Q&A for #MotoX with John Renaldi, the Maker of Moto Maker, and Guy Kawasaki

Morning anywhere anymore. I am an advisor to Motorola and I'm hosting this hangout with John Rinaldi. John Rinaldi is the maker of Moto Maker. And for those of you who don't know what Moto Maker is, Moto Maker is the process where you can personalize your new Moto Expo. And so I asked John to come on here because a few weeks ago I saw him give a demo of the system where you can personalize your phone and it was such a cool thing. I think it's one of the key selling points of the Moto X. I think there are actually three key selling points for the Moto X. First of all, it's personal. And you'll see how personal when John does his demo. It is also like a pure Google experience. Those of you who love Android will love this experience of our pureness. And finally, it's just a very responsive phone. All the things that you want to do is always listening for these key keywords to trigger actions. It's very good. If you want to do something like take a picture instead of futzing around and trying to find the button for the app, you just do this and your phone turns into a camera. And when it is a camera, you can touch anywhere on the picture to take it on the screen. You don't have to explain what button to press. So a lot of great stuff like that. So just remember Moto X is responsive, personal and it's Google. And now this is John Rinaldi and I am going to ask him to explain Moto Maker and then give us this demo to show you what in very short time you'll be able to go through and get this totally cool personalized phone that will impress all your friends. So take it away, John.

Awesome. Thanks guys. So my name is John, nice to see you all. And what I'm going to walk you through is Moto Maker, which is our online configurator that allows users to really design the very first smartphone in the world with Motox. And they're going to go into this online configurator which I'll walk you through in a moment and really within minutes, in a simple to use interface, they can design hundreds of combinations of a product, not just something that's black and white. We live in a world where smartphones really just come in a couple colors and arguably the most personal consumer electronics device in history really isn't all that personal. And we're aiming to change that. And not only are we looking to change that in terms of building a custom smartphone for the user. But we're aiming to do that in four days or less by opening up manufacturing in the United States with a factory that we have opened up in Fort Worth, Texas. So with that all said, let's go ahead, just get right into the demo and after that we'll open up for a couple of questions from Guy.

Cool, cool.

All right, so let me see screen share. Hopefully this works. And Guy, how are we looking? It's coming across. Can you see that?

Yes.

Okay, great. So let's go ahead and get started. So this is Moto Maker, the configurator where you can design your own Moto X. And the very first thing we're going to start with is designing the back of the product. And what you're going to see here is a number of different themes in which we group these different options into. And when we went through research, we actually tried a new approach with designing this product and the product being Moto Maker itself in that we started connecting up biometric readings to users as they went the site and we looked at things like heart rate monitoring and eye tracking to make sure that we weren't introducing any anxiety into this process. That we really made the user part of the co creation process itself to make sure that they felt they were designing this product. And what we learned from that is if you just introduce a huge color swatch of all these options of colors, you really introduce some anxiety. And Barry Schwartz wrote about this in his book the Paradox of Choice and this really came true. And by simply curating those options into some options, as you see here, we've been able to reduce that anxiety. And people really just kind of play around with it and select all the different colors you see here. So I'm going to go ahead and do that. Select the different colors within cools, within neutral options. We have the composite options as well as some of the smooth colors here, warm options, whether that's cherry, lemon, lime, violet, crimson, etc. Etc. And also for the very first time, Motorola is going to be building Moto X completely out of wood as well. The rear housing is built out of real authentic woods. This is something that is in final testing now, so we're not announcing commercial availability until later this year. So you see coming soon here. But we have added it into the configurator so you can see what it looks like and render that up beautifully to see. And so we have a number of different woods, natural woods, that the user can select and play around with. And as you see we'll have bamboo, teak, ebony, rosewood. And I can just kind of spin that around and take a look at how beautiful that product looks with a wood backing to it. So let's go ahead and we'll skip wood, and we'll just go with a turquoise rear housing for my selection. As I select these options on the bottom, you're going to see that the estimated delivery is set here for four days in real time. What we're doing is we're checking all of the inventory status of all the components in the product. So the rear housing, the accents, the front colors to make sure all these are in stock. But also we're looking at the capacity of the factory. So we know at that exact moment how many Moto X's are being manufactured. And it can calculate exactly when that product is going to arrive at your doorstep. And you also know that free shipping and returns. So if for whatever reason, one of these rear housings that you select, maybe it's the wrong shade of blue, no worries, you can send that back to us within two weeks and we'll take it back and you can redesign your product, no questions asked. So with selecting the front housings here or the rear housing, I'm going to go ahead and select the front. We have two, just neutral colors, black and white. But you'll see that the front housing wraps all the way around the edges of the product and gives it quite a different look. When I select those, I'll select white and accents, a number of different accents that we can have here to really add some pop of color. These are anodized aluminum parts that really give a little bit of shine. And what we found in research also was that men generally ended up unlike me. I select a turquoise and white front housing, but men, by and large, end up going with more understated and neutral colors. Black fronts with maybe a darker rear housing. And they add accent colors to really give it a little bit of pop and flair. And so these really ended up being quite a delighter for consumers as they customize and build their Moto X. But I'm going to go ahead and stick with metallic yellow. We can also add a personal message on the back. So what we found in research was that a lot of people ended up putting their address in the back. They were afraid that if they lost their phone, they had a way for someone to reach them, which was to simply just put their email address in the back. Or I can just say design by. Of course, we put profanity checking into there as well. So there's no naughty language and we can kind of see what that looks like right there on the product. And of course, as I've designed this beautiful product in turquoise, I don't want to hide that with nasty case. And so we have developed form fitting cases for this as well. Clear cases. And so you see that rendered right on the product, very beautiful. Doesn't disguise the housing. And what I've designed so far, we have a clear case here that you see here, but we also have options that are color matched to the accent colors. So if I want a clear case maybe with a little bit of color, you'll see here there's a yellow one that has a silicone edge around the clear case that gives it extra durability. And I can customize that in a number of colors as well. But let's go ahead and maybe select yellow here. And so these are all of the styling and the aesthetic options for the product. And I'm going to go now and customize some of the inside so some of the features so I can add more memory if I so chose. I could add a personal message here for power on. So this is great for gifting. We saw people like this for gifting. So if I was going to design something maybe for my wife, I could say maybe it was a birthday, birthday to my wife Theresa and I could add that on there. So when she opened up for the very first time, she was greeted with that personal message. All of the wallpapers are curated to the rear housing that I've selected. So in this case this option's been curated to be turquoise to match the design. I can also link my Google account to the product. So that means as it comes to me, it's linked up with my Google account and just one step simpler in of that out of box experience to set up. And it greets me right as I unbox the product. There are a number of accessories also that we have customized to fit with the product. A simple one is just really the wall charger that is color matched to the front housing, whether it be white or black. I can change that if I so felt that is a dual port charger so I could charge my phone and another device at the same time. And with a partnership with Sol Republic, we also have they have taken all of our color palette for Moto Maker and have matched all those colors and so we can have color matching headsets to boot. So whether that's turquoise or another color that I want to customize, all of those are here available for Me and I can add those and then just check out to make sure I have all of my options and everything's good to go. And as we said, all of this is available in four days or less. And that's done. Because we have manufacturing here in the US and through Motomaker, we also have the capability to go through all of the carrier checkout process. So if you are looking to upgrade your account, you don't have to punch out or go some other place. You can go through and select all your service plans, upgrade your account, port your account from maybe another carrier to AT&T. And all of those options are available for you directly in Moto Maker. So if you're a new customer, existing customer, you can add a line to a family account. All of that is integrated within here. Of course, we also have the option so that you can play around with this in store. And that's what we're calling the Moto X card. And with an exclusive partnership with AT&T, they are our launch partner. You can go into an AT&T store, see all of the options that are available for you. You can touch and feel them and you'll have a configurator there in the store so you can play around and kind of get started with the process, work with the sales associate and select your service plan, upgrade your account and pay for the device. They will hand you what we call the Moto X card. That really in essence is this is virtual currency. Because at that point in time they activate that card and they give it to you on the back. There's a little redemption code that you scratch off and you enter that into Moto Maker. And as soon as you enter that little PIN code here in Moto Maker, it sets the price to $0. You don't have to go through any of the service plan selection. You just enter your address and we ship it directly to you in four days or less. A couple of the things that I wanted to talk about about this process is not just around worry free and the return policy that we had, but also when we went through this process, we had to start thinking about things like warranty. So heaven forbid, if something happens to your product, you can't just take it back to your carrier store and say, hey, give me another one, because it was custom built for you. So for the very first time, we're going to go ahead and provide that user if there is a problem with a loaner device while their custom product is being returned. So free of charge overnight, we will ship them A loaner device and they will be able to use that device while they ship their custom device back to us to get repaired. We'll rebuild that if need be and ship it back to them. And on that loaner device, what's really cool is it will also tell you the repair status. So when it's shipping, it's coming to you, you can be repaired and it's coming and we tell you right on your device through a little app that's preloaded onto it. So really thinking through not just the sales channels of looking and supporting folks so they can go in store, play around with it online, but also the reverse logistics and the complexities that come with that, but really simplifying everything and reducing anxiety and friction for the user so we can make Moto Maker just a super enjoyable and fun and that really in a gist is what we're doing with Motomaker. This is really just the beginning. It's the framework of our innovation platform. There's just so much more exciting things to come as we showed you with wood. Also launching today on our Facebook account is where users can go vote on all sorts of crazy new designs. We really want to engage the user community so that they have a hand in designing the next Moto Wax as well and having some of that user engagement. And we don't know if we can do all of those options or any of those options, but we really want to start engaging them with us and make them part of that co creation process. So again, like I said, this is just the beginning. There's a ton more to come, but we're really excited to bring Moto Maker to market with Moto X. And with that I'm going to just kind of hand that back over to you guy.

John, something tells me you've done that demo before.

Yeah, especially today.

You can probably do that demo in your sleep at this point, right?

I do that many times.

Yes. Yes. So of course everybody's wondering when can they do this?

Yeah. So just in a few short weeks with the commercial availability of the stock white and black product, we will simultaneously launch Moto Maker as well. And at no extra price. So many products charge premiums when you decide to customize them. In addition to the long wait time as you build something custom, it comes at a premium and maybe a month to get this is no extra charge beyond the price of the device. And with four days or less, we think consumers are really going to enjoy this.

What if I am just a white or black kind of guy and I just Want to walk into a store and walk out with one, I don't want to wait even four days. What happens is there.

You can certainly do that at any of the carriers that we're partnering with. Launching of Moto X, you can always select the white or black product that is available in store. Of course, also in Moto Maker you could select those same stock options and customize them further. So if you really like it or enjoy the black or white composite or woven white or woven black composite option, those are available for you to customize within Moto Maker just as well.

And what happens if I mid contract?

So we also have an option at the end of the checkout process for existing customers. They can select a product to buy off contract as well for AT&T and then they can select that off contract if they're in between their contract terms.

And if I want to migrate from one carrier to another, the checkout process can do the migration for me.

Absolutely. We have integrated in with the carrier back end systems to allow for porting between carriers. And so you would simply enter in your accountant number during the checkout process of your current carrier and we will do a port check to make sure you're valid to come over to AT&T. And we can go ahead then and select your service plans. You can select from any of their plans, their mobile share plans, their data plans, and then go through the process like you would in a store, but from the comfort of your couch.

Okay, and what if I wasn't in a real cogent state when I put the color scheme together and I open up the box and I'm aghast at what I ordered? My mistake. You guys did. You fulfilled it correctly. Then what happens?

Yeah, so no worries. Within two weeks you have a two week grace period. You can go ahead and send that device back to us, no questions asked. Matter of fact, we also support an advanced exchange program. So let's say maybe it didn't come in the right shade of blue. And in your estate in the evening when you came back, maybe you thought turquoise was really navy and you went ahead and ordered that. No worries, you can go ahead and rebuild that product. You call us, we'll give you a little secret code, you can go into Moto Maker and rebuild your new device while you keep your old one waiting for your new one to arrive. We don't want you to be without a phone. And so when your new one arrives, you just simply take your old one, throw it in the box and send it back to us.

And then Motorola employees will get to use all the purple with green buttons and stuff.

The return address actually is your home address. So you're just going to start getting a bunch of them at your front steps.

So pretty soon there'll be Motorola outlet stores in little malls right next to the Nike store. Yeah, here's a great purple and yellow combination. Okay. Some people are probably wondering, so I have a different size sim. So I get this phone and now I have to drive to the store and get the right SIM to plug it in or what happens with sims?

Great question. So Moto X is one of the first devices to have a Nano sim. Very, very small SIM card. And we realize that not a lot of people do have Nano sims. And so it's a new technology. And so we pre insert that Nano SIM in the factory while we manufacture your custom product and we transmit that information to the carrier so you don't have to go to the carrier store and get a new sim. Matter of fact, there is an activation instruction booklet that comes with the product. You just dial a 1, 800 number and you go through a prompt, an IVR system and within 30 or 45 seconds you go through the process and it just transfers you from one phone to the other through your SIM card.

So is that process like when I get a new credit card and you say you call up this number, you put in the credit card number and boom, you've authorized the credit card.

That is a great analogy. That's precise.

So I don't have to go through press 1 for Spanish press 2 if you're a new customer, press 3 if you're a returning customer who's left handed and all that stuff.

Right. It's a dedicated number just for this process. Very quick, painless. And your analogy is a good one. I'm going to use that moving forward.

And I think, I think because I pay such rapt attention to all your demos, I think you did not mention that you can configure Gmail, right?

Yeah. So you can link it to your Google account as well. So it comes pre configured and that way, just one last step. When you get your device to get up and running and we want you to get right into the device and play around as quickly as possible, not spend so much time setting things up.

Okay, and is this initially anyway us only?

That's correct. At launch through the plant in Texas, we really want to locate manufacturing as close to the user as possible. And so obviously we have manufacturing centers in other regions. So in Latin America and Asia we have Manufacturing centers for Moto X in those regions. And in the future, we'll be looking to roll out Moto X beyond the United States.

Do you think it'll be a good sign if people create their personal design and they see like four days go to five to six to seven, it might be some kind of good marketing message that there's such demand that the delivery is slowing down.

Well, what we have seen, Guy, is that in the research we've done in quite a bit, this is one of the products where we just spent an amazing amount of times speaking with consumers. It's so new for the industry, we wanted to make sure we got it right. And what we found was, no matter how compelling this is to build your own smartphone, if you weren't able to deliver that product within seven days, that really is the tipping point for consumers. And that's what led us, as a matter of fact, originally we were going to go ahead and build these custom products out of China and deliver them and try to get them to the user. And we found this issue that, that really we had to meet this time period that people didn't want to wait that long. That influenced our move to really bring manufacturing closer to the end user. And not only does that get us a product in four days or less, but it also allows our engineering team and design team that's in Sunnyvale and Chicago, as well as my team, to troubleshoot issues and react quickly to the marketplace. You saw that with housings, we're able to move a lot quicker by having manufacturing close by.

I would suppose that people are wondering about the durability of a wood housing. Well, what do you know about that?

Yeah, it's a good question. We're in final testing of that, and what I can tell you is the way that we've constructed this product was with durability in mind. And the way that that product is manufactured is with multiple layers of wood. So we kind of treat it almost like different plies that we compress together and we reinforce and inject epoxy into that and then co mold that into the plastic housings to give it more rigidity. And so we had a number of different designs that we've been working on to look at different RF performance or radio performance to make sure they perform well with call and data performance as well as durability. So by drying out that wood and then sucking all the air out of it and putting epoxy in its place, you don't have to worry as much about humidity and changes to wood. So that expands or cracks on you.

All right, well, pig, do you have any questions for. You're like a fashionista, right? Do you have any issues about this or any concerns or actually any. Are you jumping out of your skin wanting to order one?

I am.

It's going to take me forever to choose. I showed my daughter the Facebook page earlier and she was like, oh, my God, I want one. So you got the teenage girl vote already.

That's a good demographic.

Yeah, 18 year old girl. She was like. She saw like two pictures. She was like, I want.

Looks.

Really, really impressive. John, thanks for the demo.

Well, John, thank you for the explanation and demo.

And.

And we'll let you either go to dinner now or meet with more press people and continue.

Or sleep.

Or sleep. Yeah. Also sleep.

I'm being told off to my right that the folks off stage are telling me I have to go back to work.

Oh, okay.

We actually have to still go live with us. So the team. We have a great team in multiple geographies in New York, in Chicago, in Texas and Sunnyvale all supporting this. And so they've been working just amazing hours and are going to continue to do that for a while. And on behalf of them, we're just super excited to bring this to market in the next couple of weeks.

All right, well, I got to tell you, I've evangelized a lot of stuff in my time, and there's the concept of guy's golden touch. First, let me explain. Guy's golden touch is not whatever guy touches turns to gold. Guy's golden touch is whatever is gold the guy touches. And I will tell you that this aspect of Moto Maker is truly, truly a very easy concept to evangelize. It is rock solid gold. So congratulations, Shaw.

Thanks, guys.

All right, take care. Thank you, everybody.

Ciao.

Bye, Will.

Bye, Kimberly. Bye, guys. Bye.

See you later. Bye.

Bye.