“Hardware is hard” #makerbusiness

Hardware is hard. Some quotes from the article.

… plan on spending a lot of time living in China. About a quarter of his staff has spent months at a time sorting out plans and dealing with communications problems in Shenzhen, China, where the robots will be made.

“You spent a year prototyping? It’s going to take you two years to get it into manufacturing, because manufacturing is twice as hard,”

…Ouya ran into production delays (and angered its early supporters as a result). GameStick is also facing manufacturing delays. The $10-million-plus Kickstarter project Pebble watch finally shipped in January but only after many delays. A CNN analysis of the top 50 Kickstarter projects in December 2012 found that 84% of them were delayed, and a quick scan of the projects suggests that many ran into manufacturing problems.

Brady Forrest, who spent 8 months on the investment team at Khosla Ventures and before that spent 6 years organizing events for O’Reilly, will run Highway 1. The incubator’s goal is to help fledgling hardware makers get from the prototype to the manufacturing stage. … Forrest told me he’s looking for companies with two or three people and “an object,” most likely something that’s connected to a smartphone or tablet and augments it with additional capabilities, much like a fitness sensor or robot.


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