This website will try to explain and cover the story of what happened with ‘Next Thing Co’ from when they started with the CHIP to when they went silent and left backers without refunds or a product.
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
You can’t just sell a $9 computer and stay in business. You have to make a profit and charge for services.
You have to charge more than 5%. What is five percent of a million dollars? It is $50,000 or about what it costs to pay a sales person.
What about other services and costs of doing business?
Commodore was successful and had cheap computers but Apple charged more and had trouble in its history.
About all of the computers in the computer wars went bankrupt at some time except for the large companies with government contracts and big pockets.
And you have to have a lot to offer the customer or they will ask, “What is in it for me?”
You can’t just sell a $9 computer and stay in business. You have to make a profit and charge for services.
You have to charge more than 5%. What is five percent of a million dollars? It is $50,000 or about what it costs to pay a sales person.
What about other services and costs of doing business?
Commodore was successful and had cheap computers but Apple charged more and had trouble in its history.
About all of the computers in the computer wars went bankrupt at some time except for the large companies with government contracts and big pockets.
And you have to have a lot to offer the customer or they will ask, "What is in it for me?"