What do you think of these super high-tech, lighted shorts with alarm that are on Kickstarter? Q&A with co-founder

You will be fine wrote:

Not a night runner wrote:

This is why I don't run at night. I need a headlamp to see where I'm stepping and I don't want to look stupid like a try hard ultra runner. The lights on the pants are great for safety reasons but only solve half of the problem.

Why would you even care what other people think. I am about getting the miles in so if it makes me look like a try hard ultra runner then guess what, at the next race you will see me fade away into the distance in front of you.

I will steal the water bottle from your fanny pack, drink it and then throw it back at you as I leave you in my dust. It will be dark and you won't see me coming because I'm not wearing a toolish headlamp.

Not a night runner wrote:

You will be fine wrote:

Why would you even care what other people think. I am about getting the miles in so if it makes me look like a try hard ultra runner then guess what, at the next race you will see me fade away into the distance in front of you.

I will steal the water bottle from your fanny pack, drink it and then throw it back at you as I leave you in my dust. It will be dark and you won't see me coming because I'm not wearing a toolish headlamp.

Someone still your pacifier?

I think it's a great product for the 90% of runners, not the letsrun crowd, letsrun is the 10% hard core runners who will not see any use for this. The soccer mom who sees it at the store next to the $160 hokas and $150 CWX tights will definitely see value in this product. Especially the GPS distress part of it.

I think it's a cool, practical product, but there is no way I'm paying $85 for a pair of shorts, let alone another $50 for the clip on thing. Especially when there are other, much cheaper products out there that will increase visibility that I can carry, clip on, or wear with any pair of running shorts.

If you can find a way to make them more affordable, then I might be more interested. Like I said, I like the idea of them, good luck Tim!

With our Kickstarter, we are giving a LETS RUN special. It ends up being $65 for men's and $120 for women's. You do have to have the $50 power pack.

I'm not your target market because I don't run at night, but you have a niche.

I think, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, that moving lights grab attention much better than a relatively stationary light (i.e., a headlamp). It would provide extra visibility when crossing intersections, for example, when reflective vests might not be as visible as they normally are.

Around the big university near me, I see women running in low light/dark conditions with earphones who seem oblivious to what's going on around them. This should be one of your primary markets. Just making them more visible crossing intersections would be a big selling point, but you would have to market that feature to them. Buyers won't see the benefits of your product if you don't point them out.

You need to figure out how to market this.

How else could a runner use the GPS or the alarm, for example?

Me: "I'm going out for 12 miles. If my knee acts up, I'll hit the GPS and start walking back. Come and pick me up, okay?"

More than once, I've wound up miles from home and had to walk back. It took forever. Could your device do that? If so, that's another feature you need to market to your prospective customer. Anyway, that's my suggestion. Good luck.

Oh, and you need to get in touch with the Ragnar and Hood to Coast Relay folks. Their participants are also your target market.

Tim P. wrote:

To be fully transparent, I am not paying LETS RUN anything for this. We have been in the news since we were recognized as Innovators of the Year in Maryland. I have met with a lot of people interested in our product. Last week I met with the creator of LETS RUN and after a lot of questions in order to understand our product, LETS RUN thought that we had something and would like to share it with their community. This was the first time I met the LETS RUN, and this forum is based on the merit of the product.

I'm sorry to have to break this to you, but the johnson brothers are fools and I'm sorry no one warned you beforehand. Deec product though.

Ragnar is a great community to be a part of. I have someone that I am associated with that is part of their participants and we will be pursuing them shortly!! Great suggestion!!!!

Our GPS capability will be that the person searching for you can identify your location similar to the Find My iPhone app.

There are other uses that we will be rolling out in the future that is geared team sports and family needs. I can't really go into them right now for legal reasons, but you hit the nail right on the head. The GPS is a tool I felt was critical during the design phase for those reasons.

Also, thank you for notifying me about the Hood to Coast Relay. I will start researching them.

Our goal is that you are seen by oncoming vehicles, cyclist, or pedestrians. We are not going to protect you from being attacked. What they are talking about is we are GPS enabled. So when you hit the panic button, it sends a text and GPS location to your emergency contact. This will help with response time. The alarm may scare off attackers, but we are always asking people to be smart when they are out. We have much more visibility than any clip on lights. You would have to get 8 in order to meet our requirement and by that time you are well past the price of our power pack.

This is a good idea, but a lighted vest is still a better solution for visibility alone, not to mention lower maintenance for swapping with different runnning outfits.

For those that are ultra paranoid about being found if something happens to them out on the trail, they probably already own this device:

http://www.findmespot.com/en/

We didn't mention yet that we have over three hours of battery life (which competes far better than the vest). There is a low battery indicator that turns the light to the indication color. We are far less expensive than the findmespot items.

I did some consultancy work for a company doing this with safety gear (high vis vests and workwear, companies called Fhoss if you're interested).

To put it in perspective, their powered lighting strips are visible from 1-mile away! It was designed primarily for rail maintenance workers.

There is a market here, it's not your LetsRun crowd, but as someone has mentioned earlier, the soccer moms and whatever the equivalent is for the dads. Winter cyclists will eat it up if you can get the lighting levels and positioning right as well.

It's also probably important to state that it's not meant to replace the headlamp or high-vis vest, but it should supplement these and provide greater visibility. Sure the odds of being run over are really low, but if you've got the money and want to lower those odds even more then why wouldn't you? I imagine your market penetration will be far greater in the UK and Europe, where people actually run on pavements adjacent to roads.

Now for the bad news... In about 6 months the market will be flooded with far cheaper Chinese replicates, and because it's basically a battery, SoS alarm and led's there's very little you can do about it. You will need to build a trusted, quality driven brand and hope they don't take too much of your target market off you.

Good Luck

rojo wrote:

PS. I've always wanted to create an ipad mini type device with GPS, music streaming and alarm. Or maybe it's just your watch somehow.

Ever heard of a smart phone?

Thank you so much for your feedback!! You are right. We are meant to "be seen", not so much "to see". We have a lot of runners around here that don't have lamps at all, just reflective material. I am going to look up the Fhoss. We do have a range of visibility, but I do not want any claims on the distance until we complete our testing and consult with our attorney. I am afraid if we say a distance, weather conditions would drive that and that statement would be a liability (until our attorney drafts the proper language).

We are always concerned about the China replicas, but we are not going to give up on our project because of that. I was following the Under Armour/ Uncle Martian story and not surprised at all. Being smart on how we roll out the product lines may give us a small advantage.

The funny thing is, The UK was one of the markets that we identified as primary. Keep any more ideas/ suggestions coming. Thank you!!!

Hard for me to shell out $120 for something like this... that's 3-4x as expensive as any other single item of running gear I own.

Just curious, what would you pay for a product like this? We had to price it due to our cost, but the input would be great.

why wouldn't you make a pair of shorts for women at the same price point as men?? why should i have to pay more......

Neat idea, but a few things that would keep me from purchasing such a product, as previously mentioned:

Price point. I've never paid over $100 for capris, but maybe I'm just cheap? Especially since I would have/want to buy shorts, capris, tights, for all different weather, there is no way I could afford that. Which leads me to my other point:

Having to wash them after each use. I don't do laundry every day, nor do I want to waste the water to wash one item.

I WOULD be interested if it were something I could put on the clothes I already own. I know you mentioned you tried this initially and it didn't work, but perhaps there is still something out there. Also, another problem with putting the lights directly in clothing is assuming your clothing fits every body type. Someone might love the idea but the fit and/or fabric might not be someone's jam.

All in all, I think the slap on bracelets look sweet for 360 visibility. Blinky lights work great too, and I have clipped them on the back of my pants or top and been just fine. You could slap the bracelets on your ankles, too. All in all, I think there are other products out there that provide a level of visibility that doesn't break the bank and allows people to wear what they choose.

Good question. My first lesson in the athletic wear industry was the manufacturing cost of women's vs men's. Women's clothes have far more cuts and sewing points than men's. This is all labor cost and that is the major cost driver of the garments.