
Ask HN: Can you help me build a 0 profit venture? - classicsnoot
TlDr: I want to use a crowdfunding platform + an online campaign to get cheap and effective air filters into low&#x2F;no income homes in polluted areas in an effort to engender a wider awareness of cleaner air. I want to neither make nor lose money doing it.<p>1) A few years ago, a gentleman working abroad in China posted his air purifying workaround here on HN (original article: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;scienceblog.com&#x2F;73679&#x2F;grad-student-rigs-cheap-alternative-rival-1000-air-purifiers-smog-choked-china&#x2F; ). It motivated me to &quot;build&quot; my own version. After many experiments with brackets, hardware, and duct tape i cobbled together a design that cost about $60. Then my Dad came along and cut the price down to $30 by just putting the filter on the back, letting the suction do the work of attaching the filter (the original design i ripped off used a barrel fan + HEPA filter; mine is a box fan + furnace filter).<p>The thing is amazing. Placed next to kitty litter box it eliminates the smell almost completely. It pulls hair and particulate matter out of the air effectively, helping keep work and leaving spaces fresh. The original Ideageneer tested his to compare it to the very expensive consumer models available and his was on par with their&#x27;s at a fraction of the cost. I have not tested mine, but using his methods it would be simple to do so. While there is the cost of electricity for running them, as well as the occasional fan replacement and the more often filter replacement, the cost comparison with an expensive Phillips Unit is astounding.
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cjbprime
Seems like a good idea. You could start a crowdfunding campaign now, right?

You could reach out to hardware accelerators like Bolt, Dragon Innovation, to
see if they would gift you some advice.

I think you should avoid mentioning asthma as caused by smoking and pets
unless you have non-anecdotal scientific consensus for it. I don't know what
causes asthma myself, though
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygiene_hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygiene_hypothesis)
seems popular and is in direct contradiction to your claim.

And, uh, wasn't there _less_ asthma around a few decades ago when smoking was
everywhere than there is today? Like, it seems like asthma rates have risen
dramatically literally while smoking rates were decreasing dramatically. If I
had to pick one side of the argument to argue, I expect I'd choose to argue
that exposure to smoking actually reduces asthma, if it has any effect on it
at all.

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classicsnoot
That is my fault for being unclear. I mean to say that smoking, pet dander,
and particulate matter in general exacerbates breathing conditions like
asthma. There are also knock on health effects for the rest of the body from
bad air. Nonetheless, your point is a valid one and i thank you for making it.
I in no way meant to state or imply that these things cause asthma.

Thank you for the advice. i will look into those orgs. In terms of starting a
round of crowdfunding, i am not yet confident enough in the plan of attack and
the logistics, hence my posting here. Thanks again.

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classicsnoot
2) In my travels for work i have come into contact with many low/no income
communities. Regardless of country, color, or creed i have found that the
children of these folks are numerous and often suffer from easily treatable
maladies. Due to various factors (i am going to side step politics here) these
kids grow up living with these maladies instead of them being treated. One of
the most common i have personally encountered is Asthma. Often, but not
always, parents/guardians smoke inside. They also live near factories,
highways, and landfills. They almost always have at least one pet. These
contributing factors lead to bad air. Factor in regional pollution and we are
talking about big, bad particulates in poor, little lungs. These filter fans
will not solve poverty or cure long term illnesses, but they would be a
positive step towards opening minds to creating healthier environments at low
cost.

I am not independently wealthy. I do pretty well for a current student thanks
to patrons and family. If i had the money, i would do it myself, but i do not.
In crafting this campaign, i looked at the objectives, then the methodology,
then the desired outcome. This is no Silicon Valley disruption level event.
The requisite pieces are fairly easy to obtain as well as easy to maintenance
and replace. I do not want to create a product that makes money on the back of
a health initiative (don't think i didn't consider it, but this kind of idea
is inherently unprofitable given the constituent parts). What the campaign is
about is, to put it rather coarsely, leading horses to water.

~~~
classicsnoot
3) So, from my perspective, i need to buy fans and filters then distribute
them to worthy candidates. The cost of a box fan is a range of $15-30
depending on season and manufacturer. The cost of a filter is a range of $7-15
based on density of fibers. Shipping cost (to the recipient) is ever changing
but easily calculated. Assuming an optimistic $10 shipping cost, we roughly
land at: 10 + 10 + 20 = 40+shipping. That is pretty expensive.

Excepting shipping, i believe these costs could be brought down by buying in
bulk (or getting donations). This is not a frontal assault on bad air with the
intention of winning the war. The idea here is to propagate the fact that, for
a relatively low cost, parents of any bracket of the socio-economic stack can
provide cleaner air for their kids without buying an over engineered consumer
product. So what is need is a highly visible, popularly shared event that
spreads the message far and wide. This requires 100% transparent accounting of
costs and distribution, a simple 1 page document explaining the methodology
and supporting data (to be printed and mailed initially but to be shared
online in the future), and an online campaign to tie it all together. Most of
the pieces are in place. What i need is the bulk materials (fans and filters),
the hardware and software required to generate accurate, demonstrable, and
repeatable testing, and the support of a well connected and well intentioned
community.

~~~
classicsnoot
4) So here i am, asking for help. This is not the first community i have
reached out to (Imgur is a tough crowd to get support from) so i have little
expectation of progress, but i think about it too much and i will keep trying
to find support every year or so until something happens. Thank you for
reading and please feel free to make any type of comment, question,
suggestion, addition, or reproof. To reiterate, should this take off, i want
to make sure that at the end of the day it is a net zero venture in terms of
money (i am a historian and filmmaker, not an entrepreneur).

May you have clean air and a cleaner conscience.

~~~
notahacker
Have you spoken with any charities about this? Frankly it sounds like your
problem of identifying how to distribute it and who to is much harder than the
manufacturing problem, and they will of course have ideas on the funding side
too.

One problem I can envisage is that the electricity costs of running a box fan
are potentially high, reducing the likelihood of a lot of the people that
would benefit from having a $30 device donated to them from actually using it.
The other question would be how your device compares in effectiveness (amount
of air filtered and types of particles removed) with other inexpensive air
filters. Does it actually pick up the PM2.5 particles people have most reason
to be concerned about?

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97-109-107
I read all your comments here so far. My problem is that (at least for us here
at HN) there is no clear call to action. Maybe you could re-iterate what
skills/things you need help with. I would gladly offer my support in these
domains:
[http://generativestuff.com/sparring/](http://generativestuff.com/sparring/)

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debacle
You can buy box fans in bulk on alibaba for ~12$, from what I could see. An
air filter is ~6$. That should additionally reduce your cost.

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segmondy
Share the plan online. Have a good write up on how to build it. Make youtube
videos. Make it free for all.

