

ModMyPi: how one student turned over £867,000 selling Raspberry Pi cases - crocowhile
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-08/23/jacob-marsh-modmypi

======
reustle
For those curious about the case itself, here's a link

[https://www.modmypi.com/shop](https://www.modmypi.com/shop)

~~~
quantumpotato_
The case looks great! Congratulations on your successful business.

------
ChuckMcM
Nice article. There were of course lots of people who identified the need for
a case as a market. The success here is that this young man got it to market
and achieved enough traction to grow that into something more sustainable.
I've met a couple of people who banked a few 10's of thousands of dollars
selling cases for the Pi and then got out of the market when volume dropped to
unsustainable levels. Not a lot of money per-se but a nice chunk of change to
start on the next thing.

------
fegu
The webshop is impressive, but lacks a basic item: a simple GPIO-controlled
solid-state relay. It is the simplest (apart from blinking leds) and only
necessary building block to get the Pi to actually do something in the real
world (such as opening/closing a garage door).

------
Dogamondo
Quite unrelated, but can anyone explain to me how the first picture of the Pi
in it's case stays static on the page until you scroll past a certain point
(around the 4th paragraph) Then it scrolls just like any static image.
Interested to know how this is done.

~~~
crazysim
Something like this?
[https://github.com/bigspotteddog/ScrollToFixed](https://github.com/bigspotteddog/ScrollToFixed)

~~~
Dogamondo
Brilliant, thank you! I'll try this :)

------
spindritf
Something like Raspberry Pi in a nice, aluminium case with room and cooling
for two 3,5" drives would probably sell well as a home server for geeks. I'm
hoping that's what FreedomBox will be.

~~~
miahi
Why would you need two 3.5" drives on a Pi? It would not make a very special
NAS or small server, as you access the drives trough USB, sharing it with
everything else - LAN and any other things you want to add. Yes, it's cheap
and cheap to run, but also very slow and hard to maintain.

~~~
mikeash
Slow, yes, but probably fast enough for most people.

Why would it be hard to maintain?

~~~
miahi
I'm probably some other kind of geek, feeling limited by a Gbit connection to
the home NAS.

Hard to maintain: not sure about others, but I had stability issues with my
Pies using USB devices like wifi adapters, memory sticks and webcams; I would
not trust one to store anything important, especially on complex setups:
onboard USB -> Powered USB hub -> USB to SATA adapter -> SATA HDD (with
external power).

------
apapli
Well done to them! As an aside, I love the look of their shopping site
([https://www.modmypi.com/shop](https://www.modmypi.com/shop)).

Any ideas on what the shopping cart would be - eg is this a heavy
customisation / BYO or does it look like something familiar to HN readers?

~~~
jonjomckay
Looks like OpenCart to me

------
rorrr2
I bet that number is sales, not profits. I wonder how much he makes after
production costs, shipping from the manufacturer, taxes to the manufacturer,
shipping to the client, salaries to his two employees, profit taxes, etc.

~~~
asb
Yes, that's the common interpretation of "turnover". It's also worth noting
that he's successfuly expanded beyond his initial offering such that
modmypi.com is a one-stop-shop for all things Pi. Plus modmypi donate 5% of
all profits back to the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

