FIRST Fundraiser: Selling LED "Lightbulbs"

[JesseK]

Originally Posted by IndySam

People who have been around a while understand that when you are told a time to payback by somebody trying to sell something then you should increase that 50% to 400% in the real world.

I can't afford spending hundreds of dollars on a new technology that has no other benefit other than potential costs savings in the future. Especially when that potential could be way off. It's just not gonna happen.

Oi. This hits the nail on the head for a home consumer -- no one lightbulb in (at least) my house is responsible for any significant portion of the lighting consumed in my house over the course of a day. The lights aren't even on for significant portions of time throughout the day (2-4 hours at most). Ergo, while it's logical that I would spend considerably less money on energy, you're right that for it to have noticeable effect over the next year that I'd have to spend several hundred dollars up front. This basically puts the target consumer at someone who will live in their current residence long enough to see the benefit to begin with: a homeowner.

Very specifically, homeowners who may sell their homes in the next year would be perfect target consumers for these specific bulbs: they increase a home's appeal to potential home buyers. These guys would purchase the bulbs in [somewhat] "bulk" quantities in order to replace most or all bulbs within a home. While the housing market in many areas is in a slump, I'm sure there are some houses being successfully sold in most areas ... so perhaps this is an avenue teams can take.

Other potential [somewhat bulk] buyers are Nursing Homes, (maybe) Apartment complexes who are looking to appeal to an energy-conscious renter, etc. Teams could get creative with what's in their area.

Longer-term, these bulbs need to come down in price. The only way (at least in a way we have the power to influence, since no one knows how insane the margins are on a single bulb) to do so is to increase demand for the technology significantly. Looking around work today, I see hundreds and hundreds of 4' long fluorescent bulbs with a ~1" diameter -- the same standard bulb I see used almost everywhere (in the schools, corporate buildings, labs, etc). Maybe next year we can expand this program to sell light bulbs that fit into the same sockets our sponsors have so we may expand our fund raising efforts to them.

Heh, expand our fund raising to our current sponsors ... what a conundrum.