

The Rise Of The Hybrid Startup - kevt
http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/24/hybrid-startup/

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ph0rque
_...even as we speak, web entrepreneurs are teaming up with doctors to build
better hospitals, with scientists to build better drugs, with lawyers to build
better firms, with manufacturers to build better factories, with teachers to
build better schools._

I'd love to help/partner with e.g. a mechanical engineer who wants to build
Factory2.0.

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gregpilling
Wouldn't you also want to have a factory? Having recently run one, I would
suggest you just contact one near you. We had an XP machine running the plasma
cutter, a Windows CE powered welding robot and a Intel powered (MS-DOS I
think) CNC milling machine and a bunch of other homebrewed things. I would
dream of the ability to link them all together easily and do better production
planning. If you are in a higher wage country, technology is your main defense
against lower wage competition. I am very confident that almost any factory
around would welcome being a test subject for Factory 2.0 (and they often have
mechanical engineers on staff)

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ehsanul
Is there a niche for a mechanical engineer who can also program decently in
this space? I recently graduated as a mechanical engineer, and have a passion
for programming, so I've been looking for ways to combine the two,. But
honestly, I haven't found much outside of robotics.

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pingswept
Oh, hell, yes! I'm in the same boat. I can't say the work is always
interesting, but people who can cross that line are invaluable.

Looks like you're in New Jersey. Try some of the solar startups-- they're open
to new tech, and they need to scale up rapidly. Petra Solar? Komax in York,
PA?

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fbnt
Great post. Any startup working with the head on the web and arms in the real
world will be part of an entirely new batch of startup, much more focused on
profitability rather than traffic. This is good.

I'm just a bit perplexed on one point though: if you're a founder of an
'hybrid startup' you're supposed to have deep knowledge of the (physical)
industry domain you'll be working on and some kind of expertise of web
dynamics. I think very few entrepreneurs can be very good at both.

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lallouz
Interesting article. A couple of examples that I think have phenom ideas came
to mind while reading it. TaskRabbit & Uber Cab both straddle the
online/offline experience and seem like they will do pretty well.

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elvirs
those who ignores technology will be disrupted, those who focuses on
technology mainly will fail, only those who combines the two perfectly will
win.

