
Advice for Early-Stage Hardware Startups - bsmith
http://blog.ycombinator.com/advice-for-early-stage-hardware-startups
======
L_Rahman
Actually being in Shenzhen where the product gets made has been really
important for us.

I'm a biomedical engineer by training. My gut reaction in most phases of
product development is to dive in and engineer the problem myself. It took me
a while to realize this: I'll never be able to ship on time if I tried to
engineer everything. Turning myself into a product manager has increased the
pace of our product development by at least an order of magnitude.

Instead of taking detailed measurements of my device and building a three-
dimensional model to send over, I take my product designer's sketches and a
prototype to a case manufacturer. He comes up with a rough version, we go back
and forth, and a few iterations later it's what I want. Oh, and in the process
we've figured out what could be made more efficiently and what isn't actually
all that useful.

Hardware prototyping is slow when you're doing it all yourself. If you're
willing to tug on and navigate the Shenzhen supply chain and concentrated
manufacturing brain power, you can iterate at speeds that can at times rival
software.

~~~
iandanforth
Can you elaborate on the case design process? What language is being spoken?
Are you meeting in person? Is he showing you CAD or physical prototypes? How
much are you spending during this process?

------
soundlab
This is so refreshing to see on HN. People looked at me like I was out of my
mind in the ancient days of 2011 when I told people I was working on a
hardware startup. I would only take issue with the author's advice to
reconsider what you're doing if your volumes are under 1000. You can bend the
cost and risk of your product launch substantially by focusing on a narrower
niche and growing out from there. VCs don't like this of course, but scaling a
low volume product to a high volume product is orders of magnitude easier than
going from zero to a million units in a year. Following good design for
manufacture principles and keeping excellent documentation is also key
regardless of production size.

~~~
jpindar
I've been employed most of my life by companies that never made 1000 of any
one product. A lot of specialized industrial or aerospace electronics are
profitable despite not being mass produced.

------
god_bless_texas
As a sole founder, and yes I realize that is in itself a problem, hardware is
hard.

I've taken a few "purely digital" projects to the masses, but doing that with
hardware on your own is freaking hard.

On the one hand, we as starters are supposed to hack, grind, iterate until we
have something we can show people and gain feedback. Somewhere in there we are
supposed to find other starters that are willing to take the plunge with us.

In the digital realm this is easy because you can make fruitful progress in a
few night's work.

The the hardware side you can work for months to demonstrate something that
looks like dogshit and does what you say it does.

In the pure digital world, you don't usually have to separate "looks like"
from "works like", unless you are just at the absolute earliest stages.

So is hardware hard? Hell yes.

Is it harder than "pure digital". Hell yes.

Are things making it easier, and does exposure to fab labs and maker spaces
make it easier? Yeah, a little bit.

------
dguido
Nothing about "The FTC will sue you if you market an insecure device and put
consumers at risk by using it."

If you're not aware, the FTC has put a tremendous amount of resources over the
last ~2 years towards enforcement actions against insecure device makers and
defining a minimum baseline of security that all device makers should meet.
The likelihood that you will be named in one of these suits has risen quite a
bit during this time period.

[http://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2015/01/ftc-
re...](http://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2015/01/ftc-report-
internet-things-urges-companies-adopt-best-practices)

[http://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-
releases/2013/09/market...](http://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-
releases/2013/09/marketer-internet-connected-home-security-video-cameras-
settles)

[http://www.ftc.gov/news-
events/blogs/techftc/2015/02/whats-s...](http://www.ftc.gov/news-
events/blogs/techftc/2015/02/whats-security-shelf-life-iot)

------
justboxing
Excellent, practical advice, thank you!

Does anyone know if "#2 Don’t forget the certifications" apply to very small /
simple hardware ideas for ex: harware products / designs that use open source
kits like the arduino kit?

I am working on a product based on an arduino kit, and want to make sure I
have the certifications part (if needed) covered.

I am guessing that these certifications are more for big complex hardware
products like electric cars etc? or No?

~~~
bsmith
I'd say it's a mixed bag of safety, liability, and legality that will vary
widely between products. Some quick examples:

Safety: if you sell an appliance that operates on mains (hazardous) voltage,
there are standards in place (UL, etc.) you should be following in order to
prove your design doesn't allow that high voltage to easily come in contact
with a person. So for your Arduino thing, as long as the power adapter that
you source is already certified, you are probably good to go.

Liability: Closely related to above; what if your device is involved in a
fire? There are flammability requirements for devices for different
environments, and certification will help you prove you did everything you
were supposed to in order to prevent your device from starting or propagating
a fire. Again, not as big of an issue once the voltage is stepped down to <= 5
VDC.

Legality: mainly, FCC (in the USA) comes to mind. It's actually illegal to
sell radio devices using certain frequencies unless they are tested and
approved by the FCC. You can buy an FCC-certified radio modem or module to get
by this one quite a bit easier. Medical devices are an entirely different can
of worms (FDA, etc.).

So, it really depends on the use case for your product. What are you planning
to build?

~~~
jkestner
Not that I've gone this way, but I'm starting to believe that certifications
are like patents - not worth the money if you're very small. The FCC fines are
huge, but are they focused on the little guy? 3D Robotics seems to walk this
line, by a talk I saw recently.

I'd consider waiting until you know there's demand past Kickstarter, at least.
I see some worry about CE and the individual countries like Japan and ANZ,
when global domination is a long ways off. You're probably going to have to
iterate again anyway in order to get retail-ready margins.

A clue that it matters little is that when they need to put your unique
product in a government-designated category, it's going to be something like
"Computer Peripheral" or "Measuring Device". There is a lot of grey area.
Hell, CE lets you self-certify.

Another debatable early-stage expense is liability insurance. Technically most
distributors require it, including Amazon. But it can be nearly impossible to
get for hardware with no track record, never mind what it costs. The best
option is sometimes to let your LLC do its job and go bankrupt if someone
wants a lot of money.

~~~
mkesper
Does not sound like a terrific strategy to me. It probably will become very
hard to bolt the requirements on after you've finished your product. And for
people here in Germany, the pebble missing CE seals was a great deal as the
shipped products got lost in customs. Pretty easy to piss off your backers
like that.

~~~
jkestner
I'm not saying to ignore the radio requirements at all. If you're diligent,
make liberal use of reference designs, etc. your design will pass. I (and
Chris Anderson) just question whether the time and expense of getting
certifications that no one will notice is the right place for a startup to
spend its resources. Fair game, when so many skip arguably more important
things like security.

I agree on Pebble - the volume they were sending through, and a little
inexperience with customs, raised flags that were hard to put down. But by all
means, when you've raised $10mil, get your certs. I'm telling the Kickstarters
who barely raised enough to execute their hardware, and then think that
blowing $20K in order to cross all the t's for international markets, is not
putting the cert before the horse.

------
taylorwc
> Always think about bringing your capabilities in-house, if still outsourced
> -- EE, ME, firmware, ID, apps, frontend & backend dev.

This. 1000x this. The temptation to outsource _everything_ is huge in the
beginning, but the margin stacking and 'time stacking' this creates can be
fatal.

~~~
jkestner
I'll add another power of ten to yours. Just like you gotta be a full-stack
developer to be lean and mean in your early-stage web startup, you gotta
do/learn as much of the hardware stack yourself to save money and keep hard-
won knowledge in-house. Given how capital-intensive hardware is, you should be
even more stingy.

Not that everything must be done yourself any more than you should reinvent
AWS. But here's an extreme case of outsourcing:
[https://medium.com/@stevekreyos/the-rise-and-fall-of-
kreyos-...](https://medium.com/@stevekreyos/the-rise-and-fall-of-kreyos-new-
ac4e2d847964)

------
malexw
This is all solid advice. To me, this reads like page one of a hypothetical
book "So You Want to Start a Hardware Company." There's a lot to learn about
building a real hardware product. I'd love to read the rest of the chapters in
that book, written by the people who have been through it.

Though I would say that you probably shouldn't spend the time creating a new
hackerspace. As someone who has been there, starting up and running a
hackerspace can be a real time vampire. Joining up with your local space is
great - you'll meet a lot of smart people, have access to some useful tools,
and maybe even find some potential future employees. But I really don't think
it's a good idea to start a hackerspace at the same time you're trying to
start a company.

------
louprado
Finding new hires from your local hackerspace is great advice. You get to
observe and work with people before hiring them. BTW, If you are ever in
Oakland,CA you owe it to yourself to visit the Omni Commons. I'll be there
attending CCL's syn-bio lecture this Saturday at noon if anyone wants to
discuss hardware startups afterwards.

------
spiritplumber
I work in the bay area with all-local manpower, ask me anything. We
bootstrapped a line of products with absolutely no help from banks or
accelerators.

~~~
prbuckley
What kind of products do you make? What margin do you need to support local
manufacturing? What is your main distribution?

~~~
spiritplumber
Laser cutters and telepresence things, about 80%, my website and a few
resellers. [http://www.robots-everywhere.com](http://www.robots-
everywhere.com)

------
fasteddie31003
Here is a really good video describing how a low production hardware product
got to market.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIvTeHWfouA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIvTeHWfouA)

------
andymoe
This is a great article full of a lot of good advice. Hardware can be very
hard for a lot for reasons and you can make expensive mistakes especially if
it's your first time bringing a product to market.

We successfully bootstrapped some hardware to a shipping product and made it
through the Apple MFi program.

 _If anyone wants to chat drop me a line. My email is in my profile and I 'm
happy to help If I can._

------
dexcs
Is there a List out there with the best hardware-producing companies... I
mean, what if i have the layout for a beagleboard 5.0 and want to order 2k of
them...

I find it pretty hard to get an overview over hardware factories...

------
pitt1980
"Join or start a Hackerspace, work from Techshop, contact makers who post
interesting projects: find people working on hardware like yours and ask how
they dealt with challenges you’re facing. These conversations have led to me
discovering faster and cheaper ways to make SMD stencils, casting aluminum
parts from 3D prints, sourcing cheap components direct from China at in-
country prices, and taught me everything I know about making things."

anyone have thoughts about how much IP protection someone should have before
talking about their ideas at a Hackerspace or Techshop?

Does it make sense to file provisional patents before working on an idea at
one of these spaces?

~~~
errantspark
Nobody is going to steal your unproven hardware idea at the TechShop. Don't
worry.

~~~
pitt1980
at what point in the processes of proving a concept does it make sense to get
IP protection?

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
When you realize that you will make more than the patent costs, plus the legal
fees to sue an infringer.

Before then, I'd say you have better uses for the money.

~~~
spiritplumber
A provisional patent is around $400 and lets you slap Patent Pending on the
manual, which makes you look more serious, at least.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
[shrug] So you just paid $400 for the right to sue someone. Still gotta pay
the lawyers.

~~~
spiritplumber
It also makes you look a bit better to the sort of people who care about
patents (The problem with lawyers is that they quickly get more expensive than
siege engines, so their usefulness is limited).

