The conversation took place when I went fishing with my dad at Hudson River last Sunday night.
I asked my dad questions at different moments.
Few questions I asked when my dad tried to set the hook and the fishing bite fallen into the river. I heard my dad whispered: “Again？drop again?” At this moment I asked my dad: “Does the fishing bell often fall into the sea?” My dad replied: “Yes, it is easy to fall off when I set the hook.” “Have you tried to find a way to make it firmly stick on the pole?” I continue asked. “I was thinking to stick it with glue, but I found it is inconvenience to remove.” answered my dad.
Other moment I asked questions was when my dad missed the fishing bite because he did not hear the sound from the rod where was placed far from him. I asked my dad: “Do you feel the sound was hard to be heard?” My dad said: “The sound was not loud enough especially for my age.” “Will the fish scared away if the sound become louder?” I asked. My dad laughed and said: “the sound does not travel well between air and water, the loud sound will be barely noticeable to the fish underwater.”
Another moment I asked my dad questions was when two bells rang at the same time and my dad could not recognize which two rods had fish bites in the dark, until he got really close to see which two bell were shaking. My dad was disappointed because when he spent time on finding out the rod with fish bites, the fish already bit and ran away. I asked my dad: “do you feel the shaking bell is not easy to be seen?” My dad replied: “It is hard to be seen them shaking during the day, to say nothing of the night.
“Do you think the fishing bite bell needs improvement?” I asked. My dad replied without thinking: “Of course it needs to be improved in one day. As you can see, how many time I have missed the fish bites tonight. I bet some others have the same problems as me. Everything in this world are improving, because we all try to make life easier and convenient. I believe this fishing bell will be improved one day by designers.
Through the conversation with my dad, I believed I did find out what the real problem was. I could felt my dad really wanted this fishing bite bell got improved. I also believed my design: fishing alarm with all in one integrated: sound, light and firmly secured would best fit my dad’s needs.
This is great. I like how you approached the conversation while fishing. Very cool. Now lets focus on v2 of the product!
This is such a fantastic, organic development for your product and it’s one that I have never thought of. I think a little tech incorporated into fishing would make it much more approachable for millenials and encourage more people who’ve never fished before to try it. Can’t wait to see where this goes!
I really liked the idea and you have some valuable feedback going forward. It is evident from this conversation that he really needs something like this and many people of his age or even younger people who are just starting this fishing activity will find it very useful. I am looking forward to the improved version of this product!
I think you have an opportunity to solve a real problem that your dad (and according to him, many fishermen/women seem to have). It was interesting that you mentioned that if there was a louder sound for the person fishing, it would not disturb the fish because the water serves as a barrier for sound. I look forward to seeing your next iteration.
I think you have found a very good area to look into for innovation in general. With hobbies such as fishing I think you can often find problems that people have tried to fix with quick fix solutions that don’t really work very well but are considerably cheaper then an over-engineered solutions fromrod manufactureres. Therefore, there is huge space for clever design solutions and you appear to have found one.
Having your conversation while your customer was likely to suffer from their problem was a really clever idea.
I feel that there are some really cool ways you can solve this problem – with interesting lights, colors or sounds on the bell. There could be some really nice features too; maybe a tiny camera that takes a picture of the fish as it’s taking a bite.
Wow, I think it is really nice that you were able to talk with your customer about the product while he was experiencing the problems that you were trying to fix. I did not think of the timing or the setting of the conversation being really important before but it seems that when things are happening in front of you, there is a lot more interesting things to talk about because many of the issues can come up and you can instantly discuss them.
Yeah, the conversation during the experiencing really help me to identify my dad’s problems and gets feedback from him
I also thought it was insightful to observe your dad in action and also be able to ask him questions in real-time. Incidentally, the fact that it was evening time set the stage for your further realizations. I’ve seen people fishing on the piers but never considered how hard it is to fish at night. Perhaps you could program different colored LED lights or custom bell sounds to distinguish between different fishing rods.