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Comment by crobertsbmw | Hacker News Reader

My little hardware book, Computer Engineering for Babies launched on Kickstarter a few months ago and blew my mind by raising almost $250k. It’s a simple book with buttons and LEDs to demonstrate different logic gates.

I just shipped out the first batch of books a week ago and now waiting for the next batch of books. It’s gotten pretty demanding pretty quickly but I’m really excited about it. I’m hoping I can soon employ my little sister to manage all the shipping. She’s been an Amazon driver for the last 2 years and I think she’d appreciate a change of pace.

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When I backed this, It is the first book I ordered for my future kid. The day the campaign ended my wife told me she was pregnant!

Very much looking forward to it. Great work!

That puts the term 'just in time delivery' on a completely different footing :)

Congratulations!

Fortunately this supply chain is less at the mercy of global transportation woes.

Now, provenance may still be an issue...

Only really comes up when you commingle stock, but it's not like the customer can ask for a return, so does it even matter?

Kudos for providing jobs. If I were to create a successful company, making others busy doing something nicer than what they would otherwise have given themselves would be the greatest accomplishment I could think of, professionally. But starting with oneself on exactly that is not a bad starting point, at all.

Nice! I just ordered two, one for my brother's first grandson (9mo) and one for my first grandchild on the way (-6mo).

Thank you!

just went to your website and watched the video, very cool. https://computerengineeringforbabies.com/

This is genius. I'm going to need a Toddler sequel from you someday :) Preferably, in the next 1 to 2 years.

Jeff Geerling tweeted something about that he got 1 million TikTok views from a video he spent two minutes to make. I think it featured this book.

Found it: https://www.tiktok.com/@geerlingguy/video/704386612371181086...

Now sitting at 3.7m views.

Whoa, I hadn't seen this before. Thanks for posting it. That's a lot of views.

>I’m hoping I can soon employ my little sister to manage all the shipping.

Be careful about this. It changes the dynamic you have, and can cause issues if you hire non-family in future. Same applies for close friends.

It adds more complexity to relationships, but it can also keep families/friends closer because they have more shared goals.

There are some cultures where family businesses, where most members of the family work and participate, are the norm. Quite a huge population of people operate that way.

I would be interested to hear other founders' first-hand experience with this.

In my experience, hiring my younger cousin for occasional work during school/uni breaks has been great, but involving close friends looking for work has been disastrous 3 out of 3 times.

My parents worked with my grand parents before taking over the business and I have occasionally worked with them through the years. You don’t really hire family members. They join you in the family business. It’s a different dynamic but I t doesn’t really cause issue because the family business has always been a part of our family life. The frontier between personal life and work is very blurry but that’s nothing unusual for SME owners.

There's a huge difference between bringing your children into the family business (presumably also preparing them to inherit it) and employing your sister to work for you at your business.

Yes. And I have read a few pretty interesting novels in English about such business families, from the time I was a kid.

In my parents business it has been a disaster 100/100 times. All friendships all family relations have been completely destroyed by them trying to run a business together. I know it's just an anecdote, but yeah, I'd be careful.

>There are some cultures where family businesses, where most members of the family work and participate, are the norm. Quite a huge population of people operate that way.

Yes. Among Indian comunities, Gujaratis (particularly the Patel sub-community who own the majority of US motels, the Ambanis - Reliance group, big) and the Marwaris (some big Indian businessmen among them, like the Birlas, Ruias, Goenkas), are examples of this.

Possibly Kashmiris (handicrafts shops), Punjabis and Sikhs (auto parts shops, dhabas, etc.), Bunts (a Karnataka sub-community, Udupi restaurants), and Chettiars (gold and jewelry shops, money-lending, trading abroad) too.

And I am only writing about those I know about. There could be others too.

Annnd order placed for my nieces. I love it.

Their parents have no interest in turning their kids into programmers (to my great dismay!) but this looks like something they'll have a blast with anyway.

I saw a TikTok of your book another day, & saved it. Would love this for my future kid.

How do you manage sakes tax collection & other stuff like shipping & such? Assuming you are in US. Do you use Shopify or Etsy or dome online one? Did u apply for a seller's permit to deposit sales tax? If manually, how do you calculate sales tax, because its based on buyer's address right?

I haven’t spent much time on sales tax yet, but I do know there are Shopify plugins (tax jar being the one that comes to mind). I’m currently in Squarespace but don’t love it, and will probably swap to Shopify soon.

Something about this story is just so amazing to me. This is the kind of thing I always dreamed the internet would enable for people. So cool.

Do you/will you ship internationally?

I checked, the order form lets you choose international shipping. Pricey, though...

Oh I saw that! It is amazing! I recommended it to a friend who is in the right situation :-)

Thank you!

Love it. Pre-ordered one, though sounds like the next batch will only be ready in March :(

I think I just got an ad on Instagram for this the other day and thought it was amazing

I've seen your product on TikTok. Very cool.

Yeah, a few people posted videos and at least one of them got a lot of attention.

This is awesome!

Looks so cool! Do you have any blog or writing to share on the actual process of producing the physical books, which are very customised? I.e. this isn't something someone could fulfill using Amazon's publishing service.

That’s on my todo list. The tldr is that I designed the circuit myself and just started messaging people on alibaba, and that’s how I found my PCBA shop and my book manufacturer.

Curious if you were aware of the Baby University books from Chris Ferrie, and if so, worried about potential lawsuits?

Lawsuit for what?

IANAL, but trademark infringement?

I mean, can anyone write a "For Dummies" book?

To clarify there is a series called XXXX For Babies.

"For Dummies" is a registered trademark (https://search.ipaustralia.gov.au/trademarks/search/view/626...). "for Babies" is not, at least I can't find one.

Honestly, I don't see how "for babies" could be trademarked since it's a literal phrase describing the product. "For Dummies" is not used literally.

That's not to say generic words / phrases cannot be trademarked. Just look at Apple. However, trademarks for a generic term must be very limited in scope initially. If the brand obtains substantial recognition, then a broader trademark may be granted. These broader trademarks are typically reserved for household names. Even Apple had trademark issues when they entered the music industry due to Apple Records.

> Honestly, I don't see how "for babies" could be trademarked since it's a literal phrase describing the product. "For Dummies" is not used literally.

Neither is "For Babies" specific to the series I am describing. The book series is not for babies, as far as I am aware, very few, if any, babies are capable of reading, let alone fully understanding stories that are read to them.

"For Dummies" effectively means using laypersons language to convey complex topics more easily. Not, as you said, to literally mean the readers are of low-intelligence.

Likewise, "For Babies" effectively means using language, images, and story telling to convey complex topics more easily to young children, not just for literal babies.

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