 Welcome to the wide world of eSports, a show devoted to all things eSports. I'm your host, Catherine Norr. With me today is Ryan Sia, joining us from Singapore. He's a CEO of Rake. Our topic is the world's first palm-controlled gaming device, the Rake Tectonic Pro. Welcome, Ryan. Hi, Catherine. Good to see you. All right. I understand it's very early in the morning in Singapore. I know you don't want me to remind you of that. Yes, it's 6 a.m. here now. Okay. Well, tell us what we've all been wondering. What is the Rake Tectonic Pro? Cool. So the Rake Tectonic Pro is basically our maiden device. It's the world's first force pad. So it's basically a mechanical keyboard, together with the force pad below. The force pad is something not to be mistaken with the trap pad. And basically what you do is by moving your palm up, down, left, right in just a gentle manner with some force, you can send an input into your computer. So the basic functionality of this is definitely to replace WASD. And now what that means is it basically lets gamers free up their fingers to press all their abilities or any other things and let them react faster. And we find that with this technology, gamers can actually react up to two times as fast than when they play normally with just the keyboard and mouse. It's also really more intuitive and comfortable compared to just the keyboard and mouse. It's very intuitive, like the gaming controller itself. Essentially, we wanted to create a game changer, which would combine the best of both worlds for the keyboard and mouse, as well as the gaming controller. So that in itself gave birth to this idea, which is the Vectornic Pro. So who invented it? Good question. So in 2020, my founders and I actually participated in entrepreneurship competition, which challenged us to create something that would change the world. The three of us were all avid gamers and still are avid gamers. And we felt that we wanted to take a challenge to create a hardware device, not so much software, because we see a lot of software startups nowadays and we have to challenge ourselves a little bit. So we took up that challenge and my co-founder, CJ, he had this idea to create an input device which would really allow gaming to be much more efficient. And he came up with this idea. I remember our first prototype was actually a bottle cap put on top of a plasticine model. But we won the competition because of the proof of concept of the idea. And it was a very exciting start to us. Since then it's been two years. And we've actually just finished our Kickstarter campaign and we managed to raise $55,000 with a 415% goal reached. Fantastic. So is the device patented yet? So we are patent pending, but we definitely have the patent file already. So where is it patented? Or would it be in Singapore or in other countries? Yes. So we have found a patent, a PCT, which basically covers worldwide for the first 18 months. Right now we are using it as a time delay before we get the funds to create the international patents worldwide. Looking to basically patent at the most important markets, like the US, Singapore, Indonesia, Japan, definitely China, all these few markets. And how about South Korea? Oh, definitely South Korea. South Korea is such a huge market. This device is a real game changer especially for League of Legends because you can basically use it to pan your camera. That means that you don't really have to move your mouse to the edges and that makes your mouse more efficient in that sense. And South Korea is known to be well the hotspot for League of Legends. So that leads me to the question. Are you a League of Legends player or do you have other games that you play? Yes. So I'm an avid gamer. I played League of Legends since season three. I think that makes it about nine years now, nine, ten years. And I played other games like Apex Legends. Recently I've been trying out the pad for Elden Ring. I have played a whole bunch of single player games. Back when I was a kid, when I was using the Xbox, I actually had a whole stop power of games as well. So I would say I've gamed a lot until the startup work started to come in. So you're the developers of this, the three of you. Are you all League of Legends players or do people play different games? Oh, we actually play quite different games. One of my co-founders, CJ, he is more of an Overwatch player. He also plays a bit of Counter Strike. Then my third co-founder, Ping Zhang, he is more of a Valorant player. And tell us more about the rest of your background other than gaming. You got the impression that you have been a student fairly recently. Tell us about that. Yeah, so actually I am a business student in the National University of Singapore. Besides that, my two other co-founders, CJ and Ping Zhang, are also from the National University of Singapore. They study industrial systems and engineering. But CJ is actually dropping out of school to be working on our startup full-time. And Ping Zhang has graduated already. He is currently in China settling our manufacturing and our distribution routes. Oh, terrific. So are you in the process of manufacturing it or have you manufactured some? Yes, so now we have tested the first bit of manufacturing and we will be basically doing the small changes here and there to the design to make sure that it's a bit more durable and robust. With a bit more tests, we will then start manufacturing roughly May-June period. Okay, so tell us about what it's compatible with and how that works. And we can show some more pictures of the product. Sure. So this product is compatible with any systems actually, Windows, Android, Linux. If you are asking in terms of games, it's compatible with most games, particularly for mobile games like League of Legends and Dota because it makes your mouse mouse efficient. You can also use it for FPS for replacing WASD so that your fingers can be resting on your abilities to really react in the microseconds faster. You can also use it for MMO RPGs like Final Fantasy 14, which is well known to have a lot of buttons to press. So by taking out the WASD aspect, you can actually put all the buttons together in the section of the keyboard, which makes it a lot more button efficient. So your hands don't need to reach all the way to the other side of the keyboard. All these, I would say, actually combine to be one of or rather all the big game genres. I would say maybe the genre, game genre, which we don't really quite cater to is for music and rhythm games because those are still best played with the stylus. Sure. So the testing that you did on this, was it with League of Legends or with another game? So we did about 40 gamers per genre and for mobile, we tested this with League of Legends. And what have people, what has been the feedback from that testing? Yeah. So a lot of people really like the fact that now you can totally free up your fingers to move around as FPS. And for League of Legends players, they're like, wow, this should be the way that the game has been, should be played. Of course, there is still some muscle memory changes that they have to make. So some people are a bit uncomfortable with that. But they all say that given time, they think it's not going to be an issue. Do you think that this device will allow people to have less repetitive use injuries, like do this healthier or do you know where the other? Honestly, it acts like a wrist pad. So we've talked to a lot of doctors and they say this wouldn't help people with their wrist injuries or their finger injuries very much because they are still using the keyboard. But because they are using more of their palm, not their wrist, there is no health issues to this and it really acts very similar like a wrist pad in terms of ergonomics. Sure. And is this something that would be attractive to pros or would it be more focused on amateurs? I think it's a bit of both because there is quite a bit of quality of life for the amateurs that they can really appreciate. It also feels really good to move around with a pad instead of WASD because you get a full range of movement. It's a 360 degree movement compared to with your WASD and by freeing up your fingers, it just feels a lot more comfortable. So there's a lot of quality of life there. But for pros, because the pad itself allows them to physically react faster, there is microseconds of change. So I think that really caters to them. But pros generally tend to have a higher muscle memory. So it would take a slight longer for them to get used to it. And pros may not be willing to sacrifice the tournament potential in the very short term for it. So they'll have to find a longer break to take on this device. Sure. And I would think that if someone starts their gaming career by using the device, they could become a pro and continue to use it. Exactly. It's a device that allows gamers to really show their full potential and doesn't limit them based on the hardware. Actually, one of the cool facts that we found out is that the keyboard and the mouse have been around for 30 years in the gaming industry. 30 years! We see that it's become clickier. Mechanical keyboards have come around, which does help somewhat. But the form has not changed. We are still using the QWERTY keyboard. Even though some people have been pushing for different form changes, it wasn't really made for gaming. And that's why we were trying to think, okay, why has there been so little change? And one of the reasons that we found out was that basically people don't want to fear too much from the norm. And so we say, okay, sure, you know, you can use your current keyboards, but here is the world's first force pad. You just need to plug it to your keyboard because it's magnetically attachable to keyboards which have a metal frame at the bottom. And that way, people can actually use it together with their keyboards and get all the benefit. You don't necessarily have to buy our Vektonic keyboard, even though it's a really good 5-pin hotspotable, which means like a custom keyboard. But you can really just use the pad together with any keyboard of theirs. So in looking at the picture, okay, so let's bring up the picture that shows the pad, the mouse and the keyboard. Okay, so the mouse, okay, what is different with the mouse than other competitors? Okay, so this mouse isn't our mouse. We used it primarily just for the photo shoot. The mouse isn't quite ours, but the pad can actually emulate the mouse as well. So you could use the pad for more, this is more for persons with disabilities actually. So we wanted to make the device a very inclusive device. So we inputted or rather we let the device emulate a whole bunch of other things like the joystick as well as the mouse. And so people can actually use the pad, especially for persons with disabilities, use the pad to emulate the mouse or to actually paint and draw where they would otherwise have issue doing with just a simple keyboard and mouse due to their disabilities. So it's quite interesting. Actually the pad on the right side, I'll just show it up real quick here, on the right side of the pad over here, there's actually a button which allows people to very quickly change the profiles of the pad. My profiles is more like they can do preset profiles. That means it's either emulating the keyboard WSD or it's emulating a certain sort of combination of shortcuts. Like for example, it can sort of do control C, control V. If you press up or you press down or you can even emulate the mouse. So you want to make it as easy as possible for people to navigate their daily lives with the pad and as easy as possible for people with disabilities as well to use it for empowering them to navigate the virtual space. Oh, let's look at the keyboard. Yeah. Now, is that your keyboard then? Yes, this is our keyboard. This is our fully out keyboard. Okay, and why are the keys red? Well, I mean, red is our brand color. And honestly, we choose red because we feel that red is a very radical color. It's a color that inspires a lot of energy and passion as well as a bit of revolution, which is where we want to really stance ourselves in the industry. We are looking to come here for change and we are here to make a change in creating innovations in the gaming hardware industry. Now, when you first were tasked with the challenge of creating or inventing something new, how long did it take you to come up with this idea? The idea came within two weeks, actually, and maybe even less than that. I can't quite remember, but it's been two years of development for us. We have been designing this over and over again to make the prototype really robust and durable. Because I mean, if someone has done this before, it would have been a lot easier. But because no one has done this before, we've done prototype after prototype to make this a proof of concept as well as to make it robust. So we initially thought we could get by with about 22 prototypes, and then we'll finally get this out. But low and behold, right now we are on prototype 40, I think 48. Well, that's pretty expensive. So are you still spending funding? So in terms of the, I would say in terms of the cost, actually, we have to thank the Singapore government for giving us a grant to help a bit in terms of our 3D printing. So we have actually 3D printed a whole bunch of prototypes, especially lately for the more, I would say complete prototypes, which has helped us to test much, much, much more in depth. So let me give you an example, not sure whether you can see it, but here is one of our prototypes itself. It looks more or less complete to us. And this is actually done 3D printed. And it was with the help of the Singapore government that we could do these 3D printing. So I think you're an inspiration for so many people who are in gaming who want to invent something new. And do you have any advice for anyone that might follow in your footsteps and try to create a totally new product in gaming? I would say totally go for it. But when you go into this industry, be ready to be a lot slower. It's very important to create a device whereby not only is the concept good, but whatever you deliver is durable, high quality, as well as wouldn't let people down in terms of like the final product functionality. In fact, it really has to wow people when it gets to them. But more than that, there's a lot of things to settle in terms of the manufacturing, in terms of the software, the firmware. It's not just the product design shell. So there's a lot of things that have to be taken into account, which is very different, very, very different from the fast-paced nature of other industries, hot industries like the Metaverse industry or the NFT industry nowadays. So if someone were to come in, I would say you have to have a lot of patience when doing this. But it's when you have a really good concept, I say go for it, really, really go for it. Our industry in terms of the gaming hardware industry has so little innovations. So I would really urge anyone who has a concept to come in and yeah, just try a proof of concept, try on Kickstarter, try on Indiegogo, build yourself a prototype. Sure. So what's particularly interesting to me is that you've been doing this for two years, which has been during the pandemic. How has the pandemic influenced the speed at which you were able to create this and create prototypes and get financing? Right. In terms of financing, we didn't have quite much of an issue because together with our advisor, we self-raised about $250,000, Singapore Dollars. So there'll be about 180,000 USD for our own startup capital, which is quite needed for hardware startups. But for the pandemic itself, it has really restricted us in terms of going overseas for important business meetings, as well as conferences. Actually, this year in January, I was supposed to attend the Consumer Electronic Show, CES in the US, Las Vegas. But because of the sudden surge in COVID-19 cases, I was not able to go, as well as a lot of our key partners actually suddenly pulled out from the show itself. So there wasn't much point at me flying all the way to the US. Beyond that, there were also key partners that we wanted to talk to in Indonesia, as well as Japan. But because of the pandemic, again, we couldn't really fly. So in terms of the business side, there was a lot of holdups in terms of the manufacturing side. Well, there is a worldwide shipping issue. So thankfully, we told our backers that there is quite a bit of time. Hopefully, nothing big happens, fingers crossed. But there has also been quite a fair share of our manufacturing challenges since right now in China, things are really, really very strict. So my co-founder, thankfully, he's Chinese, and he is able to navigate around things quite well. They actually have to test for COVID-19 every single day. Yes, it's very, very strict. And without that, some days there's sudden lockdowns. So his activities there are restricted at times. It's very restrictive, I would say, in terms of the COVID-19 situation. But there's not much choice. We have to get around with it. We have to adapt to drive. So during the two years of development, you've had to learn a lot, I would imagine. How have you gone about learning how to do what you had to do? I think there was a lot of YouTube video watching. There was not YouTube video watching. There was a lot of mentorship involved. Thankfully, our advisor was, he's basically one of the ex-chairmen of the Singapore Manufacturing Federation, as well as one of the ex-board members of the Enterprise Singapore. So he was able to give us good business advice, was manufacturing advice. Together with him, there were a few other mentors, like for example, you are closely partnered with Esports Entertainment Asia, and the founder of Esports Entertainment Asia, Johnny, he was able to really come in and give us good advice. So together with the mentors and together with a lot of YouTube, I was able to put two and two together and it really helped to create a lot of miracles. And that's one of the few important things I would say is important as a hardware startup. It's not easy to come up with a product in just two years in fact. So I have to thank all of them, as I was thanking YouTube for getting me so far. Fantastic. So when will this be ready for purchase? Yes, so now it's actually ready for pre-order on our website. People can go to our website. Yes, we will just flash out the website real quick. You can see all of our product details from the website itself. If you scroll down, you can pre-order the pad itself, the keyboard itself, or the pro, which is the pad plus keyboard. And if you scroll down even more, you can see more details about the device. You can take a look at the video, which is further down. You scroll down all the way. You will be able to see, scroll down even further. You can see some of our testimonials. You can see our gaming device videos, in terms of how it works. We have been featured by about 50 media. So feel free to do a quick Google search about us as well. And yeah, we try to put as much details about our device on the website as much as we can. So people can pre-order right now for pretty good discount, up to 22% discount, maybe even more as a peaks. And the product will be ready itself in the August to October period. And that's why we're doing our product launch. Yeah. So how much will it cost? Yeah, so right now retail cost for the pad is $119 USD. And the keyboard itself is $149 USD with the pro going for $259 USD. We are looking to see whether we would like to keep it that way or whether there might be changes. But it's basically that way right now. The prices reflected on our website is currently in SGD. Oh, terrific. Well, I think that that's going to be very popular. And I hope lots of people will get something out of this from you providing your story. It's such an interesting story and it reminds me a lot of Shark Tank. Do you and your founders or inventors of this, do you watch that? Of course, Shark Tank is such a huge show. I personally drew a lot of inspiration as well as my ability to pitch from Shark Tank itself. So it was a very interesting show growing up. Fantastic. All right. So I'm going to give you the last word to let us know how people can find you. Cool. So like I said, you can find us on our website. Do feel free to pre-order there. In the next coming weeks, we will be doing a whole bunch of hardware blogs as well as potential YouTube videos. So do stay out for that. Our first YouTube video is going to be pretty exciting in terms of me and my co-founder bantering about how much we will pay for certain budget mice. So it should be pretty exciting. And I would say we have a very, very exciting year ahead leading up to the product launch. So stay tuned. Fantastic. Thank you so much, Ryan. I appreciate you being on here today. Yeah. Thank you for having me. All right. Thank you to our viewers for joining us today. Next week, my guest will be Rui Alexander Jesus. We'll discuss global eSports differences and similarities around the world. See you then. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.