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.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Kevin Rawlinson / BBC:
Kickstarter hires reporter to probe mini-drone Zano project that failed after raising $3.4M from 12K backers — Kickstarter hires journalist over Zano take-off failure — The crowdfunding site Kickstarter has hired a journalist to investigate the demise of a mini-drone project that failed, despite record funding.
Kickstarter hires journalist over Zano take-off failure
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35060123
The crowdfunding site Kickstarter has hired a journalist to investigate the demise of a mini-drone project that failed, despite record funding.
More than £2.3m was pledged to the Zano project by more than 12,000 people, but it never got off the ground.
The freelance journalist Mark Harris will try to enlighten investors and the public about the company’s failure.
Torquing, the firm behind the project, shut it down in November without fulfilling its promises.
Mr Harris said he had been commissioned by Kickstarter to investigate the project “from its inception to the present” in order to “help the backers… get the information they are entitled to under their agreement with the project creator”.
Zano was Europe’s largest project to be funded on Kickstarter – a site on which prospective investors can find companies that require funding.
He said that Kickstarter had asked him to look into what happened to the money and investigate the project’s progress, as well as looking into any mistakes made by Torquing, which is based in Pembroke Dock in Pembrokeshire, so that future projects could learn from them.
Kickstarter confirmed that it had commissioned Mr Harris and that the details on his Medium page were accurate.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Go From Prototype to Pilot Production with Zach Fredin
http://hackaday.com/2015/12/10/go-from-prototype-to-pilot-production-with-zach-fredin/
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Y Combinator Brings Hardware Startups to Life
http://hackaday.com/2015/12/12/how-y-combinator-brings-hardware-startups-to-life/
The world is more used to software startups than hardware startups. Luke Iseman is here to help. He is the Director of Hardware at Y Combinator and discusses some details that need to be kept in mind when starting up your own hardware company.
Y Combinator has seen a ton of success with incubating startup companies. You’ve certainly heard of several notables, like reddit, Airbnb, and Dropbox. But in all, they’ve funded 940 companies with a total investment of about $65 billion. The standard offer is $120,000 for 7% of the startup, and the majority of the companies have been software oriented. But times are changing, and that’s why Y Combinator has Luke on board as the Director of Hardware.
Being a hardware startup is a bit more difficult than being a software startup, if for no other reason than you must create something tangible. This has different challenges from creating an intangible, like a social network, and so advice from a software company doesn’t always translate to hardware startups. To help, Luke offers seven things in his talk that Hardware Startups should live by: make, show, iterate, sell, grow, tell, and fail.
Don’t forget to sell your stuff. That seems stupid to say out loud, right? But Luke’s point is that many companies wait far too long to begin selling. Trend setters want to be the first, and if you get pre-market hardware into the hands of the mega-fans it shows that you can move product, and may result in feedback that is useful when moving to market.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Danielle Applestone and the Story of Every Othermill
http://hackaday.com/2015/12/14/danielle-applestone-and-the-story-of-every-othermill/
Many of us may qualify as “makers,” but how about a “maker of machines?” [Danielle Applestone] tells us what kinks to look for whilst embarking on your hardware startup adventure. Co-founder of Other Machine Co, the company that makes a PCB Mill that holds tolerances as tight as a thousandth of an inch
Danielle Applestone: Founding a hardware startup: what I wish I’d known!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNidIy7t0DQ
Hackaday Superconference // Nov 14-15 // Dogpatch Studios // San Francisco
Being a founder of a hardware startup is hard, and you will make mistakes. There are a few people out there that can show you the right way to do things, though. One of them is Danielle Applestone, CEO of the Other Machine Company, creators of the OtherMill.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Common parts library eases startup production woes
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/embedded-insights/4440993/Common-parts-library-eases-startup-production-woes?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_pcbdesigncenter_20151214&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_pcbdesigncenter_20151214&elq=44347227743c45eba368726bfcf91d10&elqCampaignId=26136&elqaid=29891&elqat=1&elqTrackId=2fab745667564547bec61c2f25f1c768
The difference between commercial hardware design and hobby electronics has blurred over the last few years. With open source hardware, the newer slate of very affordable and capable CAD tools, and the vast knowledge base available online, most of what can be done in a big corporate lab can also be done in a spare room at home. This has fostered a re-emergence of the hardware startup. It’s also brought to light a few problems that still need to be addressed.
By day, I work for a manufacturing company; on the weekends, I design and build small electronic devices. My design projects are typically microcontroller-based, with many having custom Arduino-compatible hardware at the core. Being based on pre-existing open source designs, these aren’t terribly difficult projects. That’s not to say that aren’t any hang ups, though. It’s not in the assembly. I’ve got that handled; either by hand building the simple boards or by sending the complex ones through the plant at my day job. No, it’s not design or assembly that gets me down. It’s the measly supply chain.
Smaller components, like passives, are easy to put into CAD, but not necessarily easy to keep on hand.
Corporate design organizations have purchasing and manufacturing specialists who make sure that the chosen parts are available and in good supply. The startup engineer or hobbyist doesn’t have the luxury of that help. The Common Parts Library (CPL) initiative has recently emerged with the purpose of solving many of these component supply problems.
The Common Parts Library (CPL) Initiative
http://www.embedded.com/electronics-blogs/say-what-/4440992/The-Common-Parts-Library–CPL–Initiative
I recently spoke with Octopart’s Sam Wurzel about the supply chain and what they’re doing to reduce availability problems. Octopart, if you don’t know, is a comprehensive parts search engine that is behind the Common Parts Library. The Octopart engine allows you to search for a part from most of the available distributors, all in one spot with the same search action. So, if the QFN version of your MCU keeps disappearing from one place, and randomly reappearing in some other place, then Octopart will lead you right to it.
Octopart is now owned by Alitum
That’s only three parts on a bill of materials comprising about 35 different parts, but multiply that out for a dozen different boards.
Also consider that, if I don’t want my job stopped, I need to check every part on the BOM each time I send that board in for manufacture. It all adds up.
Why doesn’t the manufacturer just pick something and automatically make the substitution, you ask? They can’t, because they don’t know what parameters are important to the designer. Say my LED has a 5 mA forward current and they substitute one with a 20 mA forward current. That might totally mess up my battery life, or it could bring me above the total current source limit of the MCU. On the other hand, if brightness is important to me, putting a 5 mA LED in place of a 20 mA LED could ruin the performance of my product.
“Startups are getting frustrated over the same problems — they don’t understand issues with parts availability and would build boards and need to scrap them because they couldn’t find some of their parts,” said Wurzel. “BOMs get sent to manufacturers that aren’t useable because the parts aren’t available in the supply chain.”
Large companies with a lot of volume manufacturing solve this problem by having a list of approved substitutions. The engineer will pick two or three parts that are all suitable for the design, and the purchasing agents can buy anything on the list without needing any additional approval.
Octopart is working to do the same thing en masse with its Common Parts Library initiative. The idea is that Octopart can look at a large set of purchasing data and determine what kind of parts engineers use the most. From this data, they have come up with two lists: one focused on production and one on prototypes. For each part in the CPL, they try to identify at least two manufacturers’ parts that are of equivalent value that will be available. It’s not an absolute guarantee, but it’s close enough.
Common Parts Library for Production
The Common Parts Library for Production is a set of commonly used electronic components for designing and manufacturing connected device products.
https://octopart.com/common-parts-library
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Most Brilliant Use of Crowdfunding Yet: Medical Research
http://hackaday.com/2015/12/17/the-most-brilliant-use-of-crowdfunding-yet-medical-research/
Since the rise of Kickstarter and Indiegogo, the world has been blessed with $100 resin-based 3D printers, Video game consoles built on Android, quadcopters that follow you around, and thousands of other projects that either haven’t lived up to expectations or simply disappeared into the ether. The idea of crowdfunding is a very powerful one: it’s the ability for thousands of people to chip in a few bucks for something they think is valuable. It’s a direct democracy for scientific funding. It’s the potential for people to pool their money, give it to someone capable, and create something really great. The reality of crowdfunding isn’t producing the best humanity has to offer. Right now, the top five crowdfunding campaigns ever are two video games, a beer cooler, a wristwatch with an e-ink screen, and something to do with Bitcoin. You will never go broke underestimating people.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nick Sayer: Making 10ⁿ Isn’t The Same As Building One
http://hackaday.com/2015/12/24/nick-sayer-making-isnt-the-same-as-building-one/
Building one of something is tremendously easy. If you’re making one of something, you can cover the insides with hot glue, keep everything held together with duct tape, and mess around with it enough that it mostly works most of the time. Building more than one of something is another matter entirely. This is the thought behind DFM, or Design For Manufacturing.
[Nick Sayer] is an experienced seller on Tindie and he’s put together enough kits to learn the ins and outs, rights and wrongs of building not one, but an inventory of things.
[Nick]’s hobby come business is called Geppetto Electronics, where he manufactures everything from battery eliminator boards for Apple’s Magic Trackpad to replacement electronics for the ubiquitous AA-powered quartz clock movements that make time go slightly wonky. He has the street cred and has produced enough random electronic doodads to know what he’s talking about
The best thing that will help any project is minimizing the size of the BOM
When you order a stack of boards from Seeed, DirtyPCBs, or OSHPark, an envelope comes in the mail with your boards neatly stacked on top of each other. This is not what you want if you’re making hundreds of things. You’ll need to panelize them, and that means following the assembler’s instructions.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:
Indiegogo announces Enterprise Crowdfunding for big companies like GE and Hasbro to test and launch new products
Indiegogo Now Wants Fortune 500 Companies To Create Pre-Order Campaigns
http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/06/indiegogo-now-wants-fortune-500-companies-to-create-pre-order-campaigns/
Indiegogo has historically been about helping the young and scrappy entrepreneur to put their idea out there and get some much-needed capital for a first production batch. The company is launching a brand new set of tools today dubbed ‘Enterprise Crowdfunding.’ This time, it’s all about the large well-established companies and helping them make risky bets.
Indiegogo is going to work with General Electric, Harman International Industries, Hasbro and Shock Top at first. Compared to newly launched startups, these companies don’t need cash to launch new products. It would be unfair to talk about crowdfunding for Fortune 500 companies.
Instead, this new focus should be seen as a way to test consumer’s interest by leveraging Indiegogo’s audience and reach. General Electric can create a pre-order campaign and see if people actually want these new products.
Tomi Engdahl says:
25 Years of Hardware Manufacturing in Plovdiv
http://hackaday.com/2016/01/05/25-years-of-hardware-manufacturing-in-plovdiv/
Plovdiv, Bulgaria has a long history of design and innovation going back at least 6000 years to cultures like the Thracians, Celts, and Romans. In the last decade it is also an important center for open hardware innovation — reviving the lost glory of the computer hardware industry from the former “Soviet bloc countries”. One of the companies in the region that has thrived is a 5000 square-meter microelectronics factory which you may have heard of before: Olimex.
Olimex has over 25 years of experience in designing, prototyping, and manufacturing printed circuit boards, components, and complete electronic products. Over the last decade it has evolved into a shining example of an open hardware company. We recently had the chance to visited Olimex and to meet its CEO, Tsvetan Usunov.
When our driver arrived to pick us up, we asked, “Who actually is Olimex?” and were pleasantly surprised with the response: “I’m Olimex”.
Olimex is a buzzing hardware manufacturing paradise with pick and place machines, reflow ovens, and optical inspection rigs. The infrastructure and the 40 person team support a motivated local and international network of hardware developers interested in building and using an affordable and open “mini-computer” called OLinuXino. But the company was very different when it began.
Tsvetan started Olimex in 1991, developing and manufacturing for companies in the Turkish market. They needed a reliable manufacturer to produce boards for kitchen appliances.
His new focus became development boards. Traditionally these would be sold to only hardware developers, but at the time open hardware was just starting to grow. Many new customers, from software professionals interested in hardware to industrial designers to general enthusiasts, would be buying development boards. As his business grew, so did the footprint of Olimex.
In the present Olimex is recognized as an approved Third Party Hardware Developer by many leading companies including Texas Istruments, Maxim Integrated, Atmel, Philips Semiconductors, and ST Microelectronics. Olimex has over 30,000 active customer accounts and their Linux DIY computers and boards feed various from IoT projects, ATM cash machines, and are used even by car manufacturers.
The open hardware model for Tsvetan means more than just publishing the final designs. He is interested in having a continuous conversation with his peers from the start of the project. This forms a “participatory and collaborative design” and it leads to a better product.
Olimex keeps a very active GitHub page. This extends to the CAD files which are available in pre-fab stages before any hardware revision is out. Tsvetan mentions this is considered a big no-no in the crowdfunding circles, and often other supposedly open hardware projects sometimes choose a policy of ‘CAD will be available when the first batch of products are shipped’. Olimex has directly benefited from sharing early, as community members sometimes catch bugs that can be fixed before going to production.
https://github.com/olimex
Tomi Engdahl says:
DP 2016: Live from China!
http://dangerousprototypes.com/2016/01/07/dp-2016-live-from-china
Today Dangerous Prototypes is a legal Chinese company! 100% legit with import/export license, work permits, visas, and an office in Huaqiangbei (the world’s largest electronics market). It is likely the only Open Hardware centric WFOE (Wholly Foreign Owned Enterprise) in Shenzhen, and perhaps China. It took over a year to complete the process, and we highly recommend you NOT try it yourself.
Shenzhen really is a hacker’s paradise, you can source, build, and make nearly anything. Shenzhen Dangerous Prototypes Electronics Technology Limited allows us to have an office in the market, and hire local and foreign hackers to design open hardware projects. No need for a 16 hour flight to visit our manufacturer, Seeed Studio is just across town. The new company will also host Hacker Camp Shenzhen, and can apply for the hellish “Authorized Authority” visa letters for participants who need them.
Supply chain hacking and mash-ups are a new hotness for 2016: visit a bunch of factories, get to know the process and supply chain, mix and match new projects harnessing the existing Chinese ecosystem.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Yellowberry Is Changing The Bra Industry For Young Girls
http://www.fastcompany.com/3029594/most-creative-people/how-yellowberry-is-changing-the-bra-industry-for-young-girls
High-school student Megan Grassell couldn’t find cute, age-appropriate bras for her younger sister, so she made her own. Now her company Yellowberry is being held up as a model of innovation, design, and feminists united against the sexualization of girls.
Fast Company talked to Grassell about what inspired Yellowberry, how she approached diving head first into unknown territory, and what lessons she’s learned as a new entrepreneur in an untapped market.
You explained in your Kickstarter campaign that you got the idea for Yellowberry from shopping with your younger sister. Did you remember having the same lack of options when you were younger, or at that age had you just accepted it out of fear of the whole bra-shopping process?
Once you got the idea, what were your first steps, having no idea how to start a business or make a bra?
First I just thought “OK, to make a bra you need fabric, and thread.” I found out that if you call fabric companies and just want one yard, they’ll just send it to you because it doesn’t really mean much to them.
So I just got a bunch of different samples of fabrics
What have been your biggest challenges in getting the company off the ground, as both a busy high school student and a first-time entrepreneur?
At first, because I didn’t know anything, and I still have so much to learn, but it was hard to get people to take me seriously. I was talking to someone the other day who’s been a great mentor to me, and he said “Megan, when you first came to me with that bra, and you thought you were ready to go, I thought, ‘Who is this high school girl?’” So I think I’ve been able to prove my place and make it clear that this is something I want to make happen.
Your website is very well designed, and instantly gives a good sense of what the company is about, with very professional imagery. Did you build it yourself or get help?
The website is one of the things that I hired someone to do a lot of. However, I designed and took all the photos myself.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Manufactures and develops optical pulse measurement technique PulseOn is an example of the growth of a company that has had to change its direction rush in the market environment changes.
The company launched the 2014 October bracelet in the consumer product on the market, but at the same time entered the market a dozen competitors. New and small newcomer did not fare sale.
PulseOn is one of Nokia spin-offs from companies. Its technology was licensed from Nokia, the Swiss company CSEM survey from. PulseOn set out to develop the technology on their own in 2012.
The company developed the optical pulse measurement technique and received foreign investor in that round in 2013. Three Russian investor Otar Marganya company has invested a total of EUR 2.9 million.
After Christmas sales flop the company had to find a new direction.
PulseOnilla was acting in his hands the technology, but its market introduction and the opening of sales channels would have required a huge investment. The company decided to take the b-to-b technology vendor that makes the sensor technology to others.
It acquired its first pilot customer, an American Icon Health & Fitness, which makes the iFit-brand wearable devices.
“At first we thought that the OEMs would be the main target of our group, but they often want to make their technology themselves.”
“One option is to make finished products consumer brands. Interestingly, customers are strong health & fitness business by operating brands that do not have the technology know-how, “says Korhonen.
Wearable- a wearable technology field is hot. Korhonen says that in 2013, three percent of US consumers were wearable instrument or device. Now, users will be 20-30 per cent of consumers. Growth rates are high, but the market shares may be divided again several times.
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/Kaikki_uutiset/suomalainen-sykerannekeyritys-yrittaa-uutta-starttia-6245172
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why pricing things is hard…
http://int3.cc/blogs/news/18998148-why-pricing-things-is-hard
Please read that to understand why just because a project is “Open Source hardware” doesn’t mean it is any more accessible.
In computer science, “naming things” is one of the hardest problems. In economics, pricing things is apparently one of the hardest things to do. We had no idea about this until we experienced it first hand. Most of us don’t think about what goes into the price of a thing.
As we all know, economies of scale are a huge part of manufacturing electronics (i.e. the more you order, the cheaper the per-unit cost). This is a simple concept to grasp. What is less simpler (and obvious) is building your “risk” and other variables into your costs.
Many don’t know that the assembly cost of electronics (the human labor to run the pick-and-place robots, flying probe testers, etc.) dwarf the cost of actual components. Some EE folks try to use some basic rules, but it isn’t perfect. The bright-side is that if your design remains constant (and you have a good relationship with a factory) this cost decreases and then eventually plateaus.
So for INT3 we have to place large orders for product (usually between $2.5k and $7.5k worth of product). Let’s assume you’ve gotten past the stage of worrying if a device will be popular enough to sell and you decide to move forward.
Even with this model you are in a constant state of deficit until the products sell. You’d probably find that (like us) you begin to dread when stock gets low because it means you have to prepare another chunk of money to pay for restock.
Some other things become apparent from your first sales:
1. The last batch of a product took a few months to “break even”. So maybe this time you’d like to “break even” sooner.
2. As a separate issue, perhaps you’d also like to not be in deficit for restocking new orders of that single product and instead (by the end) have the product pay for part (not all) of the restocking of the next batch.
3. Perhaps you’d also like sales of regular products to finance (in part) creation of new products.
Keep in mind for all of the above you STILL haven’t factored in profit or “what you get to take home”. Nor have you factored in reimbursement for other things:
1. Costs of labor for shipping/fulfillment/email responses
2. Costs of assisting with launch of a new product (coordination with factories, testing, conference calls, etc.)
3. Any operating costs (FedEx/UPS/USPS accounts, E-commerce charges, Credit Card processors, boxes/packaging, international shipping paperwork, etc.)
4. Also, all INT3 products are MADE IN AMERICA. That costs extra. We could ship this work overseas. BUT WE DONT! (It’s just cheaper to not have certain ethics.)
5. You or your staff’s time? (How do you quantify that? Have people complete time sheets? If you do time sheets, someone still has to review them and itemize bill rates to quantify cost.)
Let’s assume you ignore all of these five points above and instead want to address the first three pricing issues? How would you price a single product? Raw material costs times 1.5? Times two? Times three?
EVERYTHING has a cost (even taking time to regularly publish financials
It’s not just about the cost of the BOM or even the cost of the labor, tooling, and assembly. There is always more to the story.
This is why pricing things is difficult. There is never a perfect formula. And even if you think you’ve found one and arrived at a perfect price, it may not be compatible with the perceived utility the purchaser feels they are receiving. Even without including profit (BTW: we don’t make profit on anything at INT3, we barely break even) there is never a perfect answer.
At the end of the day, researchers need tools that they can use to quickly get to work. Embedded and hardware security isn’t just a hobby, it’s a profession. Folks have real operational needs. Real customers, and real deadlines. At the end of the day we still ask ourselves for every product:
“If INT3 didn’t exist, and we needed a tool for a project, would we be willing to pay $__.__ for it to show up ready to use?”
If the answer is “yes”, then we usually go ahead.
Tomi Engdahl says:
All Aboard the Hardware Startup Train
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1328676&
After years of software-based funding and tedious development, the crowdfunding tide is turning toward hardware. At International CES, held Jan. 6- 9, officials from Indiegogo said companies throughout the chip and gadget ecosystem are getting on board.
“Everyone from Foxconn to Qualcomm want to talk to entrepreneurs…and offer them all the resources so they can make great products. That’s a new thing,” Evan Cohen, Indiegogo’s senior director of design, technology and hardware, told EE Times. “The whole maker movement has matured into an entrepreneur movement at this point.”
More than 110 products at this year’s CES started on Indiegogo, CEO Slava Rubin said, adding that the company has raised over $800 million in campaigns. Rubin believes one out of six companies on the CES show floor received funding from an Indiegogo campaign.
Direct conversations with larger companies are leading to a serious advancement in developer tools for the Arduinos and Raspberry Pis commonly used by startups, Cohen said. Companies such as Brookstone and GE are also getting in on some of crowdfunding’s benefits—market validation of otherwise unknown products and a built-in audience—with a recently announced enterprise crowdfunding from Indiegogo.
“The higher-up enthusiasm toward the startup world is really exciting. There was a time where you were a maker and you were lucky to get in front of somebody,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mark Harris:
Kickstarter-hired journalist concludes makers of failed Zano drone were overconfident but not fraudsters
How Zano Raised Millions on Kickstarter and Left Most Backers with Nothing
https://medium.com/kickstarter/how-zano-raised-millions-on-kickstarter-and-left-backers-with-nearly-nothing-85c0abe4a6cb#.uewasoup2
Kickstarter tasked me, a freelance reporter, to find out why a highly funded crowdfunding campaign for a palm-sized drone flamed out in order to give backers the full story, and provide lessons for itself and others. My report follows. Kickstarter had an advance look, but wasn’t allowed to make changes.
In spring 2013, the Secretary of State for Wales at the time, David Jones, visited a young company at the Pembrokeshire Science and Technology Park. On a windswept campus at the western tip of the country, Jones heard Torquing Group’s enthusiastic managing director, Ivan Reedman, share a vision of Welsh-made autonomous robots for industry, commerce, and the military.
“Torquing Group’s work is an excellent example of a successful small business with their sights firmly set on growth and expansion,” enthused Jones later. The key to Torquing’s growth, Reedman believed, would be a cutting-edge consumer quadcopter developed from his experience working on a surveillance drone for a local defence contractor.
Eighteen months later, flush with an investment from another company at the technology park, Torquing Group launched a campaign on the crowdfunding website Kickstarter for a palm-sized drone called the Zano. The Zano would dispense with fiddly on-screen controls in favour of mimicking gestures from a Wi-Fi linked smartphone, automatically tracking and following its operator, avoiding obstacles, and even shooting “selfie” photos and videos — for up to 15 minutes at a time.
Reedman’s goal was modest: £125,000 (about $190,000 at the time) to enable him to move his Zano prototype into full production. “Zano is up and flying, holding position, avoiding obstacles, streaming live video back to a smart device, capturing video and photos,” said the Kickstarter campaign page. “Our supply chain is 100% ready to go, from vital components that make Zano fly, to the very boxes that Zano is packaged in.”
Torquing’s promotional video showed some impressive footage of the drone in action.
The internet went wild. Torquing met its initial funding target in just 10 days, then blew right past it. As pledges smashed all Reedman’s “stretch goals”, they unlocked additional features
There were drones costing 10 times as much that couldn’t match Zano’s specs. The campaign promised delivery of all reward drones in an equally staggeringly short production window — in June 2015, just six months away.
“Kickstarter made the prototype happen, and now it’s a very real proposition,” gushed Engadget in early January.
pledged an astonishing £2.3m (nearly $3.5m), 20 times Reedman’s original goal. It was, and still is, Kickstarter’s most funded European campaign.
As 2015 rolled on, a flurry of updates from Zano
But cracks were beginning to show. Some key plastic parts were delayed, there were never-ending compliance and calibration tests to complete, and something was up with the propellers that arrived from China, according to campaign updates. Once-eager backers started to get restive, demanding to know exactly when their autonomous drones were likely to arrive.
In mid-October 2015, already months late, Torquing again pushed back delivery for the bulk of the Kickstarter rewards to as far off as February 2016.
On 18 November, the axe fell. Torquing announced via a Kickstarter update that it was entering a creditor’s voluntary liquidation, the UK equivalent roughly of an American “Chapter 11” bankruptcy filing.
Legal documents show that Torquing had not only burned through the £2.5m from its Kickstarter campaign, it had run up another £1m in debt. It was Kickstarter’s most spectacular flame-out to date.
No more Zanos would be made or sent out. Staff were sent home, and Torquing’s supercomputer was switched off and would be sold for parts.
Because the Zano drone checks in over the internet with Torquing’s servers each time it powers up to retrieve calibration data and updates, the few drones in the wild were instantly and permanently grounded, like a dastardly robot army foiled in the last reel of a bad sci-fi film.
By the end of November, it was clear that Zano was finished. But what had actually happened? Was the Zano project a scam from the word go, a money-making scheme to defraud backers? Were the Torquing leadership team inept, negligent, or incompetent, or some combination of all three? Or perhaps they were the victims, sunk by unscrupulous suppliers, malicious staff, or hackers?
Even more importantly, perhaps: Does the failure of a project this prominent and this well-funded call into question the future of crowdfunding itself? Can we ever trust the crowd again?
I have heard about enthusiasm, dedication and hard work, and endless late nights attempting to develop cutting-edge technologies and solve thorny problems.
Zano is also a story of arguments, personal threats, legal disputes and criminal investigations. A sum that totals £3.5m does not just disappear silently into thin air, nor should it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Misleading Tech: Kickstarter, Bomb Sights, and Medical Rejuvinators
http://hackaday.com/2016/01/21/misleading-tech-kickstarter-bomb-sights-and-medical-rejuvinators/
Consider Kickstarter. Sure, there have been plenty of successful products on Kickstarter. There have also been some misleading duds. I don’t mean the stupid ones like the guy who wants to make a cake or potato salad. I mean the ones that are almost certainly vaporware like the induced dream headgear or the Bluetooth tag with no batteries.
Overpromising and underdelivering is hardly a new problem
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kickstarter paid a journalist to investigate its biggest failed project — here’s what he found
http://uk.businessinsider.com/kickstarter-mark-harris-report-on-zano-2016-1?r=US&IR=T
The crowdfunding website Kickstarter hired a journalist at the start of December to investigate Zano, one of the site’s biggest — and most notorious — failures.
Mark Harris, whose work has appeared in The Economist and Wired, published his epic 13,000-word essay on the subject on Medium on Wednesday.
Zano received over £2.3 million ($3.2 million) in funding from 7,000 backers, almost none of whom ever received a working prototype of the drone, which promised to take photos and follow the user around.
In his report, Harris lays out exactly what happened and how it happened, suggesting several steps crowdfunding sites can take to remedy the situation when campaigns fail.
Here are the takeaways:
The Kickstarter campaign was so wildly successful (the company initially asked for just £200,000) that the founders were overwhelmed with orders.
This led to mistakes, such as going straight into mass production without ordering a small sample of drones.
Missing a series of deadlines set on the Kickstarter page led the company to become increasingly panicked.
Employees, however, were not told exactly how bad things were. Two senior people who spoke with Harris say they didn’t know it was bad until the last few weeks, right before CEO Ivan Reedman quit.
The booth at CES, which won the drone a seal of approval from Engadget, was a house of cards, with multiple lies being made up about why Zano did not fly.
Some of the money from the campaign is believed to have been spent on new high-end Macs, a new BMW for a son of one of the non-Kickstarter investors, and other superfluous items.
The demo video, which was featured heavily on the Kickstarter page, was edited to make Zano look functional. The local advertising authorities are investigating the company to see whether it intentionally misled backers.
PayPal, through which campaign funds were processed, refused to pass on the money until orders were fulfilled (a standard practice to prevent fraud). This meant the money from the campaign was released and then immediately went back into refunds for unhappy buyers.
Astoundingly, even if the company had not done anything wrong, it still would have been £1 million ($1.4 million) in debt after it fulfilled all orders.
How Zano Raised Millions on Kickstarter and Left Most Backers with Nothing
https://medium.com/kickstarter/how-zano-raised-millions-on-kickstarter-and-left-backers-with-nearly-nothing-85c0abe4a6cb#.cpk6d9vnl
Tomi Engdahl says:
Here’s where the company behind the Zano mini-drone squandered its Kickstarter cash
http://uk.businessinsider.com/where-the-company-behind-the-zano-mini-drone-squandered-its-kickstarter-cash-2015-11
The company behind the Zano mini-drone project that raised £2.3 million on crowdfunding site Kickstarter has revealed where it squandered its money and apologised to those that backed the idea, the BBC reports.
The chart is quite hard to read but it reveals that most of the money was allocated to these four areas:
46% – Stock and manufacturing
14% – Wages
9% – Purchase taxes
5% – Kickstarter and payment fees
Torquing Group claims a large portion of the funding was also used for developing the Zano prototype.
“Ultimately these upgrades coupled with delays caused by the creation of a bespoke and automatic testing rig had significant financial and timeline impacts upon the project,” the Torquing Group said in a statement seen by the BBC.
The Zano mini-drone was a good idea: a drone that can fit in the palm of your hand, with sensors that help it automatically detect objects and follow you, along with a camera mounted on the front. No piloting skill was necessary.
Kickstarter sent a message to backers of the Zano project, saying: “Like you, we’re extremely frustrated by what’s happened with this project.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
PART I: THE LAW OF MARKET FAILURE
If you’ve been involved in developing and launching new products, you’ve probably experienced a few flops along the way. But beyond the anecdotal evidence, how common is product failure? Two principles lead us to the answer: 1) Data beats opinions, and 2) Say it with numbers.
Source: http://go.jamasoftware.com/alberto-savoia-failure-ebook.html?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alberto+savoia+failure+ebook&utm_source=emedia
Tomi Engdahl says:
Arduino-Compatible Spartan-6 FPGA Board
http://store.hackaday.com/products/arduino-compatible-fpga-shield
An FPGA development board in an Arduino compatible form factor. Hackaday developed awesomeness.
$69.97
Tomi Engdahl says:
What’s in a tool? A case for Made in USA.
http://hackaday.com/2016/01/18/whats-in-a-tool-a-case-for-made-in-usa/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Interesting Kickstarter: Electronic Hobby Projects Delivered to Your Door
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=216&doc_id=1328760&
Imagine each month an orange box arriving at your door containing the components and instructions to build that month’s electronic hobby project.
As I’ve mentioned on many an occasion, I’m very much enthused by the Maker movement in general, and by bringing younger folks like high school kids into the Maker community in particular (see also Mega-cool computer-controlled 3D carving machines).
Thus, I was jolly excited to hear about This Kickstarter Project, which was launched by the folks at Thimble Electronics.
The idea behind Thimble is that it’s a monthly subscription service. Every month, an orange box will be delivered to your door. Each box contains the components and instructions to build that month’s project (they are also going to offer tool kits and suchlike on the main Thimble website for absolute beginners who don’t have anything to hand).
They also have a learning app that provides step-by-step tutorials detailing the construction of each project. Speaking of which, the first project is going to be a Wi-Fi robot. In the case of older kids, they could simple pick this up and run with it (I would have given anything to have this sort of thing to look forward to each month when I was ~15 years old). For younger members of the community, this is would provide an excellent vehicle (no pun intended) for some parent-child quality time.
The second kit is going to be an RGB LED cube with an integrated 9DOF (nine degree-of-freedom) sensor featuring a 3-axis accelerometer, 3-axis gyroscope, and 3-axis magnetometer. As each new kit leaps onto the scene, the mobile app will be updated with a new tab, so you will use the same app to control all of your Thimble projects.
http://www.thimble.io/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Engineer: Promote Thyself!
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1328826&
Engineers need to learn that it’s not what you know, it’s who you know — network, network, network!
“I do wonder if marketing/PR principles can be applied within an engineering team itself, or between engineering teams, since engineers often have to ‘sell’ ideas or approaches or make the case for getting the resources they need to see a feature idea through to a finished product. In my experience, engineers could sometimes use a little PR to achieve their ends rather than trying to dictate to people who don’t necessarily have to follow along.”
Good question. Marketing and PR principles could be applied to an individual or an engineering team as well. Clive (Max) Maxfield is a terrific example of an engineer who has used successfully a few marketing approaches.
When we talked, he offered several examples of how he promoted himself and built a high profile prior to becoming an even higher profile editor at EETimes.com and Embedded.com. He had been a regular blogger and wrote technical articles, both of which led to speaking opportunities. Max has written a few books as well. All helped position him as an expert.
If you are interested in blogging in the context of promoting yourself as an engineer, Max strongly advises writing blogs about something of interest to other engineers
Marketing for Engineers: Making Use of Pre-Event Announcements
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1326793
Nanette Collins continues on her quest to educate engineers about the value of good PR and marketing.
As these three exhibitors will attest, pre-event announcements, especially product news, should be part of every event plan. They build awareness and visibility, and can help drive attendees to the company’s booth to watch a demo and to generate leads. News releases go out on one of the wire services — Businesswire, Marketwired and PRnewswire (owned by UBM) are the three most popular in our industry — and should get posted on Yahoo Finance! and other online databases.
They’re also multi-purpose. A tradeshow or industry event serves as an immovable deadline for a new product or product upgrade. After all, the show must go on, and it is one of the best opportunities for the company to “strut its stuff” to a large community of potential users in a personalized manner. It’s also the place to reinforce any new features and capabilities of the company’s software or hardware to existing customers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Scenes from the desktop manufacturing revolution, part 2
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/diy-zone/4441264/Scenes-from-the-desktop-manufacturing-revolution–part-2?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160202&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160202&elq=ad0381294d1549d19ec8a243473ff60d&elqCampaignId=26790&elqaid=30634&elqat=1&elqTrackId=657cdab2c3ef4f31bc365af1272c3f27
Although desktop manufacturing technology is still relatively immature, it’s already enabling enterprising makers to quickly prototype their designs and, in some cases, support low-volume in-house production. The milling machine featured in part 1 of this series lets designers translate moderately-complex circuit designs into a raw PCB in a matter of minutes, but there’s still the matter of placing and soldering dozens, or even hundreds of tiny ICs, connectors, resistors, and other components.
In high-volume PCB assembly environments, a silk-screen-type stencil is used to apply a dot of solder paste to the raw PCB wherever it will contact a surface-mounted component’s lead. Next, high-speed robotic “pick-and-place” machines plop down the components onto the appropriate blobs of paste. The boards are then whisked into a “reflow oven” where the solder paste is heated just long enough to form secure connections between leads and circuit traces. In maker spaces and startups, a modified toaster oven often substitutes for a commercial unit but, until recently, the absence of an affordable alternative to commercial pick-and-place machines ($50K-$500K) meant that component placement was often painstakingly done by hand. If you are building complex prototypes with a few hundred components, this can be especially challenging because it’s hard to put down much more than 100 components per hour by hand and the solder paste typically has a maximum working life of three or four hours.
This frustrating situation is changing, however, as a growing number of determined hobbyists and business-minded tinkerers adapt many of the technologies already being successfully used in 3D printers to the challenges of creating an affordable pick-and-place machine. While neither as fast nor as capable as their commercial counterparts, these maker-class machines provide all of the basic functions needed to perform in-house PCB assembly for a small fraction of the cost of a commercially-sourced machine.
Scenes from the desktop manufacturing revolution, part 1
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/diy-zone/4440655/Scenes-from-the-desktop-manufacturing-revolution–part-1-
Tomi Engdahl says:
Building One Thing In China
http://hackaday.com/2016/02/02/building-one-thing-in-china/
Conventional wisdom dictates that if you need to make a million of something, you go to China. China is all about manufacturing, and there aren’t many other places on the planet that have the industry and government-subsidized shipping that will bring your product from China to people around the world. Building a million things in China is one thing, but what about building one thing? How do you create a working prototype of your latest product, and how do you make that prototype look like something that isn’t held together with zip ties and hot glue? The folks at Hatch Manufacturing have a guide for doing just that, and lucky for us, it’s a process that’s easy to replicate in any well-equipped shop.
In this tutorial/case study/PR blitz, Hatch Manufacturing takes on constructing a one-off smartphone. The Huaqiangbei markets in Shenzhen are filled with vendors selling smartphones of all shapes and sizes. If you want a miniature iPhone running Android, that’s no problem. If you want a phone that looks like a 1969 Dodge Charger with the Stars and Bars on top, you can find it in China. But how are all these phones made, and how do you show off a prototype to factories begging for business?
The answer, as is always the case, comes from one-off manufacturing. Building, assembling and reworking PCBs is a well-trodden path whose process could fill several volumes
The 8 Steps of Rapid CNC Prototyping Process For Smartphones And Tablets
http://www.hatchmfg.com/android-smartphone-tablet-how-rapid-prototyping-process/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Making Parametric Models in Fusion 360
http://hackaday.com/2016/02/02/making-parametric-models-in-fusion-360/
We all know and love OpenSCAD for its sweet sweet parametrical goodness. However, it’s possible to get some of that same goodness out of Fusion 360. To do this we will be making a mathematical model of our object and then we’ll change variables to get different geometry. It’s simpler than it sounds.
Even if you don’t use Fusion 360 it’s good to have an idea of how different design tools work. This is web-based 3D Modeling software produced by Autodesk. One of the nice features is that it lets me share my models with others.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Innovating in Quality Control
How is SparkFun staying on top of our quality control game?
https://www.sparkfun.com/news/1352
Constant Innovation in Quality Control
https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/constant-innovation-in-quality-control?_ga=1.47756770.43743389.1454968104
Tomi Engdahl says:
Enginursday: The cost of cutting edge
It always starts the same; I get an amazing new device or technology dumped in my lap. Then sets in the reality of doing my job.
https://www.sparkfun.com/news/2025
Tomi Engdahl says:
Headers or No Headers?
Some surprising findings about a recent product release
https://www.sparkfun.com/news/2027
The boards sell for the same price, but our own engineers design PCBs and most often prefer boards without connectors populated, as they need to solder in connectors or wires in any orientation they need. A number of SparkFun production techs are expert solderers and can solder as well as most of us walk and never have to endure the pain of having to remove pins and solder from a board.
There are also a multitude of 0.1” spaced headers out there, and that often factors into our decision not to include headers. By leaving the vias open, we give the customer the freedom to use the headers they feel will best work for them.
A board without headers is also ultra-thin and lightweight, and can more seamlessly fit into a completed project.
For these reasons, we have come to believe that a majority of our maker audience prefers to hand solder pins according to their own specifications.
However, we do understand that beginners can get into a mess as they learn how to solder, and can even fry a few boards along the way.
Another reason we make some boards with headers is to make prototyping (and breadboarding) easier. Boards with headers are good for those who want to plug in shields without any soldering.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
Kickstarter just hit 100,000 successfully funded campaigns
http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/8/10939262/kickstarter-hits-100000-funded-campaigns
Kickstarter hit a big milestone overnight: the successful funding of a 100,000th campaign. It’s taken Kickstarter nearly seven years to reach 100,000 funded projects, but the rate at which projects are being funded is much faster than it used to be.
Kickstarter is celebrating the milestone with a blog post filled with strange stats about those 100,000 projects. One of the more interesting is that those campaigns came from only 86,101 creators — meaning almost 14,000 successful campaigns came from creators who’d already had at least one success.
The First 100,000 Funded Kickstarter Projects in 100 Numbers
https://www.kickstarter.com/blog/the-first-100000-funded-kickstarter-projects-in-100-numbers
Tomi Engdahl says:
It’s Embarrassing How Few Black Female Founders Get Funded
http://www.wired.com/2016/02/its-embarrassing-how-few-black-female-founders-get-funded/
Of the thousands of venture deals minted from 2012 to 2014, so few black women founders raised money that, statistically speaking, the number might as well be zero. (The exact number is 24 out of 10,238, or just 0.2 percent.) Of those few that have raised money, the average amount of funding its $36,000. That’s compared to the typical startup, typically founded by a white male, that typically fails. These manage to raise an average of $1.3 million in venture funding.
This disparity comes even as black women today comprise the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs in the US, with over 1.5 million businesses—a 322 percent increase since 1997. These businesses generate over $44 billion a year in revenue. Yet in the tech world, investors aren’t taking a risk on startups run by black women.
These stats comes from a new report, Project Diane, which calls black women founders “the real unicorns of tech.”
A Focus on Solutions
That dismal revelation set the stage for the rest of the report’s findings. Only 11 startups led by Black women have raised more than $1 million in outside funding—and are typically funded by the same three investors.
Rather than dwell on negative numbers, however, Finney says she wants to focus on answers. Digital Undivided is working on its own startup accelerator and fund to help turn these businesses into scalable tech products—and find more talented people out in the world.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Predicting the Future Is Hard, Especially at a Startup. Just Ask Zenefits
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-19/predicting-the-future-is-hard-especially-at-a-startup-just-ask-zenefits
The HR software company missed projections in 2015 and faces even harder-to-reach goals in the years ahead.
Tomi Engdahl says:
It’s Time the Software People and Mechanical People Sat Down and Had a Talk.
http://hackaday.com/2016/03/07/its-time-the-software-guys-and-mechanical-guys-sat-down-and-had-a-talk/
With the advances in rapid prototyping, there’s been a huge influx of people in the physical realm of hacking. While my overall view of this development is positive, I’ve noticed a schism forming in the community. I’m going to have to call a group out. I think it stems from a fundamental refusal of software folks to change their ways of thinking to some of the real aspects of working in the physical realm, so-to-speak. The problem, I think, comes down to three things: dismissal of cost, favoring modularity over understanding, and a resulting insistence that there’s nothing to learn.
Cost Models Don’t Translate
Software guys are always the ones in the comments spitting on cost and looking at people charging reasonable prices for good, well-made, well-supported, and well-designed hardware as charlatans and thieves. Then they go and buy cheap trash and have a bad time. It’s absolutely bizarre to me, but I have a theory as to why.
The only cost in computers is time. For a sufficiently large software operation capital costs are negligible. Development cost is measured purely in time. Computer time is measured in time. Shipping the product is instant. Even if you need more computers, these days you just call Google or AWS and order more time. Everything physical is free. There’s no cost to change. You can try out new ideas quickly. If you make a mistake you update the client’s software and the cost is negligible. Even the support cost is time. It’s a magical realm of pure abstraction.
Where this differs in mechanics (or electronics), is a sort of complex minimum cost. Things cost, and they cost a very determinable way. It really comes down to this: math says you can get rid of the wobble in this movement, but it will cost this much and it’s non-negotiable. Math says you can get these parts to fit together all of the time, or half the time. It will cost this much. Math says you can get 99% reliability or 93% and it will cost this much. If you want a case without a fan, you have to buy the more expensive capacitors or they will let the magic smoke out. Math says so.
We will never ever see a FDM 3D printer that’s just as good as the industrial ones for a hundredth of the price. Maybe a tenth. A 100 dollar FDM 3D printer will suck. There is no magical code optimization that will bring it down
Hardware development costs much more money, and the playing field is much more uneven. In hardware, capital wins. There is no real story where two guys in a garage made a hardware device that they got 3 million customers on, and then sold to some larger company for a boatload of money in a few months. I mean, just the screws used to hold the casing on 3 million of most products could fill a small garage from floor to ceiling and crack the concrete while they’re at it. When a hardware company gets funding, they don’t buy fancy chairs. They buy space and machinery.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tindie Opens a Flea Market for Tools, Components, and other Gear
http://hackaday.com/2016/03/09/tindie-opens-a-flea-market-for-tools-components-and-other-gear/
The fact that you’re reading Hackaday puts you into one of three categories: you wish you had a lot more tools, you’re on the way to a well-stocked workshop, or you’re trying to pass on your shop surplus to someone who will love it like you do. There’s now a perfect solution for the buy-upgrade-horde cycle we all inevitably fall into: the Tindie Flea Market. If you use something to make hardware, this is going to be the place to buy or sell it.
At launch, the Tindie Flea Market categories will include Adapters and Cables, Audio and Video, Batteries and Power, Bulk Components, Equipment, Fasteners, RC, and Small Tools.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Coleco Chameleon is a Kickstarter Scam
http://hackaday.com/2016/03/10/yet-another-kickstarter-scam/
Retro gaming consoles exploded with the introduction of the Raspberry Pi and other similar single-board Linux computers. They all work the same way in that they emulate the original game console hardware with software. The game ROM is then dumped to a file and will play like the original. While this works just fine for the vast majority of us who want to get a dose of nostalgia as we chase the magic 1-up mushroom, gaming purists are not satisfied. They can tell the subtle differences between emulation and real hardware. And this is where our story begins.
Meet the Coleco Chameleon. What appears to be just another run-of-the-mill retro gaming console is not what you think. It has an FPGA core that replicates the actual hardware, to the delight of hardcore retro game senthusiasts around the world. To get it to the masses, they started an ambitious 2 million US dollar Indiegogo campaign, which has unfortunately come to a screeching halt.
This scam is clearly busted. However, the idea of reconstructing old gaming console hardware in an FPGA is a viable proposition, and there is demand for such a device from gaming enthusiasts.
Tomi Engdahl says:
When You Get Serious About Selling A Project, Consider an Accelerator
http://hackaday.com/2016/03/17/when-you-get-serious-about-selling-a-project-consider-an-accelerator/
I was visiting San Francisco, scratching my head for something cool to cover for Hackaday. When it hit me: this is one of the leading cities in the world for starting new companies. It’s known for its software, but with Tesla, Type A Machines, Intel, Apple, and more within an hour’s drive of the city, there’s got to be a hardware scene as well. Silicon isn’t a software product after-all. But where do you find it, and how do you get a hardware start-up going in one of the most expensive cities in the world?
That’s where hardware accelerators or incubators, whichever name they prefer, come in. One-third hackerspace, two-thirds business crash course, they help you skip a lot of the growing pains associated with starting a capital intensive thing like a hardware business.
There are so many easily de-prioritized little things that seem obvious or easy, but ignoring them may bite later.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tindie is Hiring a Writer
http://hackaday.com/2016/03/29/tindie-seeks-writer/
Tindie is the best place to find unique hardware. It’s hardware sold by it’s creators; you can’t just go out and buy it anywhere. The ideas for those creations, the design and engineering that went into them, and the background on both sellers making and buyers building is the story that makes Tindie special. It’s time to make that story a lot easier to discover.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Get start-up advice at ESC Boston
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/now-hear-this/4441740/Get-start-up-advice-at-ESC-Boston?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_weekly_20160331&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_weekly_20160331&elqTrackId=06d7f7f57d3b4a22851cd68071b18577&elq=52a83f9c6d8141269d1a81ef262a6cf2&elqaid=31615&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=27591
Looking back, we didn’t have a clue. There were so many “gotchas” that almost did “get us” — from little things like “Don’t create a cunning logo that turns into an unintelligible smudge when photocopied in black and white,” to big things like “What’s the plan if one of the partners decides to leave the company and fulfill his lifelong dream of snorkeling his way up the Amazon?” Not that this latter case actually occurred, you understand — the truth was much stranger — but it wasn’t something we had thought out in advance.
It’s not that I’m trying to deter anyone from founding their own company; doing so can be one of the most rewarding things you ever get to do. It’s just that there are a lot of things that, if you don’t know about them, can bite you in the nether regions when you least expect it; contra wise, knowing about them can make your life so much easier.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Top Startups Tips: Engineers Tell Their Startup Stories at ESC Boston 2016
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1329329&
Here are some hints for success from four engineers who started their own successful companies based on a passion for engineering.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Funding Circle’s Sam Hodges: ‘Everyone has a plan, until you get hit in the teeth’
http://uk.businessinsider.com/sam-hodges-idea-factory-2016-2
Sam Hodges didn’t start out as an entrepreneur.
Then in 2012, Hodges co-founded Funding Circle, a British peer-to-peer lending marketplace. A leader in the fintech space, Funding Circle bankrolls some of the best entrepreneurial ideas of others. The company’s platform allows institutions and individuals to bid online to lend money to small businesses in the US, UK, and other places in Europe.
Hodges dropped by Business Insider’s offices and offered some of his best advice for first-time entrepreneurs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Etsy launches Pattern, an online store builder to take on Squarespace and Shopify
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/04/05/etsy-pattern-store-builder/
At a press event in New York City today, Etsy announced Pattern, a new paid tool that lets sellers port their listings into a personalized, standalone e-commerce store.
Pattern lets sellers design their online store from a number of templates and upload it to their preferred domain for $15 a month. It’s similar to what Shopify and Squarespace currently offer, but Pattern aims to entice current Etsy sellers who already have strong fan communities on the platform.
Sellers can also use a blog-like tool to add shop updates and upcoming events to keep their followers informed.
“54 percent of our revenue stream is from seller services,” Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson says. Other Etsy seller services include promoted listings, shipping labels, direct checkout, shop updates and videos – these tools are linked to Pattern-made sites as well.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How To Know When An Accelerator Is Not Right For Your Startup
http://hackaday.com/2016/04/18/how-to-know-when-an-accelerator-is-not-right-for-your-startup/
A few weeks ago we ran an article on the benefits of accelerator programs. While I agreed with almost everything in it, the article still bothered me, and I wanted to start a discussion about when an accelerator is not appropriate. So many startups are regularly asked “have you thought about Kickstarter? Shark Tank? Are you raising money? YCombinator?” These questions are constantly ingrained into people’s brains and they come to think those are the only options.
The reality is that there are lots of ways to build a company, and Kickstarter, Shark Tank, angel investors, and accelerators are all new within the last few years, and they aren’t right for many people. So let’s look at when an accelerator is right for you.
The absolute first decision is based on where you see the company going. If you want a mom-and-pop business making your own products in your basement and making a comfortable and sustainable living for you and your family, then an accelerator is a poor choice. Accelerators take a cut of equity in the company, which means they expect two things: that the company will grow big, and that they will have an opportunity to recoup their money (called an exit event, and it usually means either an acquisition by a larger company, or an IPO). If you don’t see both of those in your future, don’t bother applying.
When You Get Serious About Selling A Project, Consider an Accelerator
http://hackaday.com/2016/03/17/when-you-get-serious-about-selling-a-project-consider-an-accelerator/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kickstarter’s Biggest Shitshow Somehow Got Even Messier
https://motherboard.vice.com/read/a-very-uncool-cooler?trk_source=popular
A decidedly not chill development for 36,000 Kickstarter backers of the “Coolest Cooler”: Coolest is now considering asking people who haven’t yet received their coolers to pay an additional $97 for “expedited delivery” of the long-past-due all-in-one disaster, a prospect that has allegedly led some backers to threaten Coolest employees.
If you’re not familiar, at the time it launched, the Coolest Cooler was the most popular Kickstarter of all time, raising $13 million. The 55-quart cooler has a built-in blender, a waterproof Bluetooth speaker, a USB charger, and a bottle opener. You can buy one on Amazon, right now, and have it by the weekend if you pay $399.99.
That $399.99 price point is important—when Coolest Cooler was launched on Kickstarter, it cost between $165 and $225
a blender motor strike in China apparently drove up manufacturing costs of the cooler and pushed back its delivery date.
“Unfortunately, we didn’t set the pledge levels high enough to cover the final quality of the Coolest Cooler,” Grepper wrote in the update
Charging too low of a price or not being able to keep up with demand has been a notable problem with a few high-profile Kickstarters, including the Zano drone, which ran out of money before it sent products to backers.
Coolest Cooler doesn’t have money to produce the remaining coolers, which is why it’s selling existing stock on Amazon but not sending them to backers who haven’t yet received the product (the company has delivered about 20,000 coolers to backers, but 36,000 more people are waiting). Reviews of the cooler are mixed
The question now, is how Coolest Cooler will get more funding after it has already run through its first $13 million in Kickstarter backing.
“We would allow backers to pay for the remaining cost of their Coolest to get it faster, with a guaranteed delivery date before July 4,”
“I know the internet is an ugly place but Kickstarter is usually somewhere people spend discretionary income,” she said. “I got doxxed by a backer and my phone has been blowing up. I do think some of the reaction is beyond the pale. We’ve been physically threatened and abused and yesterday some backer threatened Ryan’s family.”
“You can call it a clusterfuck or whatever, but it’s a Kickstarter”
Tomi Engdahl says:
echCrunch:
Study: 7% of partners in the top 100 VC firms are women; 10% of global venture funding in 2010-15 went to startups with at least one woman founder — The first comprehensive study on women in venture capital and their impact on female founders — Apr 19, 2016, 6:00 amApr 19, 2016, 10:22 am
The first comprehensive study on women in venture capital and their impact on female founders
http://techcrunch.com/2016/04/19/the-first-comprehensive-study-on-women-in-venture-capital/
he CrunchBase Women in Venture report is the third study in our ongoing analysis of women and their participation in the startup ecosystem.
Previously we reported on the steady increase in the number of women founders and the universities that produce them. In this study, we looked at two new questions.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Report: Google Developing New ‘Area 120′ Corporate Incubator
https://news.slashdot.org/story/16/04/24/2111246/report-google-developing-new-area-120-corporate-incubator
The Information has released a new report about how Google is developing its own “startup incubator” called “Area 120.” According to sources, the incubator will be helmed by Google executives Don Harrison and Bradley Horowitz. The way it will work is teams of Google employees will pitch their ideas for inclusion in Area 120. If a team’s idea is approved, they will then be able to work full-time on their idea, and eventually start a new company after the business plan is created. The timing is unclear but the whole process will likely take several months.
“The ’120′ in Area 120 is a homage to Google’s famed ’20 percent time,’ which asks that employees spend one-fifth of their working hours on projects that excite them.
Report: Google developing ‘Area 120,’ an in-house startup incubator to keep talent from leaving
http://thenextweb.com/google/2016/04/24/google-area-120-in-house-incubator/
Google is preparing its own in-house startup incubator, according to a new report from The Information
Tomi Engdahl says:
SoftEgg PVC + Spandex Trade Show Booth
https://hackaday.io/project/9578-softegg-pvc-spandex-trade-show-booth
How can my little company stand out from the crowd? How about a 20′ tall spandex covered egg for a trade show booth?
I’m trying to build a reasonably cheap but impressive trade show booth out of PVC pipe ($1.53 per 10 ft), PVC connectors ($0.22 to $0.88 each), and spandex fabric ($2 per 3′x5′).
Tomi Engdahl says:
Anna Wiener / n+1:
A first-person narrative on the allure and anxiety of working at a Silicon Valley startup — Uncanny Valley — I would say more, but I signed an NDA. — MORALE IS DOWN. We are making plenty of money, but the office is teeming with salespeople: well-groomed social animals with good posture …
Uncanny Valley
I would say more, but I signed an NDA.
http://nplusonemag.com/issue-25/on-the-fringe/uncanny-valley/
Morale is down. We are making plenty of money, but the office is teeming with salespeople: well-groomed social animals with good posture and dress shoes, men who chuckle and smooth their hair back when they can’t connect to our VPN. Their corner of the office is loud; their desks are scattered with freebies from other start-ups, stickers and koozies and flash drives. We escape for drinks and fret about our company culture. “Our culture is dying,” we say gravely, apocalyptic prophets all. “What should we do about the culture?”
It’s not just the salespeople, of course. It’s never just the salespeople. Our culture has been splintering for months. Members of our core team have been shepherded into conference rooms by top-level executives who proceed to question our loyalty. They’ve noticed the sea change. They’ve noticed we don’t seem as invested. We don’t stick around for in-office happy hour anymore; we don’t take new hires out for lunch on the company card. We’re not hitting our KPIs, we’re not serious about the OKRs. People keep using the word paranoid. Our primary investor has funded a direct competitor. This is what investors do, but it feels personal: Daddy still loves us, but he loves us less.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Prototype to production – A hands-on series
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/embedded-basics/4441960/Prototype-to-production-A-hands-on-series?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160505&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160505&elqTrackId=6a8b70ee81124729bd3d8cede0e48f3d&elq=ae3dcbe9f1a14a1a907bb7d3cbec6f0a&elqaid=32135&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=28051
Talking about how to prototype an embedded system is one thing but actually doing it is a totally different story. Over the course of the coming months, I’m going to be putting together a series of hands-on articles demonstrating how to prototype and create a production-intent industrial controller that connects to the internet, i.e., an IoT industrial controller. You’re invited to join me on the journey, beginning with exploring prototyping approaches.
Building embedded systems is not rocket science, but neither is it usually a nice stroll through the park. Because electronic systems and software are complicated (and with each passing day the complexity is only increasing) developers need methodologies for identifying high risk system features and for rapidly gaining insights into the system in order to properly manage the risk. Prototyping an embedded system is a great way to reduce system risk through experimentation and sometimes even plain old trial and error.
Rapid prototyping has other benefits, as well. Humans are optimistic and we often expect success even under the direst of circumstances.
The challenge of embedded system design doesn’t end at proving that an idea or time estimate is accurate, though. The challenge is sometimes convincing the manager or business owner that the working proof-of-concept is just that – a concept. The system works, but only under carefully controlled conditions. So in the coming months we’ll not only explore techniques on how we can rapidly prototype our embedded system, we’ll look at how to convert the prototype to a production-intent system as rapidly as possible.
The first step on this journey is to choose your path. There are many different avenues that a developer can follow in prototyping an embedded system. One great place to start is to use low cost development kits or even embedded system platforms. A platform will usually provide low level driver code, middleware, and sometimes even example code snippets. There are a number of embedded platforms available today, such as the Renesas Synergy Platform, but probably the best well known platforms for rapid prototyping are Arduinos.
The power of Arduino is partially in its open source software, which provides common routines and functions no matter which board a developer is using. The software is legible enough that even hobbyists, artists, and electrical engineers can write code quickly and easily.
Along with a range of platform hardware choices, developers have a range of programming languages they could work with.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to Design, Manufacture, and Document a Hardware Product
http://hackaday.com/2016/05/06/how-to-design-manufacture-and-document-a-hardware-product/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Peachy Printer Collapses, Investor Built A House Instead Of A Printer
http://hackaday.com/2016/05/11/peachy-printer-collapses-investor-built-a-house-instead-of-a-printer/
The Peachy Printer, originally a crowdfunding campaign for a $100 stereolithography 3D printer, is now dead in the water.[Rylan Grayston], the creator of the Peachy Printer, announced that [David Boe] — investor, 50% owner of Peachy Printer, and business partner — had stolen over $300,000 in Kickstarter campaign funds. According to [Rylan], this money was used to build a house.
When the Peachy Printer was announced on Kickstarter, it was, by any measure, a game changing product. Unlike other stereolithographic printers like the Form 1 and DLP projector kit printers, the Peachy was cheap. It was also absurdly clever.
In our first coverage of the Peachy Printer, everyone was agog at how simple this printer was. It wasn’t a high-resolution printer, but it was a 3D resin printer that only cost $100.
For the last two years, [Rylan] appeared to have the Peachy Printer in a pseudo-stealth mode.
In the update published to the Kickstarter campaign, the reason for the failure of Peachy Printer to deliver becomes apparent. The Kickstarter campaign was set up to deliver the funds received – $587,435.73 – directly into [David Boe]’s account. Thirty days after the funds were received, [David] had spent over $165,000. In just over three months, all the Kickstarter funds, save for $200,000 transferred into the Peachy Printer corporate account, were spent by [David].
With no funds to complete the development of the Peachy Printer, [Rylan] looked into alternative means of keeping the company afloat until Kickstarter rewards had shipped. Peachy Printer received two government grants
Right now, [Rylan] and the Peachy Printer are pursuing repayment from [David Boe], on the basis that Kickstarter reward money is still tied up in the construction of a house.
Big Bad News
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/117421627/the-peachy-printer-the-first-100-3d-printer-and-sc/posts/1572573