How did you come up with the idea for your product?

networking @ezgi_aydin andsee the market gap

I was taking phone calls to sell a product, and I must've had the same conversation with over 30-40 customers. They told me information about their car, and I answered in a very robotic way, so I figured that there should be a quoting software, that could be just one step away from Yelp.

I am technically my first customer. The amount of litter I find on the streets is completely avoidable, and it's also a financial drain on the community. Not to mention the threat to wildlife! I started out searching for a solution to curb the problem but couldn't find anything that fit my needs (highly portable, solar powered, theft deterrent, circumvents the need for wifi since the areas I need to patrol are public access) - so I started building. Or rather, I started studying. I ran into dead end after dead end trying to figure out how to put it all together. I've seen other products that tackle litter after the fact, not deter the act in the first place. "Why not use a trail camera?", you say. I considered that option, but ran into the problem of not being able to catch litterbugs in the act. I got still photos "around the time" of motion detection. I also didn't want to have to spend time sifting through useless snaps. Computer vision to the rescue! Long story short, this project is the first in a loooong line of potential solutions to various problems. I decided to tackle this one first because it was the "easiest" point of entry with the most immediate gain. So many of my neighbors are constantly asking the city for cleanup of litter and illegal dumping - those resources could be spent on green space/youth projects instead of playing nanny to the careless. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯