

Ask HN: Successful hardware startup in entertainment. How can we go consumer? - sigil

We're iLuminate, a bootstrapped hardware / software startup working our way downmarket from the entertainment industry, and we'd love to hear your advice on how to get our product into consumer's hands. You may have seen us on America's Got Talent Tuesday night, or the HN thread "Dancing hackers create iLuminate system for performance art" &#60;http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2606038&#62; a few days ago. People really go nuts for the synchronized lighting, music and movement combination.<p>After two years of hard work and experience in live entertainment, we know we've got a solidly engineered product and a great team behind it. But none of us have experience bringing consumer devices to a large market. It's a bit daunting. Should we partner up with a company who does, perhaps licensing out the tech? Bring someone on board to run the consumer side of the business? Seek outside investment?<p>If you're a hardware hacker that went to the consumer market, what challenges have you faced?<p>Thanks to everyone in advance!
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anigbrowl
I don't think going consumer is the ideal outcome, certainly not in the short
term. Does the Blue Man group have a successful line of facepaint products or
wacky musical instruments? HELL NO. They have an entertainment franchise. They
perform shows that reliably draw an audience, and pair up with people who
operate theaters, bars and restaurants. There are multiple BM groups; in fact,
I see they were holding auditions in San Francisco just yesterday, and they
also have a large backing staff of musicians, creative developers, marketers
and admin people.

Right now, your show is the product. If you gave me the gear I could probably
figure it out in an evening, and it happens that I quite like dancing, but I
don't have a darkened stage to work with or loads of time to spend on it.
People who go to raves and nightclubs for pleasure want to have fun and/or
meet attractive strangers, so the market there is likely fairly small.
Additionally, they're just as likely to throw something together on their own
with an Arduino if their tastes run that way - otherwise you could just load
up a truck and sell to everyone at Burning Man. Kids are a more likely target
market, and more likely to spend on an affordable social toy, but to reach
them you're going to have to develop manufacturing and retail pipelines,
defend your IP from ripoff artists (who may well have better marketing and
retail pipelines already in place, especially for a moderately simple
technology like this), and pretty soon you find yourself spending 3 months of
the year travelling between toy sales conventions and sweating over the
consumer confidence index as you enter Q3. I think you would be way better off
licensing it to an established toy company, especially considering that any
product like this is more Amazon than etsy, if you see what I mean. As far as
licensing goes, your negotiating power is obviously going to be proportional
to the strength of your brand, and I'm inclined to think that right now your
job is to burnish the hell out of that.

Finally, don't be in such a rush to put it in the hands of the public. If you
do then you diminish your own achievement, because you'll just be classified
as a bunch of nerds with a clever marketing campaign for a cheap gimmick.
People don't value what comes to them too easily. The reaction of the host
(whose name I always forget) to the mention of software engineering was that
it was so clever as to be intimidating. Well, that's just fine for now. Get
used to the idea of being/doing something so special that people ought to pay
money to watch it. Work on getting famous. When devices like 'e-luminate' with
oddly-similar looking models on the packaging start to appear, then you can
launch the Official iLuminate Kitz and charge a premium for them, and devote
20% of the profits to STEM scholarships for high schools or so. For now, you
want to be thinking about developing and franchising the act, whether you want
to performing on New Year's Eve in NY or go on tour with Daft Punk etc. etc..

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brk
Find a key person who knows the retail end of the consumer market. Having been
there before, just the time invested in building simple relationships can be a
major resource suck if you're starting from zero. Plus, navigating all of the
oddities of dealing with consumer products (from potential
certification/testing stuff) to packaging/distribution/channel sales and so on
is a world of its own.

Based on my experience, also be prepared to give away a ton of product to
buyers at potential outlets and spend lots of time discussing little nuanced
things that will likely drive you insane :)

Your other option is to setup a retail oriented website and sell direct. It
will take longer to get from Point A to Point B, but will be less resource
intensive. If you can generate some basic demand in that avenue, then you can
pursue QVC or some of the "As Seen on TV" marketing companies for a
distribution deal.

~~~
sigil
> Find a key person who knows the retail end of the consumer market.

Where's a good place to start? Most of our contacts are in live entertainment
or distribution for live entertainment. We've gone to some industry
conferences like LDI, but there's not much of a consumer focus.

> Your other option is to setup a retail oriented website and sell direct.

We're definitely considering this. If you had to do it over again, would you
start here and move to retail channels later?

Great advice, thanks!

~~~
brk
Talk to an executive headhunter that specializes in the retail market. Look
for people who have launched roughly similar (eg electronics, not fashion)
products into large retail channels.

Don't know enough about your product and company cash position to comment on
the second question. If your product has the potential to hit huge sales, you
have just enough time to hit stores in time for the Christmas shopping season.
That would most likely be the ideal case.

Another option I was just thing of could be the summer concert series. It
sounds like you might have an ideal product for pre-concert
shopping/food/drinks concession kiosks. This could also be a good test market.

------
curt
Feel free to email me, I'll be glad to point you in the right direction. I'll
need quite a bit more information though before I'd be able to give you the
correct advice. If it's really good and appropriate I'll even make some
intros.

Just answered a similar question in another post, take a look a my
manufacturing guide. There is a big difference between being engineered well
and being mass producible.

As an aside, I've moved from hardware to web/mobile software (taught myself
iOS, php, and rails) because I got tired of dealing with all the new
regulations and hurdles. So be warned before starting a project.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1840896>.

PS: if you are looking to get it out this year you only have a month or two at
most to act.

