How to promote an USB oscilloscope to individual engineers? I am the Loto instru

[ebclr]

Another point people outside China does not like to use Youku, Contract a Vpn and upload to youtube instead.

[jiangtao.lv]

Yes, I took the risk to come out of the Internet wall. I will do it later.

[Mechatrommer]

1st thing 1st before you spend 4 solid years on RnD. you do market research, meaning you gather all your possible contenders and try to beat them, or try to make something special about your scope so it will stand out. have you done it? can you beat the price of Hantek? or what special about your product? can you beat the spec of Picoscope? are you aware of those names? otherwise i'm afraid the situation will be like when the Sink is on the ground and the Gate goes high and your money and time is on the Drain in such a case, dont send your device to Dave otherwise it will be a reversed dumpster dive show, good luck anyway. btw there are faster way to check your scope bandwidth compared to your exhaustive video, ultraman fast rise time pulse circuit is one of them, and err, dont use 1X probe for such a test unless you have a 50 ohm input scope. fwiw.

[Simon]

1) Do not start posting all over the forum about your product or i will ban you as a spammer
2) Send one to Dave and he will do a review of it. If it is good you will get the best advertising that no money can buy. If it is bad you product will just sit on amazon waiting for unsuspecting buyers.

[Mechatrommer]

1) Do not start posting all over the forum about your product or i will ban you as a spammer

is that one of eevblog forum's rule?

[Simon]

1) Do not start posting all over the forum about your product or i will ban you as a spammer

is that one of eevblog forum's rule?

Err yes, it's called spamming. Promoting of commercial products on the forum without prior arrangements is the definition of spamming. I don't mind a single topic like this but if the OP starts posting links to his product on any discussion about oscilloscopes it becomes spamming. Like i say the best way to get this promoted is send one to Dave like everyone else does.

[Mechatrommer]

I don't mind a single topic like this but if the OP starts posting links to his product on any discussion about oscilloscopes it becomes spamming.

what about putting ads in signature? it will reflects in all posts, from the beginning till the end = post count. regardless of thread topics?

Like i say the best way to get this promoted is send one to Dave like everyone else does.

imho, dave is one way to get publicity (if the product is good) but its just a small part. how do we expect small one single man starting business to grow? google ads (which to me is "unsolicited") costs money.

imho you should reply in the offending post in the other thread, here he asked for advice.

[Simon]

Oh dear, how long have you been a member here?

Forum signatures are not spam in themselves. BUT if a user makes nonsensical posts in threads just to get their signature to show then they are also banned as spammers. Don't worry my friend we have all options covered and i am trying to be fair. Many spammers join, post nonsensical posts and then update their signature thinking that they have gone under the radar which is why nonsensical posts get a user banned as we know that game already. The OP has joined this forum purely to promote his product. That in itself is grounds for banning but as he is being more engaging than the usual hit and run spammer I and giving him some space. I cannot be fairer than that.

If you have a good product and you send it to Dave it's the best thing you could do. Also apparently there is no such thing as bad publicity......

I'm sure Rigol owe a lot of their success to Dave for that initial review of their famous scope. I bought one because I saw Daves review. It was not a promotion it was an honest appraisal of something i knew little about from an engineer, what more could I AND Rigol ask for ?

[jiangtao.lv]

Thanks for advice, Simon,
I  wont do that. On Chinese technical forums, spammers are also not welcomed either. I'm familiar with Chinese fellows' thinking, but i am  frustrated with this global new group of engineers. I really don't know how to embrace them, what they care about, what way they are thinking.

I learn a lot difference between us today,I think I will try my best to promote it from this 0 base. I may record some progress and share them here,maybe some engineer fellows ,especially junior ones, want to see how I run a product successfully or make it dead?

I will contact Dave for a further help.

[jeremy]

Hi Jiangtao,

I'm no expert on this, but to me the student/hobbyist/maker market is very different to the "professional engineer" market. You probably need to treat them separately. Professional engineers probably already have an oscilloscope, or could easily find the money to buy a 100MHz/1Gsps oscilloscope. So the real question is why would they spend extra money to change to your product? In addition, unless the company uses some particularly special equipment, engineering time in most western companies is far more expensive than the cost of electronic test equipment (I am not sure if it is this way in China). So people (well, at least the smart ones) will be wary of purchasing unknown equipment that could waste the time of their engineers.

To me personally, anything with less than 1Gsps @ 8bit is not an oscilloscope, regardless of how it is marketed; it is a data logger. The market has simply moved on from that. I don't see myself buying an 8 bit acquisition device with a lower sample rate ever again.

Non-paid testimonials are very important as well; you should contact people like dave jones/eevblog, mikeselectricstuff, etc. These people may not be very visible in China as they are mostly youtube-based, but they are very well regarded elsewhere in my experience. Be aware that these people will tell you exactly what they think (or at least I trust them to do that!); if they think the product is rubbish they will make a video telling everyone that it is rubbish.

Some other points:

- your website seems to just show a forum with garbage posts; most of them are just silly pictures or keyboard mashing. This looks pretty bad.
- the downloads section does not actually have any downloads, and "more details" links do not actually show more details. This also looks pretty bad.
- you may need someone who is a good native english speaker to proofread and correct your documentation and website. Even though I understand there is a language barrier and that it is difficult, if I read documentation with poor english and yet the company is trying to sell me (an english speaker) their product, it looks to me like they just want to take my money and run. It's different in conversation/forums/etc because people realise that you do not have any time to prepare or proofread.

I suggest you look at the picoscope website and forums; after all, they would be your direct competitor. I am a happy picoscope customer myself!

PS: I'm not proud of this last point, but I've noticed that if I see the SimSun type fonts I become immediately suspicious of the accuracy of the documentation. I guess it is because I have used many Chinese electronic products/parts with incorrect or poor quality english documentation, and I have now subconsciously associated that font with poor quality products in general I've never seen a product from a non-Chinese company that uses that font. Western companies have mistakes in their datasheets too, but they don't all use the same font

[jiangtao.lv]

thank you ,jeremy
It's very useful advise.Yes, I haven't get my website prepared. So I didn't put it on,but you may found it on the pictures.
Download part also not be prepared for overseas.I agree with you about the difference of the student and professional engineers. Where do you find SimSun type fonts ? the data sheet pictures?Honestly, I can't tell the different fonts of English characters easily. So,as you say ,i really need a English native engineer to cooperate with me to complete my overseas work,do you have anyone to recommend?Someone who is interest in this lower market and eager to do something?

[jeremy]

I’m sorry, I don’t have anyone to recommend. But I don’t think you necessarily need an engineer, just someone with a very good grasp of written English. Perhaps you can use the services of someone on https://www.freelancer.com/ for example? Searching for “English proofreading copywriting” on google turns up lots good looking results.

The SimSun stuff was in the last few images in this post: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/how-to-promote-an-usb-oscilloscope-to-individual-engineers-i-am-the-loto-instru/msg2153086/#msg2153086

As I said, I am not proud that I make association, but I am sure that I am not the only one.

[TheUnnamedNewbie]

I will not claim to be an expert in any way on the cultures in either Asia, the EU or in the US, but I will just report my observations:

I think in the west, there is much more emphasis on professional-looking/behaving instruments and software. Here, professional-looking/behaving means:

- A consistent design style (One, maybe two fonts, consistent colors, consistent layout of menus)
- Good language skills
- Not too much flashy or colorful design elements - stick to simple and subdued.

I think the second point is the easiest to solve, but for some reason very few asian companies seem to get it 'right' by which I mean - they have not altered their product to the western market when they tried to enter into it - what might be desired and considered 'good' in Asia might be considered bad elswhere, and vice-versa - the cultures are simply different. Contact western translator companies and ask them for help. I remember someone from Adobe once say: 'All it takes is to contact your sales guy in the west, show him your product, and say 'Do these things make sense'?

[jiangtao.lv]

Hi，I get confused, is it my English understanding problem or you didn't finish it yet?

[TheUnnamedNewbie]

I accidentally submitted before I was finished.

[jiangtao.lv]

 ;that's fine.
I may be choose a wrong start point here, I should show why is it, not what is it,because you are all well-trained and experienced engineers here,not the junior ones I usually met.Do you think so?

[TheUnnamedNewbie]

;that's fine.
I may be choose a wrong start point here, I should show why is it, not what is it,because you are all well-trained and experienced engineers here,not the junior ones I usually met.Do you think so?

I think it is still very valuable to show what it is, but it has to be done very 'rigorously'. You don't say 'good', or 'bad', 'much', 'fast'. You need to give numbers. Trained engineers want numbers because they give us a pretty objective way to compare stuff. If brand A has 1 uV/sqrtHz noise and brand B has 0.8 uV/sqrtHz noise, I know what difference I can expect. If both just say 'Low noise' I know nothing.

Also don't fear explaining in detail your specifications.  I can only speak for myself, but I am more than willing to take time to go through documentation when looking at a new purchase.

[jiangtao.lv]

Thank you very much,
I will try my best to prepare a documentation of it as soon as possible to put it on here to receive your further advice,as well as its hardware photo.I get much valuable advice today, thank you.

[Rerouter]

I can only give my own experiences with looking for technology,

Generally if there is a specifications tab on a web page, I will follow that before I walk through the marketing fluff "features" page, As that is my quick go/no go as to whether this device is relevant to what I am trying to do, Very similar to the first page of a component datasheet, It gives you the at a glance sense of what the device is good for. And if it is worth your time. e.g. 128K sample memory is not much, but as a streaming scope, its a decent buffer providing the link can keep up.

Next if it peaks my interests, I'll skim the features page looking for clarification on those interesting bits, If I cant see anything there, I may open a video or even jump to the manual and text search it. If I am struggling to still find something mentioned in the spec sheets at this point I will generally turn away.

As for video content, I would say the model of short and sweet videos focusing on particular features, E.g. this is how to use and setup decoders, this is how to setup your triggers, This is what you can do with math functions. You can still do overview videos, but to fully go over everything a scope can do in detail generally takes close to an hour to pull off if not more.

Your video in the first post if a good example of poor audio, there is background noise and your voice is too quiet, The content is not that bad, but its hard to sit through videos where your struggling to hear everything they say.

[jiangtao.lv]

Dear Rerouter:
You are right,I will redo some videos when I enter this overseas market and solve these awful problems. After a week, all Chinese will have a vocation to celebrate the Spring Festival ， I will do it after the vocation.

[Simon]

Sort your website first and then send the product to Dave to review, once he reviews it your website may get quite a bit of attention and Dave will likely visit during the review.

[nctnico]

Hi ,Rerouter .Thank you for you suggestion.
Yes,it can used on any computer with windows ,especially for win8,win10, on which do not need driver installation.but you need a appliction software.

Windows only? Fail... many engineers use Linux nowadays. Even the big CAD software makers like Altium and Cadence are porting their products to Linux. Also many people use Windows XP or Windows 7. Make sure it works on Windows XP at least for maximum compatibility.

[jiangtao.lv]

Yes, it works on Win xp,Win7,WIN 8 ,WIN10, but not support linux. We had a team for linux ,but I did not pay their attention to this product, they do embedded computers for industry.It will also can work with Android on phones, but will takes some more time , I put a sample photo in attachment.

[trobbins]

Lots of Androids around that could use a low power hardware interface via USB OTG.  One less chance for mains hum to ingress if just Android battery is used.

[jiangtao.lv]

Hi， trobbins:
I agree with you in theory, but in fact,  I used a isolated DC-DC module on the board to supply a +-5V power for the analog chips. So I think the noise level of the whole circuit may depend on the performance of this power module.

I attach the HW board pictures here. The power module is pointed by a red arrow.

the result (zero-input noise)is:
±50mv ----1v/div selector ----±5V input range
±25mv ----500mv/div selector ----±2.5V input range
±10mv ----200mv/div selector ----±1V input range
±8mv   ----100mv/div selector ----±0.5V input range
±4mv   ----50mv/div selector ----±0.25V input range
±2mv   ----20mv/div selector ----±0.1V input range