
Lecture 17: How to Design Hardware Products - adenot
http://startupclass.samaltman.com/courses/lec17/
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rajens
This lecture was a bit different from most of the course lectures and not
because it was hardware focussed. I felt like it was a lot more 'high level'
with less tactical startup takeaways as compared to other lectures. His slides
were very elaborate, but lacked real actionable content. In many ways, they
were what I'd call "business school" or "management consultant" style case
study slides geared towards bringing design thinking to a larger organization.
He even mentioned a couple of times- the difference between him needing to
force people from different disciplines in a room together versus being able
to do it sitting at a table when you're just starting out. I think that was a
prime example of the difference between 'startup' thinking and 'growth'
thinking. I would've loved to hear more about his process for thinking about
design when they just started the company.

In any case, I did find value in his lecture and thought process around
treating everything as a system (instead of looking at hardware, software,
data all discretely). I've tried to capture my takeaways via publishing 22
Quotes that I took away from the lecture here:
[https://medium.com/@RajenSanghvi/22-quotes-from-hosain-
rahma...](https://medium.com/@RajenSanghvi/22-quotes-from-hosain-rahman-on-
how-to-design-hardware-products-dcd995e4aefd)

~~~
dmritard96
exactly my reaction. As someone pretty busy with building connected hardware
systems, I made a point of watching this. It was great but I think where this
comes into play is when you have an established revenue stream and the ability
to move slowly and judiciously. Learned a lot, but 'startup' isn't the word
that comes to mind.

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graycat
Bright guy. Fast talker. Intricate slides. Astoundingly laborious detailed,
high quality product development process. High emphasis on user experience and
making the product a _habit_ in the lives of the customers.

To him, everything is a _system_ ; apparently even if he were making a five
prong garden weeder, a snow shovel, or a tennis ball, he'd find a way to make
it better by regarding it as a system.

Gave good insight into all the work involved. Good lecture. Likely amazing
products.

One of the best people Sam put in front of the class.

~~~
jimjoejohnjeff
Agreed, I was afraid that this was going to be a lecture that was somewhat
"forced" because they wanted to make sure they included some hardware talk in
the series. But it definitely wasn't, it was a really nice talk.

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gatsby
I love Hosain's story.

Until Startup School, I had no idea that the ideas for Jawbone date back to
1997, the company launched in '99, and over the last 15 years their team have
endured some pretty crazy highs and lows - including Jawbone getting shut down
and the team being locked out of their own offices by the board in the mid
2000s.

Video here:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpINPjfSlZc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpINPjfSlZc)

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guybrushT
I am super keen to make a hardware product (I know only software), and started
watching this with great anticipation. It would have been great to hear the
story about their journey from 1995-2001 _. Thats would have been hugely
valuable in itself. I am stuck at : How do I take my hardware idea, and make
it real? How do I make a prototype (it requires an e-ink display) to know if
someone will actually like it /use it? Since there are a number of HW startups
on this page, thought I will ask my question. Specifically, I want to make a
photo frame with an color e-ink display.

_Edit: in a sense the journey from 1995-2001 was covered in the startup school
video (linked in another comment), but that was mostly about the "company". He
didn't cover the "How-to" of specifically how they did prototyping,
manufacturing and development in the early days. 'how to start' this stuff is
what I am interesting in.

~~~
pjc50
E-ink parts are a hassle to obtain in small quantities; colour even more so.
And the colour tech isn't great: [http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/05/the-once-
bright-future-of...](http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/05/the-once-bright-
future-of-color-e-paper/)

I suspect the answer to "will people pay ~$100 for a washed out colour photo
frame that is slightly less inconvenient than normal LCD digital photo frames"
is "no", but you're welcome to try.

I used to work for a consultancy that did hardware product prototyping as a
design service. We were good and very wide ranging but not at all cheap. The
cheap DIY end is probably covered by the maker/hackerspace/arduino/rasberrypi
movement which has evolved from the older ham/model railway ecosystem.

Another wrinkle is that if you want to sell electronic goods you need to
consider FCC/CE/UL certifications, _and there is no minimum quantity for the
rules to apply_. That increases the cost of the MVP greatly.

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soundlab
As a HW entrepreneur starting to move into software-enabled devices, his
comments about the opposing forces of rapid iterating software teams and
slower more conservative release hardware teams is really on point.

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dmritard96
as a hw startup founder, its amazing how heavy this feels. Obviously this is a
mature, successful business but wow, its almost amazing anything gets built.
Granted, what gets built is awesome.

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amit_m
Sorry for being blunt, but this is an MBA-style slideshow with a lot of talk
about abstract phases and very little substance. I feel that even for hardware
entrepreneurs starting out in the same space this lecture has close to zero
takeaways.

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bakztfuture
Such a fantastic lecture - really enjoyed it. Great Talk Hosain! The next
Steve Jobs

