Lightboard - Market Analysis

By offering an assortment of products, providing their cliental with customer and DIY project support and by hosting their open source resources, Revolution Lightboards has managed to maintain a relatively small but competitive presence in the lightboard market.

Web Traffic and Social Media Presence

Although they have been around since 2014, Revolution Lightboard has failed to generate a strong social media presence. This may be expected for a company that caters to such a narrow market. In spite of their low number of followers, the company still generates a healthy amount of traffic to their static website.

Website: revolutionlightboards.com

An average of 1900 organic web search traffic monthly
An average of 500 paid search traffic monthly
Currently has advertisement displayed in 40 different locations (source)

Facebook.com

238 people likes
245 people followers

YouTube

541 subscribers

Instagram.com

54 followers

33 followers

Revolution Lightboards Around the World

from revolutionlightboards.com

Despite high shipping costs, Revolution Lightboards have managed to generate a small footprint of clients outside of their domestic market. This interactive map reflects lightboards and lightboard studio packages sold globally, but does not reflect the sales of their accessories, studio equipment or their DIY lightboard components.

Competitors

Lightboards are generally large and cumbersome products that make international shipping a costly ordeal. This will hinder Revolution Lightboards' ability to expand their market past continental shipping. This has prompted several competitors to emerge in international markets and some domestic competitors who are aptly positioned to cannibalize Revolution Lightboards key domestic market.

Example of International Competitors

Talking Edge Studios
Provides video strategy consultation services and retails Lightboards. Based in London, England, they cater to their domestic market.

Lightboard India
Although they only cater to the Indian domestic market, they are able to offer a studio setup service at an hourly rate.

Lightboard Studios
Caters to the European market, this company offers a small selection of lightboards and lightboard accessories.

Example of Domestic Competitors

Learning Glass
is a formidable competitor for Revolution Lightboards' domestic market. Located in San Diego, Learning Glass has entrenched themselves well within the Post-Secondary Education market. Aside from offering a succinct line of lightboards and accessories, Learning Glass also offers training and studio rental.

Lightboardkit.com
Lightboard Kits is focused on providing unassembled lightboard kits (glass sold separately). This option does not offer much in the way of support and at the cost of $650 plus shipping, one would naturally gravitate towards the benefits of purchasing a pre-constructed lightboard or using available resources to construct one's own.

Open Source - A Double-Edged Sword

One can appreciate Revolution Lightboards' commitment to maintaining their open source roots well after establishing their for-profit company. This is a defining characteristic of the company as it not only helped elevate and promote their brand among academic institutions, but has also helped them integrate themselves within the Lightboard DIY market and community. Revolution Lightboards hopes their open source information, coupled with their line of DIY components and their customer service will attract institutions and private clients who are willing to take on the task of creating a lightboard, but wish to do so within a structure of support.

A grounded reality is that the information shared on their open source page is thorough. So thorough, in fact, that users could leave Revolution Lightboards and their products out of a DIY build. For many, especially those who will be faced with steep shipping charges, finding alternative locations to buy lightboard components can be a vastly more economical solution. Furthermore, the open source nature of this product has sparked affordable 3D printed alternatives for many of the for-purchase components. Many of which are commonly available on Thingiverse.

Company Analysis

Revolution Lightboards have maintained a steady presence within their product's market and has developed a reputable brand within its DIY segment. I believe the growing eLearning and instructional video market should allow Revolution Lightboards to maintain their current level of production, will not contribute enough of an impact to facilitate much growth. Lightboards at its core are cumbersome, space and resource demanding, and can be met with resistance from educators and presenters. This will greatly limit the appeal of the product and will also limit the amount of qualifying institutions who can support the technology. Furthermore, lightboards are stagnant in their development and will probably not see much technological advancements. This means that institutions who currently owns a lightboard will not need to update their product in the foreseeable future. Finally, building one's own lightboard is a viable solution for many and will further limit the company's potential for growth.