Totem Tuesday: September 24th, 2024
Totem Tribemates around the world,
I'd like to personally welcome you to another riveting chapter of the story we all know and love...
🎉 TOTEM TUESDAY 🎉
I love Tuesdays.
It's just so rewarding (and fun!) to share our hard work with you every week.
We are extremely, extremely blessed.
🥰
Alright Tribe—you ready to Vibe?
Here are two quick announcements before we get started.
1) ⬇️ Timeline Update ⬇️
Production of the finalized Gen1 Totem Compass is in full-swing! Our manufacturer has officially begun assembly for the first batch of Totems. 🙌
We still expect shipping to begin sometime in October. As we move into October, we'll start getting more specific logistics updates from our supply chain. We'll keep you in the loop.
2) 👫 Totem is Hiring 👫
The Totem Team is growing.
We currently have two positions open: Marketing Manager and Product Manager!
If you're looking for an epic challenge that can completely transform your life and career...
Check out our Careers page for more info.
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OK! Enough housekeeping.
Let’s get into it.
This is our weekly progress report to all our favorite people.
Welcome to the Totem Tuesday 3-2-1.
3 things we accomplished,
2 things we learned,
1 thing coming up
Let’s go, Tribe!
(P.S. — if this is your first Totem Tuesday, welcome to the Tribe! We are so grateful to be here with you.)
😘
3 things we accomplished
1) Bond Removal UX
Developing a screen-free and app-free product is incredibly rewarding, but it comes with some unique challenges.
Most products these days rely on a screen or app to communicate with you. But that's just not how we roll at Totem!
Instead of text, our language is one of lights and colors.
Based on feedback from all our User Testing these last couple months, we've been making a bunch of little improvements to the UX before rollout to make the Totem feel as simple and intuitive as we can.
We've now finished one of the last UX features scoped for the Totem before rollout: the new and improved Bond Removal! 🎉
Here's a quick reminder about how Bond Removal works:
Triple-tap the Touch Crystal while the Totem is in Compass Mode (horizontal orientation) to turn on Bond Removal, which allows you to selectively delete your Bonds. You can then tap the Crystal to cycle through your Bonds, and hold the Crystal to delete the currently selected Bond.
Now the Totem uses a new animation & lighting display to make this whole process feel simpler and more intuitive 🤌
When you enter Bond Removal, the Bond lights on your Totem will immediately be collected into your Touch Crystal. When you select a Bond, their light will blink inside the Crystal and the Halo around your Totem will fill to show their color.
When you hold the Crystal to delete them, their color will slowly disappear from your Halo. Once the Halo is gone, their light will disappear from your Crystal and your Bond is removed!
Same process, but the whole thing feels much more intuitive now.
We've gotten great feedback on this UX improvement from our testers, and are excited that it's implemented before rollout begins!
2) Crystal Collection UX
We also finished implementing one other UX improvement that was scoped in for the final product.
It's another one designed to make your Totem Compass experience feel simpler and more intuitive.
As you know, the Totem Compass doesn't just indicate the direction of your friends. It also indicates their distance.
As you approach your friend, their light begins to spread—letting you know that you're getting closer.
Once you arrive at your friend's location, their Bond Light will jump into your Crystal—letting you know that you're in the right place! When you collect your friend into your Crystal, it's a sign to look up and use your eyes to find them 👀
With this final UX improvement, the Totem now turns off all the other lights in the Crystal to ensure that your friend's Bond Light is super visible when it's collected.
It's a small tweak, but another one has gotten great feedback from our testers. Little details really make the difference!
3) New Product Photos
About a month ago, we announced that we'd made one final change to the design of the Touch Crystal on the face of the Totem Compass.
Why? Too many people were confused about why we had a cross on the Totem Compass!
It was actually the Totem "t" (not a cross) but the people were right— it certainly looked pretty cross-like.
One of our core values here at Totem is Unity. There is no room for divisiveness or "othering" in our Tribe. Only inclusivity.
So we made a little tweak to the design of the Touch Crystal. And now you can see exactly how the new Crystal looks when you visit our Product Page!
We received the final sample housings last week with that new beautiful Crystal, and immediately had a new product photo shoot.
You can see a few examples below, but there are wayyy more on our Product Page. Here's the link.
Isn't she beautiful? 😍
2 things to learn
1) Cell Service is Getting Worse
Do you ever feel like cell phone service has gotten worse the last few years?
You’re not crazy.
According to TIME, cell phone service IS getting demonstrably worse. In fact, US cell service in 2023 was the worst it’s been in 5+ years.
How is this possible? It’s all because of overcrowding.
There is a finite amount of space on the electromagnetic spectrum, and people are using their phones more than ever.
This problem is amplified massively at large music festivals, where making calls (and sometimes even sending texts) is nearly impossible.
That’s why we designed the Totem Compasses to work without cell service or data connection. We generate our own network and thus bypass all of today’s growing problems with cell service.
It’s a really interesting and well-researched article from TIME—check it out here.
2) Cruise Ships and Convention Centers
The Totem Compass was designed specifically to help people find their friends at music festivals and other crowded, outdoor events.
But people give us new ideas every day about other use cases for the Totem!
Two of the most common questions we've gotten recently:
- Can it work in a convention center?
- Does it work on cruise ships?
The answer: it depends. Let me explain!
For convention centers...
The Totem relies on satellites to determine your location. We designed them to work outside, but they can get a satellite connection in certain buildings—particularly if they are smaller or made of wood.
But convention centers are very large and usually made of concrete and metal. This means they can act as a "faraday cage" which prevents your Totem from getting signals from the satellites.
The Totems can work inside some buildings, but that's not what they're designed for. And I wouldn't expect them to work in a large metal+concrete building like a convention center. That's why we recommend using the Totems outdoors.
For cruise ships...
The Gen1 Totem Compass only tells you the lateral direction and distance of your friends, so it can't help you figure out what floor your friend is on. Also, when you're inside the ship, it may act as a "faraday cage" which prevents your Totem from getting satellite signal (just like the convention center).
But it could probably help you navigate to them if you were outside on the deck!
We haven't taken Totems on a cruise yet—working way too hard for that—but if you take yours on a cruise, please let us know how it does!
1 thing to look forward to
This is a special one for the whole Tribe...
Sometime very soon, the Totem Instagram will finally hit 100k followers! 😱
I still remember when we first hit 1,000 followers... after all, it was only 7 months ago. Isn't that insane?
It's 100% because of you. The Tribe. None of this would possible without your help.
Thank you for sharing our content.
Thank you for sharing our PASSION.
Thank you for sharing our LOVE.
You want to know something crazy? This growth has been almost entirely organic.
We're just a startup. Our advertising budget is basically nonexistent. We've spent less than $1,500 on ads throughout the across the entire life of the company.
So grateful to all of you for coming along on this beautiful ride. Thank you.
P.S. — we've got a very special video planned for the day we pass 100k. Keep your eyes peeled 😘
A Beautiful Future
Hey there 😊👋
You read all the way to the end!
Thank you for sticking with us.
In an era filled with distractions, doomscrolling, and infinite ways to pass the time... It means so much for you to spend some time here, with us.
We just want to let you know how much we appreciate your love and support.
Soon, festivals will be changed forever. They'll be safer, more immersive, and more beautiful than ever before.
No one—regardless of who they are or where they’re from—will ever have to get lost in the crowds again.
That’s a beautiful future.
And you're making it a reality, right alongside us.
So… thank you. I hope we get a chance to meet you at a festival soon, once we get through rollout!
✌️ + 🩷
The Totem Team
