here is the most recent video interview!
Alex: 00:00:06
Well, hello and thank you for joining me for another Alex: on Tech and TechAdvice.Life TV video interview.
It’s time to introduce Erik Kaiser, an inventor, innovator and manufacturer of technologies which now includes the impressively AI-enhanced voice-to-note recorder called Crush the Memory, successfully funded on Kickstarter and now in the final stages of manufacturing. Erik, welcome back to the program.
Erik: 00:00:32
Alex, thank you always for being so kind in having me.
Alex: 00:00:35
Thank you for taking the time. Now, Erik, I will embed the video of your Kickstarter campaign in the article that accompanies this video. But for those who don’t know or who need a refresher, what is Crush the Memory and how does it work?
Erik: 00:00:49
Well, Crush is about being able to quickly capture your thoughts and ideas. And it’s a powerful software that we have. It’s for mobile and web and we also pair it with this device, which is effectively how you can record your ideas anywhere, anytime, quickly with very little friction and it just is about pressing a button, recording, stopping and then that audio file will go to the cloud and come down to your phone and transcribe and give you a beautiful transcription.
Alex: 00:01:25
And as we’ve discussed in previous interviews, I mean, this is a device that is far better than using the notes/voice recorder on your phone or one of those little portable digital recorders because as you were just saying, it’s transcribing and it’s summarizing.
But one of the other killer features is that you’ve got AI, which you can then converse with to think about and talk about your ideas and you can even have a whole folder full of ideas that you’ve worked on for weeks or months and converse with the AI and ask it to give you insights into what were the best ideas, what are some ideas on what you should do next. I mean, it’s fantastic.
You’ve been using Crush now for, I don’t know, months if not a couple of years as you’ve been developing it. What’s the short version of how it’s transformed your productivity and given you that second brain that you never had before?
Erik: 00:02:14
Well, first off, the app is so powerful now because of the AI features in it. So whatever you record and you keep, it’s yours. It came out of your brain and you now have a repository for it.
As you collect more and more and more thoughts, ideas, tasks, whatever it is, conversations, using our AI feature, you can go back in and start talking to it. So I work on a lot of projects fractionally, which means that I’m working on something that’s probably not going to be available for five years.
I’m writing another book. I have other startups that I’m doing. So every time I’m struck with inspiration, in the weirdest of all places, Alex, the show, hour driving, walking, you know, strange places, I immediately can grab my Crush and I can record my thoughts and it ends up in the app.
When it’s in the app, I put them into folders. So for instance, over the summer I was working on my book and I was getting some really great ideas and I would put them all into the folder.
And then one day I said, I said to the insights, I said, in my book folder, please give me a summary and highlights of my book idea and tell me about the characters. It returned the most amazing results because I have so many notes.
I’m not reading through all of them, but the AI is and it’s returning information like, wow, this is really great. When I was able to see a summarization, just like someone writing a New York Times review of the book, I said, oh, I should start navigating it and pushing it into a different direction, introducing a new character, creating some more ideas. So this is a really powerful tool to be able to talk to yourself.
Alex: 0:04:02
It’s a new way of analysing what is coming out of your brain and speaking with yourself. And you’re a great example of how millions of people are going to be using Crush to just basically become genuinely more productive.
I mean, I like to think of this as a true blend of AI hardware and software. And one of the other things is that, as you were describing, in the shower, having a walk, you can be digitally detoxing, so you’re not there with your phone and not being interrupted by notifications.
You’re having a walk, you’re in that zone where you’re in that creative mood, and bang, you can record something. And then, instead of having to transcribe it yourself or go through all those notes and come up with some sort of summary yourself and hope that you get some insights, I mean, it’s all done for you. We really are living in the 21st century.
Erik: 00:05:01
This is true. And I have had experience with this product for a couple years. And the AI, we developed into it in the past eight months or so.
And once the AI feature, first of all, when you’re able to just capture your thoughts easily, it’s amazing the ideas that you have, because you can remember them, you’re not worried about trying to remember the idea anymore.
It just quickly comes out. Speaking is your fastest means of communication. And being able to just speak what you want into some device and have it show up on your phone in a note card that says whatever you said, that’s pretty amazing to start.
However, when you have the AI features, the transcription, you know, recording a conversation between two people or three people and having the AI break out the speakers and then give you a summary, and then you can talk to the conversation, tell me about what, you know, my biggest,
So, I’m going to give you a little bit of a recap of what I’ve been doing and what my biggest concerns were in the conversation. These are really amazing features, really. And being able to communicate with yourself is something totally different.
And it’s new. It’s still new for me. I use it to record my gym sessions, you know, leg extensions, chest press, whatever it is that I’m doing.
And then I can go back and say, you know, can you just tell me about all of the workouts that I’ve done for leg extensions? Just show me what I’ve done and let me see where I’m trending. And you can see where the weights are trending or the number of reps. It’s really fascinating.
So, I’m hopeful as well as are you that millions of people will use this. They will understand it. The software itself is extremely powerful. It doesn’t require a device to use. Anyone can use the software. You can record directly into the software. It does everything. But the device gives you a freedom.
And you described this digital freedom, this digital fatigue through which people are going. And I like often leaving my phone behind. I don’t want to bring it with me. Especially when you have a family. It’s not something you want to be on when you’re around kids all the time, but your brain is still active and going and you’re thinking.
And being able to capture those ideas and thoughts is just gold. It’s really just such an incredible experience.
Alex: 00:07:15
And I mean, kids today are growing up in a world where this is normal. Like for us, it was running water and electricity and TV and radio. For them, this AI companion, this Copilot as Microsoft calls it, you know, the chat, It’s just a standard thing.
I do remember reading an Isaac Asimov novel, one of his Foundation sequels, and in that particular book there was like an iPad, not that he called it that, and the conversation was being recorded between this young lady and someone who’d come to visit, which was being automatically transcribed.
And you know, that was all just science fiction, but now it’s quite possible, and I mentioned this to you in a previous interview, but Dragon Dictate, Dragon Naturally Speaking, the holy grail used to be, you know, for journalists that you could have a one-on-one interview with somebody and have both of the voices.
Transcribed and broken up by speaker label and that’s been possible now for you know, two or three years with otter and other programs We now take it for granted.
Erik: 00:08:09
We’ll try it, you know, and that’s probably not bad because it allows people to free up their mind We almost expect it once we feel that lack of friction of trying to get something done It becomes natural and you depend on it and you do take it for granted. I, also take Crush for granted because, I’m with it all the time that I’ve been using it for years. I’ve forgotten what it was like Not having this and in the shower trying to remember something or taking a walk and say oh I need to remember this idea.
This is a great idea and never being able to I’ve forgotten about that and, now that I use Crush regularly if I have some development issue with the app or we’re updating it or it’s not available to me or we’re working on the back end or something… and I’m not able to use it… I’d feel panic like a normal user would it’s not, It’s so funny.
So, I feel like, okay, well, it’s not even worth for me to think if I can’t record anything because what’s the point? You know, it’s a really funny relationship you get when you have, you take this technology for granted. It’s with you all the time. So, you know, you feel connected to it and it’s just natural.
Alex: 00:09:18
And as we’ve discussed before, it comes with a little waterproof pouch so you can use it in the shower safely. And as you were just alluding, if you, you know, in the old days, which is over the past 20 years, if you left home without your mobile, you’d go back to get it.
Well, it’s now the same with Crush. If you left without the device, even though it’s on your phone, when you said software, it’s an app for your iPhone, it’s an app for your Android, your tablet, it’s on your computer, you can talk to the microphones that are in those devices, but you want to have that device that you’re holding because it’s just there.
I mean, we’ve discussed it before, if you’ve got an idea when you’re driving, you know, you can either put Crush in between the sun visor, just have it up top there, or you could Velcro it, I guess, to your dash.
But otherwise, it’s just around your neck like that. You pick it up as you’re driving, you say what you’ve got to say, you push the button to start recording, speak, then stop recording, drop it, and keep going. I’m so looking forward to using it that I’m jealous you’ve got one. You’re Crusher number one!
Erik: 00:10:14
Yeah, I am Crusher number one. You’re really right, and this is a purpose-built device. It’s designed to capture thoughts very quickly. It’s designed to capture rapidly and get your thoughts out of your head and make it easy.
It’s got a single button. It’s not complicated. It’s not supposed to be complicated. We’re not trying to develop something that is going to have a high learning curve. And you’re right. You just want it there, and it’s not easy to grab your phone all the time.
So Crush, the software, is on the phone. We have a widget for iOS, so that’s great because if you’re holding your phone, you can just hit the widget. We have the Crush Pro, which means you can use it anywhere.
And we also have the Crush Pro, which means you can use it anywhere. also have an integration for the Crush watch, which is the Apple Watch, and you can have a recording button on the Apple Watch, right? And so I’ve learned that I use all of it. I don’t wear my watch all the time, but when I do, it’s nice to use.
I have my phone in my hand sometimes, and I’m in Crush, and I can just Crush a note right there. I don’t have to do anything extra. Most of the time, I’m using this. I’m walking. I’m thinking. I’m just grabbing. I’m dropping.
You find that you can use all the tools available that we’ve created in order to remember your thoughts. And the most important part of this is that it comes out of your brain, and it goes into a place where you have control over it. Using the AI, you can take action on it. You know, one of the examples that I love to use is – tonight was a great example.
My daughter said to me, Dad, do you know when a blade spins really fast? Sometimes it looks like it can go slow or it’s stopped. I’m like, yes. And she’s like, we were talking about it and I was like, what is that called? And she’s like, I don’t know what it’s called.
I Crushed the note. I said, what? I said literally this, when a blade is spinning really high, it looks like it stopped. And then I just went off to whatever, put her to bed and start doing some work. And I was in Crush and I saw it and I hit the AI button and it immediately told me it’s called stroboscopic.
Now I know. I mean, I didn’t have to copy it, go to Google, do a search. I just hit the button and it presented the information that I wanted to know and I’m done. I can tell her tomorrow morning it’s called stroboscopic and now we have a new vocabulary word.
And the amount of effort needed in order to get that information is so low. It’s so low that it’s almost like, why would I even go to Google to find anything?
Just Crush it and hit the button. It’s a lot faster. And not worry about when I’m going to go do it.
As long as I have the thought captured, I know I can take the next step. next step and take action on it very easily just by pressing a button. So it’s a very unique experience that many people are going to start enjoying very soon as we full-on release everything.
Alex: 00:13:14
And you’ve mentioned that because you’re constantly recording ideas, you’ve come back and you’ve had a look through the crash app and it’s like, oh, I thought of that, I thought of that, and it’s come back to you and you’re sort of amazed by what you’ve thought of that otherwise would have been lost to, you know, the great unmemorized idea list.
Erik: 00:13:35
This is an interesting experience. People will often say, oh, if I have such a good idea, I always remember it, because if it weren’t a good idea, I wouldn’t remember it. The best ones I always remember.
And my question is, how do you test that unless you record all your ideas and then go back and test it? And the answer is you can’t, unless you have something like this.
You need to be able to record every single idea. And I go back into my app every day, constantly, all the time. It’s where I collaborate, and it’s where I have all my information and everything I need to kind of do.
And I see something. I’m like, oh, my God. I’m like, I can’t believe this. It’s like, you know, without this device, how would I – why would I want to put the resources behind trying to remember that, right?
Because you have to start making decisions about what you’re doing with your mental resources. With Crush, you don’t need to make those decisions.
You just say it and go away, just keep moving along. And then you’ll see it all, and then you see what you’re capable of needing to remember. It’s just really a cool experience. It really is.
You’ll be like, wow, that’s a lot that came out of my head today, and I can take action on all these. These I don’t care about anymore. It’s very cool.
Alex: 00:14:48
And it’s not just a solo experience, but people are now contacting you. They want to get it for their teens, because people can be coming up with ideas together. The notes can be shared amongst the family.
I mean, you really have to experience it to appreciate it, but it’s kind of like, I like to think that all of our technology, our computers and our smartphones and our, you know, the Palm Pilots, all those things have been an attempt to help you to really improve your productivity.
But here’s like the next level, thanks to AI and thanks to the hardware, all that together, it’s much greater than the sum of its parts, and it’s sort of going to enlighten us to a new level that I think people still truly are not appreciating.
Erik: 00:16:03
True. We also in the software have been very mindful about what you’re trying to achieve. So you’re using the right words, productivity. It’s very personal for most people. But we also don’t just have a tunnel out to, you know, open AI and say, figure it out.
We first take your note through an algorithm that we developed to determine your intention. Is this a conversation Alex: is having and needs a summarization and needs it broken out by speaker?
Does Alex need to buy flowers for this girl? What is Alex trying to achieve with this note? So we put it through an intention filter first, and then we present to you the information, that is at the higher statistical probability of what you’re trying to achieve. So we have a few different models which we use.
We’re using the Open AI. We’re using multiple parts of Open AI. We’re using Google. We’re using Google Search, Gemini.
We have a combination, and then we’re cross-referencing. So if you were to say, I need to get new eyeglasses, right? Our intention algorithm is going to say, OK, Alex needs new eyeglasses. OK, what can we learn about Alex right now?
Is there any context to this in any of his notes? If there’s not, OK, it looks like you need to buy new eyeglasses. Would you like reading glasses? What is it you’re trying to achieve? And here’s some links to Amazon for some readers
Like, let’s get you started. Let’s hedge our bet to make sure that we’re, being as efficient for you as possible. And then you just take the next steps, and you can talk, just like Chat GPT. You can talk to your notes. You can talk to that note in particular about the glasses. I need two-plus glasses.
And you can then start getting immediate information without having to leave the app. And when you’re done. Which is what I love the most, is whatever the conclusion is to which you’ve come in a note through talking to the AI, you can take that conclusion and replace the original note or append it or create a new note out of it.
Which is amazing, because an example is my daughter, again, she just loves Crush, but I often use it with my children, the question was, what is 39 times 365 days? I give my daughters each 39 kisses a day, that’s how we got to this, and she’s like, dad, how many kisses is that in a year?
And I’m like, well, I don’t know the math in my head, but what is 39 times 365 days? And that was it, and she goes to bed. And then later I see it, I clicked it, and it just told me 14,325.
And all I did is just replace the note with 39 times 365 is 14,325, that was it. And now the note, the original note has been replaced, I have the answer there. It’s very efficient, it’s an incredible tool. It’s an incredible experience. It really is. I encourage anyone to download the app and try it for themselves.
There’s a free trial and you can make 130 notes and you can record and you can do everything. We just give you the whole kitchen sink in the beginning and it’s really amazing. People are getting very sticky.
Alex: 00:19:17
Yeah. And it’s called Crush The Memory. The app is now available on the App Store. Is it also in the Android store officially?
Erik: 00:19:24
It is. Not officially in the store. It’s under the test and we have a link for that. We will likely have it for next week.
Alex: 00:19:32
Yeah. Coming very soon. And for those who are wondering, I mean you can whisper into the device because you’ve got the ability for AI to hear what you’re saying even though you’re whispering into it.
And you can also just type directly into the app. Create a note and if there’s a situation where you don’t want to type anything but you want to still get the idea out of your brain and you can do swipe typing or thumb typing, whatever it is. You can even get a portable keyboard for your devices.
You can interact with the app in many different ways, right?
Erik: 00:19:59
Exactly. That’s true, yes, and we’ve tried to make it as familiar as possible as well. It acts and behaves like text messaging or email. It has swipe features for deleting or adding to a folder.
So it should be a very low learning curve because we don’t want people to try to invent – we don’t want to invent for people a new way of doing anything. We want you to just get the ideas out of your head. People understand how to record, which is pretty standard, and how to manage the notes that you have.
So you can put them all in folders or you can delete them or archive them. So it behaves very similarly to apps with which everyone is mostly familiar, and we do that on purpose to make sure that we don’t confuse people.
And we’re trying to eliminate all friction, which is what our goal is, make it very easy just to get the ideas and not have to learn something to manage them.
Alex: 00:20:53
Now, you’ve hit some solid milestones in the last couple of days. The Crush app, which we just spoke about, I’ve been helping to beta test. It’s officially out. Well, first is there are amazing people like you who have been great at giving us really.
Erik: 00:21:20
important feedback. One of the great ideas has been, which started with you and then followed with other people, has been the ability to take audio recordings that exist already, whether it’s through voice recorder on the phone or another app that records voice, and be able to upload them into the Crush app.
So we implemented that on our amazing web app, and we have it now implemented on our, mobile app.
So this way, anywhere you are and you have an audio file, you can just put it right up into Crush, which is great. That’s a really solid feature. We’ve added more… creating documents. They’ll use it as a word processor to a degree because they want to have the notes right there and they keep building on it. And then they can export that later and format it, and do more with it.
So we’re very focused on this collaboration feature now. We have notes. They go into folders. We can share a folder. We do have a shared folder, you and me, with a bunch of other people who are in beta. And we all put our notes in there about what we’re finding.
And then soon we’re going to add the ability to chat. So you can chat about a note instead of adjusting the note itself. So these are real focuses on productivity, being able to collaborate, being able to have admin features.
We’ll eventually get into the social features. You’ll be able to publicly share a folder and people can download Crash and follow you. and follow your folder and see what’s in there.
So there are a lot of amazing opportunities to really use the ideas that people have and get them into the features of the app that will make everyone really engaged and happy. And I think other features that we’re going to build in will be more with respect to the media.
Currently, a lot of people have a camera roll full of photos of something that they’ve taken and they wanted to remember. Well, now you can Crush a note and you can attach that photo to the note in PDFs and other media.
Alex: 00:23:42
It’ll be like that Google Pixel screenshots feature.
Erik: 00:23:46
Yes.
Alex: 00:23:47
Except we don’t have to buy a new Pixel phone.
Erik: 00:23:50
Right, precisely. So this way, users will be able to later play video within the Crush app and start using it. you know, getting more expected features from a photo album that you would normally have, like pinch to zoom and like that. So we have a wonderful roadmap.
And the most exciting pieces of it will be to develop a zoom plug-in for Crush, so people can just hit their Crush, record their zooms, and then have it write in Crush, manipulate it, and they can then talk to it. It’s really, you know, a really nice note-taking app. Really, really nice, really high-end.
Alex: 00:24:31
I’ll certainly be using the Crush app to, well, I’ll be exporting this video, not just as a video, but as an audio file. And then I’ll be importing that audio file into Crush and getting it to give me the summarization and the transcript. And then I’ll use that as the basis for the article that will accompany this video. And, you know, we’ve got also things like, yeah, export it. Exactly, exactly. So it’s really impressive stuff. Okay, so given that anyone can download the app…
Erik: 00:25:14
That’s correct. And backers all get special discounts, no question about it. So during our Kickstarter campaign, depending on what tier you purchased, you got discounts starting at 50% going to 100% discount.
And in the Indiegogo extension of our Kickstarter campaign, and for all the people who did purchase, we’re offering $29 annual subscription add-ons as just a cost saying, thank you very much for backing us.
We want people to share and try it. And we will have our website, I think our website is up now as of today. And we have, I think we have a bundle special on our website, we do, which is, It is a combination of a one-year access plan, plus the device, plus the lanyard, and the waterproof cover, everything for I think it’s $149, depending on what color you buy or something like that.
So we’re aggressively working to get people engaged with the product and really enjoy it.
And they have the opportunity to try the software in advance and see what they think. And once people start using it, they realize the value of it, and they stay, and it gets very sticky for them very quickly.
Alex: 00:26:32
And the website is CrushTheMemory.com, it’s one word, and if you still want to access the Kickstarter campaign, it’s get.crushthememory.com, and in fact, what I meant to say there was you can still access the Indiegogo campaign, or you can go to Indiegogo and just search for Crush, and it’ll come up there.
But I noticed the app is getting regularly updated during the beta testing process, so, I’m sure it’s fair to say that this pace of updating is going to continue for a while and even accelerate as all the new users come flooding in.
Erik: 00:27:10
Our current job is to make sure we squash bugs, any bug that exists. And we’re finding great little bugs that we didn’t even know existed because we haven’t been testing the app in that way and it’s been great. So I love it.
By the way, I love finding bugs because every time we squash a bug, the app gets even that more stable and that more stable. And our goal is to have a very stable app. That’s our foundation. And then build the features on top of that continually.
So we’re waiting for this rush that started, the rush of people coming in to use the app, starting to report the bugs. They had a problem logging on, they had a problem with this email, whatever it is, and then we can address them immediately. And we’re going to be doing that feverishly for the next couple of weeks because that’s really what matters to me.
You don’t want the app crashing, you need the app to have 100% effective recording, you need to be able to log in, everything needs to be perfect. So we’re focused on that, and then the features that we’re adding will be related to what I was describing before.
There will be chat features, there’s going to be more AI features, there are going to be some presets, we’re going to keep loading it up. Some of the AI features we also need to add are, you know, we want the note wants to create an image. Like, you know, I’d really like to create an image of, you know, of Harry Potter riding his broom or something.
And we should be able to start delivering the images, creating charts. So we’re working on all that to make sure the AI is super functional.
So if you have your gym workout, for instance, and you want to chart your progress on your leg extensions, you should be able to say to the insights, hey, in this folder, chart my leg extensions and give me a graph. And so that’s what we’re doing. But these are all features that are coming.
Alex: 00:29:02
And I mean also hopefully just simply being able to talk to the AI like you can with ChatGPT. So instead of typing it, I mean you can do whatever you want. You want to talk to it.
And as I was saying before, with Crush you don’t have to buy a brand new phone. I mean all these AI features are coming into phones and I’m sure you’ll piggyback onto those when they become a lot more stable because they’re all just sort of coming out and they’re still new.
But this will work with your older iPhone, your older Android and give you those AI features that, again, we’re going to be taking them all for granted.
Erik: 00:29:34
Yeah. And what’s also important to mention is that all of the data is fully encrypted. So it’s yours and it’s safe and it’s encrypted at rest and it’s encrypted in transit, which is great.
And we’re not using any of the data at all to train any of the models. So this is really important because I don’t want my data training any models and I don’t want anybody. I don’t want anybody. with prying eyes seeing my notes. I mean, really, I don’t want anybody seeing it.
So we extend that to everybody else as well. And this is an important feature because I see other competitors, let’s just say, who don’t have that same interest. And I see pushback from people online, especially on Reddit, saying, like, I just want to get them to my phone.
I don’t want them storing any of my data. I don’t trust those people. And we look at that. We also feel the same. And we’re like, look, if we’re going to manage your data, anything, it’s going to be fully encrypted. It’s yours. And we’re just stewards of the repository.
We can’t do anything with it. That’s very important to mention.
Alex: 00:30:43
Absolutely. Well, it’s your digital twin. And so, yeah, you definitely want to have exclusive access to that. And you only want to be able to share the things that you want to share when you want to share them.
So that’s what the note-sharing folder system is all about. And, you know, like you were saying before, being able to share certain things. The next milestone is being right in the midst of the manufacturing process, as we speak.
And I’m going to put a link to this video on your Kickstarter page, and I’m going to advertise or promote this on X and other places. So for people who are out there who are customers, it’s great that you’re right in the midst of the manufacturing process, and you put a post on X about this in the last couple of days as we record.
But can you please tell us where your manufacturing team is up to?
Erik: 00:31:30
Sure. Well, in China, in a place called Shenzhen, China, which is the Silicon Valley of China, I have a factory. I’ve owned a factory there for, oh, God, almost 13 years or something like that.
I lived in China for seven years straight until my wife was pregnant and said we needed to move out to raise our children in another place. But we have a factory, and we manufacture all of our products there.
We manufacture other electronic products. So this entire product is… It is developed by my team, software is written by my team, we make the plastic, we make the circuit boards, we do all the circuit board assemblies, so this is really an in-house product, fully in-house, with the exception of accessories like this, we don’t do silicone, or lanyard weaving, but that’s not important, what’s important is getting this right.
So we’re right now assembling the circuit boards, we started programming already, and today we’ll finish the circuit boards and we will program and we will start testing over the weekend, and we do stability testing and we heat them up and we run them and we test them and make sure the microphones work and all that, so that’s all happening right now, and then next week we should be finished assembling and introducing everything into the case, getting everything kind of packed up, we do multiple points of testing along the way because it’s a new product, until we understand if there are any fail points and if there are we go back and fix them.
But we’ve had enough experience with this already. We’ve done multiple different small runs of this where we’re pretty confident where we are right now. We’ve tested it out. While I was in China over the summer, I already had the programming done.
I’m like, everything is ready. So we make them in batches of six units. So when we run the assembly through the machine to assemble all the circuit, the electronics on the circuit board, we do that in a gang of six and then we program a gang of six. So it moves along pretty rapidly.
Alex: 00:33:29
Now, deliveries were scheduled to start in September and for you, it’s still Thursday, the 19th of September. So should shipments go out by the end of the month and then when should backers start receiving their Crush units?
Erik: 00:33:42
My goal is to get it out by the end of the month, meaning I’m pushing aggressively to make sure it gets done, but I’m also cautious. I’m not going to ship something if it’s not 100% perfect and we have enough experience to know that where we are right now, we’re good.
And if there’s some QC issue or something, we should be on time. And I always deliver pretty much on time. I’m good about that. So our backers, just say October, all of our backers will have their units.
With hope, everyone will have already downloaded their Crush app and started using it. And then we’ll start getting great feedback, and we’ll start seeing it light up online, and people start posting about it, and the conversations start building, which is really an exciting part, because the Kickstarter campaign was fantastic. We had a lot of engagement.
But when these are actually in the real world and people start using them, that’s when the conversations start really building. Like, what is that? Oh, it’s Crush. It’s a digital AI voice recorder.
How does it work? Oh, I’ll show you. It goes into the app. Wow, it’s crazy. Where do I get one? And then that’s how it kind of builds, word of mouth and advertising.
Alex: 00:34:51
Now, one of the features of Crush, it’s got one button, but it also has a little switch on the side that you can flick up and down, which is the… I’ve seen some AI pins arriving on Kickstarter, which click to your lapel a bit like a Star Trek communicator. And I’ve seen some initial criticism from the beta testing of these that it can be tapped too easily, and then the next time you want to use it, it’s already flat.
I mean, for whatever reason, they didn’t think of putting in a hole switch. But what are your thoughts on these devices and how they compare to Crush, which you can wear, put in your pocket? Why is Crush better in a nutshell? Because we’ve already explained why it’s better in all of this conversation.
Erik: 00:35:41
It’s a fair question, and I have a very simple answer. We solve for one primary problem, and that is to rapidly, this is a purpose-built device to rapidly, without friction, collect your thoughts when they happen.
Don’t record your whole life and record everybody around you all the time. We don’t believe that is a… We think that’s too invasive, and you can, that’s okay, not with Crush, but it’s okay if people want to record that, but we just don’t think that’s a good practice.
We think that’s an antisocial practice. I feel weird when someone’s just recording me because they are, and you don’t have a free conversation. So this is designed to capture thoughts. Can we record the conversation with this? Yes, we can. Do I record conversations with this?
Yes, sometimes I do, and I find it very useful, especially when I’m at dinner. Someone may be telling me about an idea or a book they want me to read, or they’re explaining a high-level thought, and I’m like, stop, and I just put this on the table and I let it record, and then after the conversation, and I have the transcript, I’m like, I’m so thankful that I have this because it doesn’t stop the conversation.
There are going to be more pendants… more recording. What matters more than anything is the software. What are you going to do with it once you have it? And nobody organizes better than me. I am a hyper organized individual and I have extremely good organization logic.
So the efforts that I’ve made to design the Crush app and the software is superior. It’s designed for you to collect your notes, put them places, have them stay there, be able to talk to them, delete them. You can, this is a utility.
It’s extremely functional where the others are recording, giving you a transcript, and then you have to go figure out what to do with it after that. Like what do you do with it? And that’s way behind me. Like I already know what to do with it.
From day one, I developed this UI in December of 2021, knowing exactly like, Like, oh, I know how to solve this problem. What do you do with all your thoughts? How do you store them? How do you not make a mess?
How do you work on a project for five years that you’re not ready to start, but you’re collecting the thoughts?
You don’t need those, you don’t need that visually polluting your space. You just need them in a place where you can access them, and when you’re ready, everything is there.
You know, so I’m really good at organization and product development and also project management, so I bring all of that into the app, and the result should be something that is familiar, easy to use, but also has all the bells and whistles for power users who are like, look, I share a grocery list with my wife, okay?
I’m going to put it all in Crush, share the folder with her so she has it on her Crush, but I need it to be checkboxes because we check it off. Well, we have a checkbox feature, so you can say, yeah, dot the X. So you got the milk and it just, I know I am an expert at organization, an expert.
So I bring all of that to the table in the apps and other competitors are not. They just have an app where you can collect the information and, you know, you have to be creative about how you’re going to manage it. They’re not thinking about the management and the downstream effects of what happens after you have this stuff for five years.
Well, guess what? I do. I know exactly what to do with it. So that’s the way I started it. So once you start with Crush, everything gets easier and easier and easier the more that you continue to use it, which is a result of FeatureEd and the initial logic that I created for how to organize it and how to use it. So you’ll see lots of pins. You’ll see lots of failures.
You’ll see lots of people saying it’s coming and it never comes. You’ll see lots of drained batteries or swollen batteries or it doesn’t record.
Well, you’re going to see. You’re going to see all that stuff, you know, where we’re at.
Alex: 00:40:04
It’s already happening out there. There was one AI pin that was announced, but it still hasn’t arrived. I mean, look, obviously these competitors are going to see what you’re doing with Crush and they’re going to, you know, try to emulate what you’re doing with the AI.
I mean, it’s just, that’s what the phone makers are trying to do themselves. But I really do think that it’s the combination of the hardware, the phone, the app, the ability to see on all these different devices, not just one ecosystem, that’s going to make all the difference.
Is there, before you give us your final message, is there anything else that we need to know about the Crush app, the hardware, the AI integration and the service?
Erik: 00:40:41
Well, what’s important to know is that I take this very seriously. It’s my own personal tool. So I have an invested interest in its growth and its value because I’m the one who’s driving a lot of the innovation. And so I’m the head collaborator with everybody else.
So I’m in front of the company, I’m in front of the product, my face is available, I’m always available, and that’s a departure from many of the other companies where people just kind of have a gate, or you don’t even know who they are, they’re just a company, and you’re talking to people online and you never really get a sense of personality.
This is all about me being up front, connecting with people, and really satisfying them, giving them honest detail, even in the web app, or the mobile app, someone was like, I really just want to be able to hold down a note and just copy it, like, okay, let’s build that feature right now, like, within two days, we’ll have that done.
So we’re hyper reactive, because we want to succeed with the product, but we also want the features that everybody else wants. So anytime somebody tells me about a feature, I’m like, that’s a feature that I want. It’s not a product that I’m developing because I can develop, it’s a product I develop out of need and knowing that there’s a significant market out there who would love to have the same features and logic that I develop for myself.
Alex: 00:42:19
And I can certainly vouch for the fact that you’re very accessible and easy to talk to. We’ve done a number of these discussions already and, in fact, in previous ones, which I’ll also link to, you’ve explained what was the pain point, how you came about wanting to create this, stories of your father and how he was always using a little tape recorder and had to have his secretary type it all for him, I mean, he would have loved this.
So you can hear all those in previous discussions, but yeah, having this kind of access to the founder, the creator, the owner of the factory, normally people who do Kickstarter campaigns have to deal with some other factory and their problems and their delays, I mean, it’s pretty rare to find the actual owner of the factory who is not just taking someone else’s idea, but has developed ir themselves.
So it’s a great honor and pleasure to be able to speak with you, and I really look forward to sharing this latest video with everybody, because we’re so close for everyone to be able to get Crush, and then the true magic begins as the great mass of people start being able to use it and enjoy it.
Erik: 00:43:22
Yes. Well, thank you, Alex:. I always appreciate your kind words, and I appreciate you. Yeah, I appreciate you, and thank you very much.
Alex: 00:43:31
So what is your final message for the viewers and the readers, and I guess your final message for now, because I’m sure we’ll be talking again.
Erik: 00:43:39
My final message is don’t let the hardware scare you away if it’s not for you. Download the app and use the app, and you will see the value of what I’ve created, how easy it is to use, and at some point, if you feel like connecting the Apple Watch, please do.
Alex: 00:44:49
Thank you. Thank you very much for your time.
Erik: 00:45:02
Alex, thank you as always.
Alex: 00:45:04
Look forward to talking to you again in the future. Bye for now.
