This piece was written by Opkalla’s CTO, Steve Ermish. He originally published it on LinkedIn. You can see the original here.

Opkalla, like most startups, began with a compelling core concept, and then it was up to the four of us to grow it. We said yes to almost everything. Little did we know the types of opportunities we would find.

Enter Nextscent

NextScent transforms homes, businesses and brands with advanced air care and scent solutions that are safer, smarter, eco-friendly and more affordable for everyone. Their patent-pending Ventus® Home & Ion air care solutions purify the air and distribute natural fragrances with unmatched performance and safety.

When they were first getting started, they reached out to see if we could design and build the IoT hardware, the cloud platform and a mobile app.

I was up for the challenge to learn some new technology, and the industry wasn’t so far off from my wheelhouse.

Some Background That Makes Scents ☺

Back in 2015 I worked for a fragrance marketing company and developed the company’s first connected scent product using an ESP8266 and a connected web app.  

Fast forward to 2020, I got reconnected with two of my former colleagues who had started a new company (and now we’re back at NextScent). They remembered what I had done when we worked together and asked if I could do it again, only this time with many modern enhancements. These enhancements included air quality monitoring, ionization air cleaning, smart cartridges, and OTA (Over the Air) updates.  

Modern Enhancements Bring Modern Challenges

As it turns out (and to no surprise) modern enhancements bring modern challenges. For example, the product was designed to always be connected through WiFi and BLE, but it also had to have the ability to work in an offline state.  

The biggest challenge was getting everything to work in harmony using a single ESP32 chip.

For the next 6 months, I got to build an open-source 3D printer. I used this to print prototypes and create the electronic breadboards in my home office to try to make the concepts work.

Then using EDA software, I designed the PCBs and ordered prototype boards to solder together and test.

Once I had a working prototype controlled by the IoT platform, I needed someone to help me build the web and mobile platform. I used an offshore development company for this.  

Lessons Learned  

Fast forward to now and we’ve got dozens of beta units around the world. We’ve also launched on Kickstarter: https://ff.go2.fund/nextscent

Through this entire process, I’ve learned a great deal. Here are my top three takeaways:

1. Strive for quick wins: It is important to break a project down into bite-size chunks that can move the ball down the field. I learned so much from things that didn't work when I thought they would. The smaller the work product, the faster you can address the failure and try something else.
2. Go-Live is only the beginning: Apart from post-implementation support and bug fixes, you really don’t learn how well your product works until it’s in the hands of a customer.
3. Never underestimate the importance of testing: I completely underestimated the amount of time it would take to test every scenario and potential use case, and then the additional time that was required to fix issues that were identified.

In conclusion, as one of the many things Opkalla said yes to in the early stages of our company, this stands out as one of the most memorable and rewarding projects to date. Fast forward to December 2021 and we support 250+ clients across the country and have focused on a core set of solutions. Until next time, thanks for reading!