Will This Battery Life Extender Prevent People from Replacing Their Phones Frequently?

Ever heard of a product being compared to broccoli? Matt compares this Indiegogo product to broccoli. Watch to see why.  

CapForge has worked with 1000+ ecommerce businesses and other small businesses and has seen some great products out there! 

In this series, we look at new products on the market and see if they are worth investing in. Think along the lines of Shark Tank, but with no real money involved just for fun. 

Video Transcript: 

Product Promo Video:

Introducing Leo, the plug-and-play battery life extender. Simply plug it in to optimize charging for all your devices, extending their battery lifespan by as much as 50%. How? Did you know that charging up to 100% accelerates battery wear? That the same goes for fast charging? And that leaving devices plugged in overnight also shortens battery lifespan. Our goal? To create a plug-and-play device that maximizes battery lifespan. Plugged in between your charger and device, LEO automatically analyzes your battery, sets an optimal charge limit, controls charging speeds.

Matt’s Review: 

Here’s the problem with this business. This business is like broccoli, right? If you eat broccoli instead of french fries, you’re gonna have cleaner arteries, you’re gonna have a healthier life, you’re gonna live longer.  But the problem is, unless you love eating broccoli, and I’m sure some people do, you don’t see any immediate benefit. It’s very hard to say, “When I’m 85, I’ll wish I ate more broccoli so I could feel good and still be mentally sharp and live to 90.” When you’re 30, right? It’s just hard to see that downstream benefit because most of us live right now and here and now and worry about here and now. So something that extends battery life. Well, for people who get a new phone every year or every 18 months, extending the battery life is not a big deal because you’re never around to see the battery degrade or end up over time not working anymore, right? Some of us, I guess, keep our electronics long enough to start to see the battery performance fade, but I would guess that that’s a minority, a pretty small minority. Most people, when the battery is about done or stops holding a charge on your phone, it’s probably time to get a new phone anyway, right? It’s way out of date, the apps don’t work, the pictures aren’t good. You haven’t bought a new phone in five years, it’s time for a new one, or whatever we’re talking about that has a battery in it. So while I agree and the premise is good, you want to have less waste and longer battery life and not have destructive full-speed charging or overnight charging for your electronic devices. The problem is this isn’t something most people are thinking about and it doesn’t directly affect them. Buying this product doesn’t make their phone have double the battery life today. It just makes the battery last longer overall. So, although it’s a good problem to solve, it’s not one that has a ton of value in the here and now for people considering it, like eating broccoli. If you don’t like eating broccoli and eating broccoli today to help your future self’s health seems like a big ask and you don’t feel any better today for having eaten it. This is the same kind of product. So when you’re thinking about a product and who you’re going to sell it to and what customers want, you have to ask yourself, “Do customers want this? Will they see the value?” And if not, then you have to educate them and explain to them and try to prove that the value is there even though they won’t be able to see it, you’re going to have a much harder time selling your product. This is a perfect example of that. And if you’re thinking about starting a business or you have a business, or that is the challenge, then you’ve got to think about ways you can demonstrate value today or value that customers do care about. Because if you have a product that solves a problem, but customers don’t care about that problem, even if this is the best thing ever and it solves it very efficiently and very well if people don’t care about that solution, they’re not going to be that interested in buying the product. So I think this is a case of it’s a good product but it solves a problem that most people aren’t going to see the benefit of and therefore aren’t going to be that interested in getting a hold of.