Voices: 15 steps to starting your own electronic-kit business is an interesting article. This engineer started her own successful electronics-kit business. Limor Fried has made Adafruit Industries into a successful electronics-kit business. You can too. Based on her own experience, she offers 15 practical steps for engineers who dream of starting their own kit business.
716 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Miten kehittää ideasta tuote? Osa 4: Panosta prototyyppiin
https://framian.fi/fi/blogi/ideasta-tuote-osa-4-panosta-prototyyppiin/
Tomi Engdahl says:
7 examples of excellent product roadmaps
https://www.productboard.com/blog/4-roadmap-examples/
Alex Lucas says:
Nice post! I love to learn new about business. And I really enjoyed the way you described starting a company in the electronic-kit industry. Also, I’d like to share this material on the SDLC model (https://tagsoft.co/software-product-development/). I found it quite useful.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How and when to build marketing teams at deep tech companies
https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/19/how-and-when-to-build-marketing-teams-at-deep-tech-companies/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/03/retrotechtacular-design-for-assembly-1980s-style/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Digitaalisen prototyypin kehittäminen on sijoitus, ja moni saattaa pohtiakin, kannattaako pelkkään prototyyppiin uhrata tuhansia euroja.
Yrittämiseen ja uuden luomiseen liittyy paljon epävarmuutta. Projektin alkuvaiheessa itseluottamus ja varmuus ovat yleensä ylimmillään. Uuden tuotteen kehittämisessä on kuitenkin paljon tuntemattomia osa-alueita, eikä luovana yrittäjänä pääse epävarmuutta karkuun.
framian.fi/fi/blogi/voiko-prototyyppi-epaonnistua
Tomi Engdahl says:
Oikein valitut early adopterit varmistavat tuotteen menestyksen
https://www.meom.fi/venture/blogi/oikein-valitut-early-adopterit-varmistavat-tuotteen-menestyksen/
Early adopterien, eli varhaisten omaksujien pitäisi olla uuden tuoteliiketoiminnan käynnistäjälle pakkomielle. Ensimmäiset asiakkaat nimittäin ratkaisevat koko liiketoiminnan onnistumisen
Jussilla on yhtymäkohtia startupin perustajaan. Jussin visio oli perustaa oma tila: torppa, ulkorakennus, navetta ja peltoviljelyksiä. Perustajan visio on rakentaa kannattavaa ja kasvavaa liiketoimintaa. Jussille torppa oli matkan ensimmäinen konkreettinen vaihe. Founderille tämä on tuotteen ensimmäinen versio eli MVP.
Koskelan Jussin työ alkoi kartoittamalla suosta torpalle sopiva kohta, jota alkaa kuokkia. Startupin perustajan pitää tunnistaa juuri oikea asiakassegmentti, josta lähteä liikkeelle. Kuokan sijaan työkaluna on asiakassegmentin ongelma. Kun ongelman ymmärtää, sitä voi käyttää perustan rakentamiseen koko torpalle.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://framian.fi/fi/blogi/ideasta-tuote-osa-4-panosta-prototyyppiin/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://framian.fi/fi/blogi/osa-2-ideoi-rohkeasti/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://talented.fi/fi/blog/kuinka-edeta-yrityksen-perustamisen-jalkeen-osa-2/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Balanced Design And How To Know When To Quit Optimizing
https://hackaday.com/2021/03/13/balanced-design-and-how-to-know-when-to-quit-optimizing/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Five Steps To Thinking Like A Software Company
https://www.forbes.com/sites/vijaygurbaxani/2021/03/08/five-steps-to-thinking-like-a-software-company/
Here’s the key takeaways for companies who want to make the leap to truly thinking like software businesses:
1. Assemble and develop in-house talent
2. Implement a modular architecture
3. Embrace experimental innovation
4. Start small, then build scope and scale
5. Balance the risk of error against its benefits
CIOs, for obvious reasons, are generally risk averse when it comes to software development. But a greater willingness to accept initial errors can reap significant dividends in terms of increased efficiencies. For example, one of the companies I interviewed had a leased strategic application that was not only expensive, but unsuited to its business model, often recommending inefficient solutions. The company assigned a couple of talented developers to build an “adequate” working replacement quickly.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.edn.com/the-smallest-change-necessary-wise-boss-imparts-important-design-principle/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mitä voi oppia siitä, kun Alan Turing rakensi tietokoneen MVP
https://www.meom.fi/venture/blogi/mita-voi-oppia-siita-kun-alan-turing-rakensi-tietokoneen-mvp/
Uuden tuotteen elinkaaren konkreettisin hetki on MVP:n julkaisu. Minimum Viable Productin avulla keräät valtavasti oppia, ymmärrystä ja pystyt rakentamaan paremman tuotteen.
MVP ei ole täydellinen tuote, sillä sen tarkoituksena on saada liiketoiminta käyntiin samalla, kun kartoittaa asiakkailta, mikä on se täydellinen tuote.
MVP:ssä riittää, että keskittyy seuraaviin asioihin, olit englantilainen nero tai forssalainen founderi:
Kohderyhmä:
Kenelle tuotetta suunnitellaan ja mikä on ensimmäisten asiakkaiden suurin kipua aiheuttava ongelma.
Miten ongelma ratkaistaan:
Miten ongelma muutetaan ratkaisuksi, joka tuottaa asiakkaille hyötyä? Mitkä ovat tuotteen keskeiset ominaisuudet, jolla hyödyt tuotetaan – onko kyseessä pelkästään teknologinen innovaatio vai onko palveluominaisuuksia mukana.
Miten luodaan kilpailuetua:
Minkälainen tuotekokonaisuus palvelee asiakkaiden tarpeita ja erottuu kilpailijoista? Minkälaisella uniikilla tavalla tehdään asioita paremmin kuin on ennen tehty.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kuinka valitset tarpeisiisi sopivan pakkauksen?
https://www.lp.pa-hu.fi/packaging-guide
Tomi Engdahl says:
Interesting video on starting product business:
How I Invented a $1,000,000 Product
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9b08TxacFxI
How I Invented a $1,000,000 Product
In 2012 I invented a product that would go on to change my life and do well over $1,000,000 in retail sales. This is the story of how I invented that product, called the Bottlehook. In this video we talk about how the product was designed, how it was launched on Kickstarter, getting a patent for the invention, getting media and finally taking it off the market to perfect it and bring out version 3, which is available starting today!
Thank you for this crazy ride – I hope you enjoy the video
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tuotekehityksen prioriteetit MVP:n julkaisun jälkeen
https://www.meom.fi/venture/blogi/tuotekehityksen-prioriteetit-mvp-julkaisun-jalkeen/?utm_campaign=Interestit-Traffic+%28Kiva%29&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=paid&hsa_acc=63781965&hsa_cam=6231370778736&hsa_grp=6231370984536&hsa_ad=6231371839736&hsa_src=fb&hsa_net=facebook&hsa_ver=3&fbclid=IwAR0MDTaSBSJQGiSILPJEKgi_gp3UR5uN14n94ff81i9_GLzmc5L8TZAPwy8
Tuotteesi MVP-versio on markkinoilla ja ensimmäiset asiakkaat koukutettu mukaan – euforian valtaa kehon sekä mielen. Euforia on kuitenkin kuin Tolun tuoksu vastapestyllä lattialla: se haihtuu nopeasti ilmaan ja katoaa. Edessä on herätys todellisuuteen: nythän se kova työ vasta alkaakin.
Tuotteen julkaisu on se hetki, jolloin jopa vuosien työ konkretisoituu. Kaikki energia ja fokus on mennyt MVP:n valmiiksi saattamiseen. Kuten MVP:n luonteeseen kuuluu, kompromisseja on tehty, ominaisuuksia puuttuu, teknistä velkaa on kertynyt, kassa on kuiva ja visio tuntuu olevan vielä kaukana horisontissa.
Yhtäkkiä ollaankin aivan uusien haasteiden edessä ja tuotejulkaisun kaltainen selkeä päämäärä puuttuu. Founderit joutuvat kysymään toisiltaan kyllästymiseen asti: mihin pitää fokusoida ja mikä on oikeasti prioriteetti?
Jos tuote on kehitetty parhaiden käytäntöjen mukaisesti, ensimmäiset asiakkaat ovat olleet keskiössä alusta saakka ja tuote on rakennettu palvelemaan early adoptereiden tarpeita (eikä perustajien egon jatkeeksi). Tämä on erinomainen lähtökohta ja tällä tiellä täytyy pysyä.
Asiakasvalidointi, prototyypit, smoke testit ynnä muut ovat luonteva tapa tunnistaa ensimmäiset asiakkaat. Asiakashankinta on tapahtunut käytännössä käsityönä ja nyt pitäisikin saada lisää uusia asiakkaita, pitäen samalla nykyiset tyytyväisinä.
Kun huomaat olevasi startup-vuoristoradan notkossa ja pää on pyöryksissä, pitää turvautua kahteen pääteemaan, joiden kautta voit miettiä kaikkia prioriteettejasi, tuotekehityspäätöksiä, investointisuuntauksia ja ajankäytönkohteita. Ensimmäisenä on vain tunnistettava, että kumpi on sinulle nykyhetkessä tärkeämpää:
Kuinka saan hankittua lisää asiakkaita?
Kuinka saan nykyiset asiakkaat pidettyä?
Tavoite on löytää Product/Market Fit ja nämä kysymykset ohjaavat kohti sitä.
Priorisoi. Priorisoi. Priorisoi.
MVP:n tarkoitus on saada liiketoiminta pystyyn ja kerätä mahdollisimman paljon ymmärrystä asiakkailta, jotta voi kehittää tuotetta sekä businesta paremmaksi. Siksi kaikkia MVP:n jälkeisiä päätöksiä pitää tarkastella asiakashankinnan tai -pysyvyyden linssien läpi.
Ennen kuin lähtee toteuttamaan seuraavaa Excel-riviä tuotekehityksen backlogista, sitä pitää tarkastella kriittisesti: auttaako tämä saamaan uusia asiakkaita tai pienentääkö tämä asiakaspoistumaa? Jos et pysty perustelemaan näkemystä, mielellään asiakaspalautteen tukemana, saa se jäädä Exceliin odottamaan parempia päiviä. Samaa sabluunaa pitää käyttää muiden resurssisyöppöjen kanssa.
Product/Market Fitin löytäminen on kovaa duunia ja se ei tapahdu hetkessä. On tunnistettava oikeat asiakkaat, jonka ongelman pystyt ratkaisemaan niin hyvin, että he rakastavat tuotetta ja suuttuvat, jos se viedään heiltä pois. Kaikki panokset pitää käyttää tämän tavoitteen edistämiseen. Kaikki muu on hukkaa.
Perustajien paras assetti on kollektiivinen äly: päätöksentekokyky, priorisointitaito ja konfliktien ratkaisuosaaminen. Mikä on tässä hetkessä tärkeintä (WIN = What’s Important NOW!), joka vie meitä kohti visiota.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Startupin perustamisen muistilista – 14 tärkeää kysymystä
https://www.meom.fi/venture/blogi/startupin-perustamisen-muistilista-14-tarkeaa-kysymysta/
Jokainen startupin perustaja tuskailee saman kysymyksen kanssa: kannattaako tämän idean ympärille rakentaa liiketoimintaa.
Startupin perustaminen on aina hyppy tuntemattomaan, sillä onnistuminen ei ole koskaan täysin varmaa. Todellinen happotesti tulee vasta loikan jälkeen, kun firma on pystyssä ja tuote asiakkaiden käsissä.
Rohkeutta vaaditaan aina, mutta varmuutta voi lisätä ja riskejä pienentää tekemällä pohjatöitä enemmän. Startupin perustamista suunniteltaessa voit tehdä lukuisia asioita ilmaiseksi tai hyvin pienillä kustannuksilla.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Selvitä tuotteen potentiaali kustannustehokkaasti
https://www.meom.fi/venture/varmista-kysynta/smoke-test/
Smoke testin eli savutestauksen tarkoituksena on luoda yksinkertainen verkkosivu, määrittää sivulle selkeä tavoite, ajaa liikennettä sivulle ja tutkia täyttävätkö kävijät tavoitteen.
Savutestauksen avulla pysyt selvittämään lukuisia asioita kuten kohderyhmän potentiaali, tuotteen kiinnostavuus, ratkaisun arvo, ydinviestit, kanavat ja käyttöliittymän selkeys. Samalla saat ensimmäisten asiakkaiden yhteystiedot jatkotestejä tai myyntiä varten.
Tomi Engdahl says:
FAQ: Becoming a software freelancer in Finland
Here you can find the FAQs about becoming a software freelancer, running a company, customer acquisition and more. Please note that the answers are Finland specific.
https://talented.fi/en/faq-becoming-a-software-freelancer-in-finland/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Prototyypin avulla testaat ratkaisuasi asiakkailla
https://www.meom.fi/venture/prototyypin-suunnittelu/?fbclid=IwAR3fvgZ4yW2mM6Hd_sxY_nBzzBBNH5CKxVfoTWUfc59Qb5zGcOBgEu3hfNA
Prototyyppi on MVP:n luomisprosessin kriittinen vaihe. Prototyypin avulla opit nopeasti uutta asiakkailtasi pienemmällä vaivalla ja riskittömämmin, ennen kuin satsaat varsinaisen tuotteen kehitykseen. Prototyypin luominen on kustannustehokkain tapa vähentää tuoteriskejä.
Tomi Engdahl says:
One Man’s Quest To Build A Baby Book With Brains
https://hackaday.com/2021/09/07/one-mans-quest-to-build-a-baby-book-with-brains/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Successfully Crowdfunded Hardware: Everything Behind The Scenes
https://hackaday.com/2021/09/12/successfully-crowdfunded-hardware-everything-behind-the-scenes/
Crowdfunding hardware has its own unique challenges, and [Uri Shaked] wrote a fascinating report that goes into excellent detail about his experience bringing a crowdfunded hardware project to life.
Successful Hardware Crowdfunding: Behind the Scenes
https://blog.wokwi.com/hardware-crowdfunding-behind-the-scenes/
Building hardware projects for yourself is a lot of fun. Sometimes they are even very useful! But how do you get your innovate electronics creations into the hands of others?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Documentation Is Hard, Let The SkunkWorks Project Show You How To Do It Well
https://hackaday.com/2021/09/12/documentation-is-hard-let-the-skunkworks-project-show-you-how-to-do-it-well/
Documentation can be a bit of a nasty word, but it’s certainly one aspect of our own design process that we all wish we could improve upon. As an award-winning designer, working with some of the best toy companies around, [Jude] knows a thing or two about showing your work. In his SkunkWorks Project, he takes a maker’s approach to Bo Peep’s Skunkmobile and gives us a master class on engineering design in the process.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IC Shortage Keeps Linux Out Of Phone Charger, For Now
https://hackaday.com/2021/09/29/ic-shortage-keeps-linux-out-of-phone-charger-for-now/
We’ve been eagerly following the development of the WiFiWart for some time now, as a quad-core Cortex-A7 USB phone charger with dual WiFi interfaces that runs OpenWrt sounds exactly like the sort of thing we need in our lives. Unfortunately, we’ve just heard from [Walker] that progress on the project has been slowed down indefinitely by crippling chip shortages.
I’m not putting a WiFi router into a phone charger (Part 3)
https://machinehum.medium.com/im-not-putting-a-wifi-router-into-a-phone-charger-7b36e90ee08d
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jos tuotteesi ensijulkaisu ei nolottanut, saatoit tehdä jotain väärin
https://www.meom.fi/venture/blogi/jos-tuotteesi-ensijulkaisu-ei-nolottanut-saatoit-tehda-jotain-vaarin/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackers And China
https://hackaday.com/2021/10/09/hackers-and-china/
The open source world and Chinese manufacturing have a long relationship. Some fifteen years ago, the big topic was how companies could open-source their hardware designs and not get driven bankrupt by competition from overseas. Companies like Sparkfun, Adafruit, Arduino, Maple Labs, Pololu, and many more demonstrated that this wasn’t impossible after all.
Maybe ten years ago, Chinese firms started picking up interesting hacker projects and producing them. This gave us hits like the AVR transistor tester and the NanoVNA. In the last few years, we’ve seen open-source hardware and software projects that have deliberately targeted Chinese manufacturers, and won. We do the design and coding, they do the manufacturing, sales, and distribution.
But this is something else: the Bangle.js watch takes an essentially mediocre Chinese smartwatch and reflashes the firmware, and sells them as open-source smartwatches to the general public.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://tukes.fi/tuotteet-ja-palvelut/sahkolaitteet/sahkolaitteiden-vaatimuksia/sahkoturvallisuus-lvd
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://framian.fi/fi/blogi/ideasta-tuote-osa-4-panosta-prototyyppiin/?fbclid=IwAR1EgcGOrOfDrd3Mcf4BdPUfp4wUzRnSRBJTE4L_-94RYN53Sz-v1R1w07c
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tuotekehitys on turhaa ilman asiakasymmärrystä
https://www.meom.fi/venture/blogi/tuotekehitys-on-turhaa-ilman-asiakasymmarrysta/
Yleisin syy start-upien epäonnistumiseen on se, että ne tarjoavat ratkaisuja, joita asiakkaat eivät tarvitse.
Sama selitys löytyy myös epäonnistuneiden tuotteiden taustalta. Menestyvien yritysten tuotteet ja palvelut ratkaisevat aina asiakkaiden aitoja ongelmia. Näiden kehityksessä on lähes poikkeuksetta lähdetty liikkeelle asiakkaiden tarpeiden ymmärtämisestä, mikä on myös markkinoinnin tärkein tehtävä.
Uuden tuotteen menestyksen kannalta on tärkeää, että se tuo arvoa riittävän monelle ihmiselle. Jos tuotteen ratkaisema ongelma koskettaa vain muutamia, tai tarpeeseen on markkinoilla jo useita hyviä vaihtoehtoja, käytät aikasi ja rahasi paremmin vaikka jäätelökioskilla.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.meom.fi/venture/blogi/jos-tuotteesi-ensijulkaisu-ei-nolottanut-saatoit-tehda-jotain-vaarin/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/02/hardware-project-becomes-successful-product-for-solo-developer/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/02/tiny-open-hardware-linux-sbc-hides-in-plain-sight/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Only a small number of MedTech devices make it to the market – how to turn your invention into an actual health-promoting product
https://www.etteplan.com/stories/only-small-number-medtech-devices-make-it-market-how-turn-your-invention-actual-health-promoting-product?utm_campaign=newsletter-6-2021&utm_content=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_source=apsis-anp-3&pe_data=D43445A477046455B45724541514B71%7C29928913
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/18/isolated-oscilloscope-design-process-shows-how-its-done/
Tomi Engdahl says:
What Is A Burndown Chart? Everything You Need To Know
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/what-is-a-burndown-chart/
A burndown chart is a graphical representation of the work remaining for a project and the time remaining to complete it. Burndown charts are commonly used in software development, especially in teams using Agile project management. In this article, we discuss the components of a burndown chart, how to use it and its benefits and limitations.
What Is a Burndown Chart?
“Burndown charts are a way to look at the progress of your project as it relates to requirements,” Chris Mattmann, Chief Technology and Innovation Officer (CTIO) at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told Forbes Advisor. The burndown chart plots the ideal progress as a downward slope reaching “burn down” to the project’s completion.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.meom.fi/venture/blogi/testaa-ideaasi-luo-prototyyppi/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.meom.fi/venture/blogi/tuotekehityksen-prioriteetit-mvp-julkaisun-jalkeen/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://y4works.fi/fi/blogi/asiantuntijoiden-vinkit-innovaation-kehittamiseen-ja-kansainvalistymiseen/?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=social_paid&utm_campaign=Innovaatiot_blogi_traffic&utm_content=postaus&fbclid=IwAR18rg4YtZxzK_Y4TQdDa61A5RHLD3Bhd5BMr72ehIxqNjTMysIEE5l3RcA
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.meom.fi/venture/blogi/skaalautuva-kasvu-tapahtuu-viipale-kerrallaan/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.meom.fi/venture/blogi/tukirahoitus-yrittajan-polun-eri-vaiheissa/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nollasta miljoonaan tulorahoituksella – miten tällainen yritys rakennetaan?
https://identio.fi/blogi/nollasta-miljoonaan-tulorahoituksella/?utm_campaign=Blogi+kuukausittain+toistuvat&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=paid&hsa_acc=1648886435131121&hsa_cam=23849174048290643&hsa_grp=23849275748200643&hsa_ad=23849275748210643&hsa_src=fb&hsa_net=facebook&hsa_ver=3&fbclid=IwAR2DR1xKL_nSGPopHYOl2BfsKLi6KZfc1nHSkabBHw7KKAHfGW3IUlR156I
Tomi Engdahl says:
James Dyson Answers Design Questions From Twitter | Tech Support | WIRED
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFCFe38EIfE
James Dyson answers the internet’s burning questions about design and inventions. How does Dyson’s bladeless fan work? What do you do if you have an invention idea? Why are hand dryers so loud? How does suction work? James answers all these questions and much more!
Tomi Engdahl says:
Made To Spec: The Coming Age Of Prototyping As A Service
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/08/made-to-spec-the-coming-age-of-prototyping-as-a-service/
In the last decade, the price for making a single PCB plummeted. And we’ve featured tons of hacks with boards hailing from places like OSH Park or Seeed Studio. But this phenomenon isn’t isolated, and all sorts of one-off prototyping services are becoming cheaper and looking to satiate both hobbyist and engineer alike.
Today, I want to blow the lid off a few places offering one-off mechanical prototyping services. I’ll take us through some history of how we got here, introduce a few new players, and finally highlight some important tradeoffs before you start ordering bespoke aluminum parts straight to your doorstep.
Now go get your ANSI Z87+ safety glasses, and let’s get started.
Our PCB Origins
Just over a decade ago, ordering Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) was an expensive (nay, too expensive) ordeal for the hobbyist. Getting a single board made would cost you several hundred US dollars at the PCB fab house. The issue wasn’t the price per board. It was the up-front manufacturing cost to push the board through the factory. Sadly, PCBs just aren’t made one-at-a-time. They’re consolidated with other copies of the same PCB onto a larger panel to simplify the fixturing process when moving the design from machine to machine in manufacturing.
But soon after, a small company called OSH Park did something wildly different. Acting as middle-agent, they consolidated different PCBs from various designers onto a shared panel and sent that panel design out for manufacturing instead. The result was that hobbyists could order a single PCB through OSH Park for a fraction of the cost of needing to place a batch order directly. And what was once a professional process became available to the after-hours engineer for a few dollars and a few weeks lead time.
In the years that followed, other manufacturers caught on, especially in China. And it seemed like a race-to-the-bottom to offer the cheapest single-quantity circuit board. For the first time, electronics hobbyists on a budget were able to use the same manufacturing processes as the professionals. Now, names like JLCPCB, Dirty PCBs, Seeed Studio, and PCBWay are pretty common among this community of hackers.
Prototyping as a Service
Many of us know the story above. Heck; we lived through it! But it doesn’t stop there. In fact, something similar is happening in other domains. Other manufacturing services are opening their doors to one-off prototypes that used to require higher minimum orders, and the result is that your nearest hackerspace could be entirely virtual where parts get ordered and delivered to your doorstep.
It’s worth asking: where is this happening? Right now, we’re seeing these options emerge from 2D computer-controlled manufacturing processes like laser cutting, water jetting, and 2D CNC routing. The common theme? Each of these processes uses tools that operate on big sheets of stock material. The upshot is that, with some upstream pre-processing, batches of orders can be consolidated onto the same sheet — just like OSH Park did. In theory, this trick could extend to any manufacturing process where software can glue together aggregate orders into a batch process.
Right now, batching orders onto sheets of shared stock material makes a lot of sense. But, with some work, it’s possible to extend this concept to other processes. In the meantime, it’s time to take advantage of the added process capabilities that can be delivered to our doorstep for a fraction of their original price.
The Players
Let’s take a quick tour of who’s delivering manufactured singles straight to your doorstep. I imagine that our readers will be familiar with Shapeways for SLS 3D printing and Ponoko for laser cutting, so I’ll sidestep them to highlight some other up-and-coming offerings.
Laser-Cutting: SendCutSend
Carbon Fiber CNC Routing: CNCMadness
Resin 3D Printing: PCBWay
Low Volume Injection Molding from IGUS
Make-it-Quick Tradeoffs
Just like OSH Park, the services above make some sacrifices for promising those fast economic part offerings. But, of course, in plenty of cases, those tradeoffs don’t matter. Nevertheless, it’s worth being explicit about the three options that get sacrificed: design inspection, specifications and tolerances.
Design Inspection
First off, we lose design inspection. With expensive manufacturing services, humans will often inspect your order to make sure what you’re about to have them make is free of glaring errors.
Specialty Specifications
At the price of speed, these services sacrifice specifications. That is, we don’t get all the options available to us that we would otherwise get when quoting with a more traditional machine shop. Among these sacrifices, we lose out on specialty materials, surface finishes, coatings, heat treatments, and other post-processing tasks like deburring sharp edges.
Tolerances
Finally, we have tradeoffs in dimensional tolerances. This one is by far the most important tradeoff to consider. The sad reality about machined parts is that they’ll never be the exact dimensions that our file specifies. As designers, we need to design for this quirk, making sure our design works over a small range of size deviations called dimensional tolerances.
With a high-end machine shop, dimensional tolerances are just specs. You can specify how exact the part dimensions need to be, and the shop will try to make the part within those tolerances, increasing the price for tighter specs. But with these low-cost services, we don’t get to specify how exact our part dimensions will be. Instead, they will either list fairly coarse tolerances up-front, or won’t list any manufacturing tolerances altogether.
Where We Came From; Where We’re Going
About a decade ago, it seemed like understanding the dirty process of etching PCBs in your garage with nasty chemicals would make you the coolest hacker on the block. But nowadays the dirtiest part of the craft of circuit board making has been replaced with an ordering process that’s too convenient to overlook. What may have been garage sorcery has been reduced to a few clicks away. But the result has been an explosion of hardware projects that all rely on what used to be an either commercial or boutique process for those with money or patience.
It’s worth asking: how is our relationship to hardware design going to change as we start to leverage these services for our after-hours hobbyist projects? I’d say that, just like OSH Park did, these mechanical prototyping services open up new doors to the complexity of the projects we can make at home. Now we need not rely on strictly 3D printed parts. We can work in metal sheets too! And with added complexity comes a proliferation of new ideas that I hope to read about here.
But something is lost. And that’s my intimate relationship spent working with the raw materials themselves. There’s something quite soothing about that sweaty machine shop ritual of leaning over your part while chips fly off into the corner. But not all projects need to undergo this ritual to have meaning. And since these new services only continue to multiply the effect of my project efforts, you can bet I’ll keep using them.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://blog.thorgate.eu/blog/5-reasons-why-you-should-outsource-when-building-your-mvp/?fbclid=IwAR1zNIwoXmBqgYOZhUz1grHOoWTKMRLCi7aso7XEXy_iKtQespu11k744Xk
Tomi Engdahl says:
5 reasons why you should outsource
when building your MVP
https://blog.thorgate.eu/blog/5-reasons-why-you-should-outsource-when-building-your-mvp/?fbclid=IwAR1zNIwoXmBqgYOZhUz1grHOoWTKMRLCi7aso7XEXy_iKtQespu11k744Xk
Building an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) is the ultimate way to validate product ideas and it’s a widely used strategy among startups and legacy companies alike. The idea is to launch a barebones product with only the most essential functionalities to gauge market interest and gather user feedback. This allows companies to avoid investing heavily in creating a complete solution that might end up flopping – so if you fail fast, you don’t fail hard.
Tomi Engdahl says:
There is one key reason behind most start-ups’ failure. Read our blog to learn more and avoid the risk.
The main reason why startups fail
https://blog.thorgate.eu/blog/main-reason-why-startups-fail/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=Banner&utm_campaign=MVP&utm_content=Blog3&fbclid=IwAR1Zham2umZpcw_xjfEZ_ZkmsYoXRaqVX3VEUoJmE5l-stePxsUpoBN-nWU
Launching a startup in this day and age is a brave endeavour because, statistically speaking, it will probably fail – 90% of startups fold, of which 70% do so during years two through five.
There are many reasons why a startup might call it quits – running out of money, a bad product, a flawed business model, burnout, internal issues, insufficient experience, bad timing, better competitors, and more. The most common reason, however, is not having a market for their product. Nearly half of all startups fail because not enough people need their idea or at least the startup fails to convince the market that they do.
This also explains why most startups fail after two or more years, which roughly coincides with most product launches. Taking a concept to market is a lengthy process that typically takes 1-2 years, after which founders come face-to-face with the real market demand. It’s a decisive moment that either signals opportunity or the lack of it.
Unfortunately, this is the point when a lot of startups realize that the market just isn’t there. In which case, after having spent more than 2 years of time, money, and effort on bringing their idea to life, founders must either hastily pivot into a parallel opportunity or simply end their operations.
Tomi Engdahl says:
3 tips for product start-up engineers
https://www.logic.nl/3-tips-for-product-start-up-engineers/?utm_medium=email
When an engineer starts designing a new product, there are lots of things to take into consideration before even starting the actual development. It could be months into the development process when suddenly you realize that the hardware that was chosen in the beginning turns out to be suboptimal for the requirements of the product. Okay, now what? Start all over? Not necessarily.
The choices of software tools and hardware, as well as the development methods that shape a project are obviously a major factor in the project’s success. It may prove difficult to determine all these factors beforehand, but it will be even more difficult to change the process once started (if possible at all, without starting all over again).
Choose products and tools that embrace change
During the development process, it may turn out that the requirements of the end product have changed. Features can be added or removed, and while you are optimizing the product it might become clear that you can install less powerful hardware, so you can bring down the bill of materials. In order to prevent the necessity for a complete redesign when the project’s requirements increase or decrease, it’s wise to look into products and tools that can scale up or down accordingly as the requirements change.
More innovation by using off-the-shelf products
The ability to construct a proof-of-concept without breaking the bank leads to better innovation. After all, before the (mass-)production of your new product, tests will need to be done in order to make sure all the requirements are met, while being as cost-efficient as possible. This helps to improve development and ultimately drives innovation. No need to re-invent the wheel, as most components that you’ll need are often already available on the market. It might only be a difference of 10% that will distinguish your product from the competition’s product, so resources are better spent on these 10%.
Using platform-independent tools
As mentioned, the chances of requirements changing during the development process are significant. What if you need to switch to a more powerful processor when you are already using the most powerful processor from a certain vendor? This could become a real problem, because some tools are developed specifically for a certain architecture, or for a product line of that specific vendor. This is often the case with compilers, IDE’s, GUI tools or Build Optimizers. It takes a lot of time to really master these tools well, and when it turns out these tools are only compatible with, let’s say STM32, it can become a costly endeavour to retrain yourself or your engineers to a new tool.
Tomi Engdahl says:
3 experiments for early-stage founders seeking product-market fit
https://techcrunch.com/2022/01/28/3-experiments-for-early-stage-founders-seeking-product-market-fit/?tpcc=ecfb2020
One of the largest challenges for pre-seed and seed stage founders is determining where to start: There are a million things to do. What should you do at each stage?
They went through multiple exercises to test the viability of new parents’ most pressing and urgent needs:
Conduct a “Start with Why” exercise
Define the “Jobs to be Done”
Create a lean canvas for each (viable) concept
Define the user journeys
Conduct user surveys using platforms like pollfish.com and 1Q (instant survey tool)
Identify and define their customer personas
Conduct customer interviews and synthesize them
Construct concept prototypes
They also met prospective customers, conducting a focus group of 10-15 moms.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://blog.thorgate.eu/blog/main-reason-why-startups-fail/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=Banner&utm_campaign=MVP&utm_content=Blog3&fbclid=IwAR3nrjjKpINjXYEDKTfK1lampbAfxdDxAP135YlRZiAn3MtY8GOFVA7hV3c