

Offer HN: hardware engineering advice from MindTribe, Palo Alto, Dec. 9 - pingswept
http://mindtribe.com/2010/11/kicking-off-office-hours-help-entrepreneurs-dec-9th/

======
jerryr
Wow. That was fast. I was just about to submit this as an Offer HN, when I saw
your submission.

Just wanted to add that MindTribe is a product development firm specializing
in products that integrate hardware, software, and mechanical engineering
(though not all of our programs feature all three). We're opening up _free_
office hours to give entrepreneurs and startups 1-on-1 advice for getting
their products from concept to market. There's no catch and no strings. We
love talking about product development and we've been doing this informally
for years. We're finally able to support this on a regular basis so we can
more formally offer the service publicly.

~~~
eps
What's your selection criteria? I'm guessing lots of people would be
interested in validating hardware/gadget ideas.

Also - any plans to allow over the phone 1-on-1's for those not in Cali (or
even in the US)?

Thanks

~~~
jerryr
Yes, we've talked about phone, videoconference, and email sessions for those
not in Palo Alto. We'll likely open up those options soon.

We've purposely not specified selection criteria yet. We're waiting to see
what kind of response we get. If it's manageable (which might be helped by the
initial physical presence requirement), we'll help as many people as we can on
Dec 9th and begin scheduling the remainder in January. If the response is
somehow overwhelming, we'll probably triage it based upon our opinion of the
product's chance for success--though technically interesting projects will
stand out as well.

We'll write about our experience with this experiment, which will likely
include a retrospective of our selection process. We're also hoping to
synthesize common advice into blog articles that should be generally helpful.

