I have no problem following regulations and paying for licenses. The problem is getting blind-sided by it. I still don't even understand if I need a RoHS certification to ship in my home state of California. Is there any resource you found helpful ? Thanks in advance.
At least in my own work this has been something that pops up time & time again. Not only are there regulations that are tricky to nail down, there are things like intellectual property that you may not even be aware you're using. Build a blinking LED to detect activity on a data line? Wouldn't be surprised to receive a letter from a law firm. And unfortunately I don't know of any great ways to avoid the nasty surprise of receiving patent-backed threats. Personally I think this is why the big companies bulk up on patents, so that they can at least promise Mutually Assured Destruction against each other. For smaller companies & people selling products, you're probably infringing on some patent that they own without even realizing it.
RoHS, CEC?, UL, FCC, Wifi Alliance, Bluetooth SIG, please add if anyone else knows.
I get that the OP is about pre-release startups and the general advice is "don't worry certifications; just ship". But this became a problem just 90 days after our product launch. Had the timing been worse it could kill a new company.
Edit: Basically any interface logos you use (stickers above ports) are probably owned by someone.
If your App uses Bluetooth the fee is around $100 per platform, but since it is a hardware product (my product, GarageMate, is a garage door opener App), the payment due is much higher. It doesn't matter if you are pre-release. And if you change the chipset you have to pay again. Note, you could save a few thousand by using a pre-certified module.
FYI, the Bluetooth SIG's enforcement lawyer called right after I signed up for their free membership using my company e-mail address.
"BLUETOOTH TRADEMARK LICENSE AGREEMENT
This Bluetooth Trademark License Agreement (the “License”) is made as of the date of acceptance by you as a member of Bluetooth SIG, Inc., a Delaware corporation (“Bluetooth SIG”), as evidenced by you entering into the Bluetooth SIG Membership Agreement by clicking the “I Accept” button at the bottom of the Bluetooth SIG Membership Application and Commitment Agreement.
Effective upon such date, Bluetooth SIG, having ownership of the Bluetooth Trademarks (as defined below) hereby grants you the following rights related to such Bluetooth Trademarks in consideration for your acceptance of the terms and conditions of the Bluetooth SIG Membership Agreement."
....
"2 LICENSE GRANT. 2.1 Scope. Subject to the Member complying with the terms and conditions of the Membership Agreement, this License and the Instructions, Bluetooth SIG hereby grants Member a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, nontransferable (with no right to sublicense), personal right to use the Bluetooth Trademark(s) in relation to production, manufacture, supply, promotion, marketing, sale, lease or other distribution and advertisement of Bluetooth Services and/or Bluetooth Products that include Compliant Portions (the “Trademark License”)."
I graduated from a moderately-ranked undergrad program with a 3.0 in Computer Engineering (the HW-centric flavor of CS), going on 6 years ago.
After graduation, I wanted to get into the embedded field, but was discouraged by the employment options (hardware hadn't yet made the comeback it has been making over the last 3-5 years... 'old' players like Intel still dominated, which wasn't particularly attractive to a bright-eyed 21 year old).
In the interim 6 years, I've been doing iOS development, and believe I've amassed a CV that speaks well to my dedication and work ethic (and is moderately accomplished, at that!).
My question is... how far off am I from being a viable candidate for embedded job opportunities? What kinds of projects/side-work would you like to see to prove that I 'still have it' and/or could sufficiently think on my feet, and get back into embedded development?
FWIW, I have resume experience at Apple, Microsoft, and Google (I actually was hired at Apple out of college to do hardware QA but, once I realized the path from QA to embedded development would be a near impossible feat, I quickly moved on to iOS development).
Thanks! And good luck with your respective products!!
Mostly I feel like a software guy that's a bit of a hardware wannabe and it feels like I'd never get to the point where I could build a legit product, and would love some guidance on how to ideate in this space.
You're in luck: prototyping is mostly software:)
Would you consider sponsoring our community or the contest? We are operating with a budget under 1000$. Both money and products would be awesome :D
[1] https://2014.spaceappschallenge.org/awards/#globalwin Next Vision (Space Helmet)
This way you are not selling the product you shipped them, so I'm not sure what are regulations regarding this strategy. The product would be clearly labeled as prototype version and not fit for end use.
Bonus points for complexity: The product is intended for children age 6+.
Further, if you start to think about your hardware as a means of delivering something else (for us, that's food), then getting copycatted on the hardware won't be as hard to deal with from a business standpoint.
I would focus less on being replicated, and focus more on handling your own issues. Another way to think about it is if you get to the point where you product is good enough and with enough attention that it gets copied in a serious way, you've clearly achieved something.
Cover your bases with IP and be smart, but just focus on getting the best product to market fastest and delivering a great customer experience.
Did any of you attempt any influencer marketing? (celebrities or connectors on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat)
If so, how well did it work and did you pay them (if so what was the model, commission, or up-front payment). Would you do it again?
We actually went through some influencers on our side (known fighters or coaches).
It definitely helped gain a lot of credibility on our end because if it was that much of a revolutionary product, why would pro athletes not use it amd endorse it. so for us it helped a lot convince our customers that it was a legit product.
However, we have been offered to post on a few famous people pages for 5k but we didn't do it as we thought it would actually be seen as paid advertising instead of genuine and authentic love for the product. We're still exploring those avenues though.
Well, you could have paid them.
We (Pantelligent, YC W13) did a Kickstarter, then successfully shipped to customers, and are now transitioning to normal orders. Our actual production costs and timeline were within ~15% of our before-the-fact spreadsheet estimates, but then again, we were experienced engineers who know how to ship hardware & software products, which is quite unlike most new entrants.
Just within the "temperature controlled cooking products" space, I could name a bunch of "competitors," but not a single one besides ourselves has shipped, with the exception of the existing sous-vide field which has had more time to develop and is fairly simple from an engineering perspective. Most of these products will likely never ship.
Sadly, crowdfunding usually leads to dramatic overpromising on features (some of which are not even manufacturable!), and severe and unsustainable underpricing, in order to drive pre-orders. That's just a recipe for disappointed customers and dead companies.
And another question for the business side of things: where is the line for consumer products that are not meaningful to crowdfund? niche-ness? complexity of installation? does it make sense to crowdfund what is essentially an B2B product?
Early prototypes use whatever we have laying around to get the most fundamental feature of the idea vetted.
Right before production, you will build a prototype that we call a First Article. This is a Golden Sample, and every production unit should be just like the First Article.
Prototypes in between those two are built to answer specific questions and we spend no extra resources on sourcing special components that do not directly impact accurate answering of the question.
For things like displays, wireless modules, etc. we work with the manufacturer's Field Application Engineers. They can get you insight on what will be available for production, documentation for the components, etc. They can also probably get you samples for your development work.
McMaster-Carr, DigiKey, Mouser, AdaFruit, SparkFun, etc. are your friends for making those early prototypes.
Crowdfunding is essentially pre-ordering on a social platform. If your market is there and interested, crowdfunding can be a viable market validation step for any business model.
Further to that we have plans for making the Nebia experience more customizable. And so in future versions there will be features that allow you to make the experience even more personal, and these will allow for repeated brand interactions with the customer.
- Getting early prototypes out there has kind of been decremental for us. Even the smaller bizs are willing to pay higher for a more "field-tested" device. Which seems like a recursive problem ;). Should one spend more time on getting v1.0 done ? - Is there anyone who you'd recommend to handle global shipping and taxes? The way that Pebble had tied up with distributors in different places depending on your country, etc.
(We are building talking posters. One's with BLE play prerecorded messages, and you can interact with them, and the one's with WiFi are connected to the Internet and are more interactive.)
Thanks !
- I'd recommend sticking to a local fulfillment service that has great customer support for your early shipments. There is absolutely no need to optimize for cost in the early days. Just make sure you have someone you can call to sort out shipment delays, lost packages, etc. You can always expand to more fulfillment centres later.
Sounds like a cool idea! Are the posters epaper or static?
- What is the best way to get traction on the product before launching the campaign?
- How much money you need to set up a good marketing Kickstarter campaign ? Is it needed to use a good PR agency ? (Any suggestions about a good PR agency ? )
Thank you so much!
Federico
PR helped but did not make the whole difference.
Did you have any PR coverage pre-launch then to collect more emails?
But emails are one of the most valuable resource for marketing. You can always email people. But even advertising to the people that liked your page will cost you money and will be competing with tons of information.
- About Hykso, which sales channels worked better ?
- Is it better to launch a pre-order campaign on our website, before launching the Kickstarter campaign ?
Thank you
How happy were you with the experience so far? There are a few up and downsides as drabie had mentioned before.
Taking all of that into account, would you use Kickstarter again if you had the choice again?
I think each company is different though, and you have to consider your strengths, as in do you have a strong online acquisition strategy/team, in which case a campaign on your own site may make more sense.
Now that our campaign is over we use Celery for pre-orders on nebia.com
Seems like an enticing option, my main concern is how much of the Kickstarter market might I miss?
Are people who buy on Kickstarter a subset of those who buy a finished product, or is it an entirely separate group?
I can see pros and cons of both ways, and I know a lot has to do with my specific market (niche time-lapse), but would love to hear any comments or insight. Thanks!
As for marketing value of "American Made" I think it can be very helpful, but you have to make that a part of your brand. Otherwise it won't make much of a difference.
Here is a direct quote from the guy who set up and manages our customer service system "be meticulous but also efficient".
The best platform we've used is "Front" also a YC company. Clean and super fast interface.
How worth it is it to integrate with these platforms? Should new IoT devices "cover all the bases", or is it not worth the extra cost & development?
Currently I'm doing an IoT project and I think I may just skip all those platforms. The HomeKit app costs $14.99, a Wink base station or a Nest costs money... Personally I'm doubtful consumers want to pay those extra costs.
Thoughts?
If anyone has a startup working on a HomeKit product please e-mail me... louprado at gmail.com. Perhaps we can be of service to each other. I am in downtown Oakland.
I'd like to talk to someone with experience interfacing with factories in China about how the current approach could be replaced. Any suggestions?
Also, if I developed this tool-chain, what is the best way to attach to the market?
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Electrical_and_Electro...
When should I be using which sort of funding?
Crowdfunding: Pros --> Big platform that you can piggyback on; somewhat well-understood form of funding; can leverage to build a brand Cons --> Less control over your brand and your message (e.g. hard to A/B test); commission
Self-funding Pros --> Complete control over your website, message, brand, etc. Can offer whatever incentives you want. Cons --> Harder to get the word out, generate press, access early adopters
VC funding --> This is important should you want to build a high-growth business and avoid the pitfalls of a lot of Kickstarter campaign. We've supplemented our Kickstarter campaign with VC funding and used crowdfunding as a means to get early adopters, build our brand and fund our first production run.
My name is Khalil, CEO of Hykso (www.hykso.
Are you talking about product crowdfunding like Kickstarter and Indiegogo or equity crowdfunding?
What was the main reason for you going with a selfstarter (your own website) over IGG/KS? Would you do it again?
Some products will just not have a big developer community behind it also.
But again, online community is one of the biggest defense as a company and I definitely software should be a focus in most IoT companies.
Development and production of hardware is fundamentally different than software. Thinking and making are separated much further in time and resources, and copy-paste simply doesn't work the same way.
The statement of open sourcing hardware and focusing solely on the software implies someone out there is magically going to make high-quality hardware for your software to run on. That's a thorny assumption.
Most IoT is more than just PCB's. There are also enclosures, actuators, and physical UI/UX. Relying on someone else to provide that much of the user-experience is a brittle proposition for a business.
Did you rely on qualitative feedback (by real people or usertesting) or on quantitative results (A/B conversions testing on ad copies and landing pages)? Or did you just go with your gut?
Having no experience or expertise in custom hardware design, how would you recommend finding someone who could handle design and production?
1- Was there a reason why you chose not to use a promo video? 2- What has been main driver in sales so far? Like what was the split between PR, Email List and Ads? Any other channels? 3- Why Shopify over Celery/Tilt then? Did it give you more control over the experience?
Sorry lots of questions. We are currently deciding between selfstarter vs crowdfunding.
-Martin
Where do I find people's problems to solve that can be addressed by HW?
How do I get started with hardware? I'm a software engineer trying to break into the hardware field. What resources can you recommend for someone in my shoes?
Experience helps, but as in most endeavors, is not required. You gain experience by doing.
The most important thing you can do is get started and figure it out as you go.
On the other hand we also got interesting support headaches, as the final production version includes all the feedback and thus is completely different in overall architecture, hardware and software and thus probably only thing that is compatible are pinouts of I/O connectors (and voltage levels on them are only mostly compatible).
However, that's not always possible. If you're scrambling and haven't had time to do that, you can always reach out blind or use services/agencies to help. There's a YC company called PRX that helps with this and does it at a very affordable price. Another cool site that was on Product Hunt recently ranked a bunch of media outlets - http://presshour.co/?ref=producthunt. Lastly, take a look at your competition and who covered them - those are probably your best targets.
We (Tovala) will also be hiring for some software, operations and food roles :)