Tag: hardware

Final thoughts about how to run hardware startups

Don’t be afraid. A text like this usually highlights complications and problems that I would prefer to call challenges. Many of the successful projects didn’t have any clue about all the phases they should pass through. They just started working and discovered each time the next step to be solved and they did it. Having

The team and partners in hardware startups

In startups we always say “team is the key” and here, of course, it’s true.  Many  different profiles are needed, and it’s so difficult to have all of them from the beginning. Really, you’re not going to need everyone at the same time, so you can be creating different teams for different phases of the

The fine line between hardware and software in the hardware industry

In this document I talk a lot about hardware, but now every product has an interface, or even an app that controls it. And that involves software, coding (probably back-end and front-end), design, usability… Software creation is also a strategy to differentiate your product from potential copies. Despite patents, any hardware device could be copied,

How to validate and test the market in hardware startups

Sometimes we’re in a trap: without units there’s no validation, and you shouldn’t build more units without validation. Here it’s important to highlight that experiments could be done with interviews, smoke products, non-functional products, simulating by hand what machines will do automatically… so you can learn a lot without actual products. Really, to learn about

Crowdfunding and hardware startups II

This is a follow-up to last week’s post It’s an important topic, so there’s a lot of information. I think many people love crowdfunding, and they are happy with not only for being a customer, but also for supporting new ideas. But it’s quite obvious, also for customers, that crowdfunding is based on promised, so

Crowdfunding campaigns for hardware products

Today, crowdfunding seems to be the solution for everything, and that’s a good idea for hardware products. It’s usually the first idea that project owners have when they think about how to raise money. But being a good idea doesn’t mean it’s an easy one. It’s not necessary  to mention that a campaign is a

Hardware Startup focusing on a mass market

Many projects must go from 1 unit in testing to 10,000 units in first manufacturing. Manufacturing 1,000 units costs similar to 10,000 so there’s no real option. This means with only 1 unit you must validate everything, and that’s not easy. This is happening with cheap products going to a mass market, usually B2C. And