TRMNL is a brand that began with a simple idea about creating a calmer way to interact with technology. It is an e-ink device designed to help people stay focused in an increasingly distracting world.
Their team shares, “We launched on Kickstarter in Summer 2024, selling ~1350 devices in 30 days. This was just enough demand (+ revenue) to order our first batch of components, which we assembled in my basement south of Atlanta, Georgia and sent to early backers.”
From there, TRMNL continued to grow step by step, shaped by early users and a shared goal of making technology feel less overwhelming and more intentional.
In this story, we explore how TRMNL grew and how Fera helped them collect and showcase customer feedback to better understand their users and build trust through real experiences.
Q: What were a couple of challenges you were trying to solve before using Fera? What were the major pain points of your process prior to using Fera?
“We wanted to automate review collection without being annoying. The ability to trigger requests based on delivery vs order creation is a critical feature for us.”
Q: What other methods/strategies did you try in order to address those issues before using Fera?
“I've dabbled with DIY approaches to review curation, for example loading up a spreadsheet with names/emails and sending a batch of messages manually each day. This method is messy however, as you are bound to email people when they're sleeping, or they reply to your email instead of post their review publicly, or they accuse you of spam.
A third party review solution that sits between brand <> customer is ironically more effective, and it also encourages customers to be more honest in their feedback than if they feel they are replying directly to the team.”
Q: Have you tried any of our competitors?
“We've tried competitors like JudgeMe and Yotpo but they were either not feature rich enough (the former) or too expensive (the latter).”
Q: How are you using Fera and which marketplace are you selling on?
“Our Shopify store is connected to Fera, we also use the API to display reviews on our own product, TRMNL devices.
Q: How long have you been using Fera?
“Since October 2024, so 1 year and 7 months.”
Q: How does Fera help your team or company achieve its objectives?
“Fera gives us a predictable, daily stream of positive customer feedback that we can show off to new shoppers and discuss internally for product iterations. On many occasions the mere act of requesting a review will spark a conversation with customers (happy and otherwise) that would not have occurred if we never asked for their feedback.”
Q: What features do you wish Fera had? How can we improve?
“I would like to A/B test my email subject lines, body copy, and timing logic to figure out the most efficient review request campaign. The recent addition of per-campaign analytics is a great start here, so I can probably do this on my own with some note taking.”
Q: Do you have any future plans in terms of using Fera?
“In the future I'd like to connect Fera to more places, for example segmenting customers in our email tool by "left review yes/no" and other available integrations.”
