curt

Just sent you an email... We should talk. Even if there isn't a match, I love to help companies like yours.

Was in about the same position as you. One of my degrees is in biomedical engineering, was good enough that a couple private companies paid for my MBA and living expenses. Since I couldn't stand the bureaucracy around the FDA I focused on the software and hardware. Then used my biology / biomechanics background to create cool products in a wide array of fields, but nearly all of them had something to do with biology/neuroscience (ie, medical SaaS, equipment/software for the apparel industry, mobile learning tools, artificial intelligence, etc).

Forget about the money, find something you enjoy. If you like biology, find problems in the field that need to be solved. Then solve them. If you are look for some extra money, I did part-time design work for a couple large Fortune 500 companies in areas I enjoyed (both physical and software). Pay was pretty nice.

Remember engineering and the sciences teach you how to think, it's up to you to apply it to other fields. If you're analytical programming is really easy to pick up. It took me a week to learn and make my first app for the iphone. Three weeks to make my first Rails app w/ graphics and a back-end. Learn Object-Oriented-Programming first, after you grasp that it's really easy to pick up new languages since most of the differences are just syntax.

Don't assume any technological knowledge at all, most small business owners I've dealt with know just enough to run their businesses. As such they don't like switching even when their is a solution that could save them a fortune. The key is to automate as much as possible.

It's really hard. You need to have a personal relationship or well-known brand for a VC to invest in a product without any market data. There are ways to get stealth data, you can mask the product or give targeted beta codes to users that will pay. Depending on the product/cost you really don't need that many paying customers to provide proof of concept. Free sites it's nearly impossible, they will want to see traction.

Step back from the problem, focus on developing your analytical/problem solving abilities. Any engineering, math, or science problem is just logical reasoning. Don't focus on the subject matter so much, focus on the process. Then you can solve anything

Greatest day of college was the day I stopped giving a crap about grades. Remember you're there to learn not get good grades. It opens everything up, you don't worry about taking difficult classes that will challenge you or overloading on credits. Took classes in every engineering field, economics, business, history, whatever I "wanted" to learn. Seriously it was the greatest realization I had up to that point in my life, never even opened a report card during my senior year or grad school. If you have a solid foundation to build off of learning new things becomes really easy later in life.

Still don't flunk, a B is fine, usually you can get 80% of the results with 20% the effort. Focus on what's valuable to you and forget about the rest.

For true first world Hong Kong and Singapore are an entrepreneurs dream. They are both usually rated as the 1st and 2nd most free places on the planet. Every country in the world should copy their system of taxes, regulations, and bureaucratic environment. Their idea is to just minimize the burden and get out of the way. Just look at the results, they went from complete poverty to two of the richest places on the planet in a matter of decades.

Russia, while not really first world or really safe it has a ridiculous simple tax system designed by Milton Freeman and the guys at UofC. Most of the former Soviet Bloc countries have adopted similar systems. One single flat rate, minimal deductions, how every system should be.

As a side note, when I do business in Asia I usually always go through Hong Kong or Singapore, makes life a whole lot easier. Don't worry as much about getting screwed.

While most of the time people overvalue secrecy, if you're entering a market where a competitor could quickly move in on your target market and make your entrance more difficult there are definite reasons for keeping quiet.Also if your launch strategy hinges on a unified PR campaign you need to keep everything below the radar.

Get real "insurance", just buy a catastrophic plan, ie high deductible. Pay for everything else with cash, ask for a discount because of it, you'll be amazed at how much drugs and doctors visits are discounted if you pay cash at the visit so they don't have to do the paperwork.

It seems I'm the product guy here since everyone emails me when they have a question about manufacturing, producing, or designing, here are my thoughts. If the software works putting it into production isn't that hard.

Few tips/ideas, you need to add bulk to the bot because it looks and is flimsy. Go against your instinct for "thin", people will be interacting with it you want to use an anthropomorphic design. But you do want it to be able to go eye level or close to it. Also at first target a specific area: medical, manufacturing, office, and design to those specs.

Pro Tip: Think about mass production from day one, it will really save on the headaches, go as far as finding the type of manufacturer you are going to use and select the parts based on those criteria. Make EVERYTHING modular to make repairs and upgrades really easy, most engineers don't design this way because it's hard, but it makes everyone's life easier in the the long run, ie think total life cycle.

If you have questions or would like me to elaborate I'd be glad to answer them here or via email.

As always my guide: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1840896 (should I update and expand on this?)

EDIT: Added guide

Wow, I read something a year ago saying they were making $30 million that year. They must have crazy expanded.

From what I've read Groupon makes a fortune. The others like LinkedIn are trying to convert their user base into a revenue stream without driving the users away.

The problem with many web 2.0 companies is that they don't have a clear revenue stream.

Make sure while you are prototyping to keep production in mind. If you design for production from the start things get a lot easier as you progress through development to production. That was one of the reasons I can go from concept to production in a week, I would always design for mass production from day one.

Tip: also keep your design as flexible (unconstrained) as possible.

I was doing products targeted towards kids, when Mattel had the lead paint problem the government issued new regulations written by the lobbyists for Mattel. Instead of increasing safety in any meaningful way they just limited any competition by small companies by increased compliance and testing costs drastically. Congress is contemplating a number of other laws that will make it even more of a pain in the ass.

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.

Take a look a my manufacturing guide, if you have more questions about a specific idea I'd be happy to vet it for you. If it's viable I'll tell you how to progress.

If you're smart you can develop a prototype for far less than you would think.When I was actively taking products from concept through production I could do it for under $10,000.

But if you're talking chip set design that's in a whole new category. It really makes no sense to get that in detail now a days since it's really hard to achieve scale and bring the costs down. Off the shelf components are much cheaper, you would be amazing at how cheaply you can buy parts with a little creativity and negotiation skills. If you want to do chip set design, you need to first find a company that needs the chip, design it, and then establish a relationship with a fab and have a minimum order in hand. It's not that hard once you learn how to handle and manage the channel.

It's a very broad area, can't really help you without more details on the specific area you are thinking about.

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

If you're also looking for physical copies sold into bookstore, or online, I know the guys that founded and run Authorhouse, they've been doing it for year and are quite good. Check them out.

Ok yes there are exceptions. I'd do the same. My bad.

Charles Krauthammer isn't an economist he's a doctor.

Can't really do this, the economy and weather are chaotic systems, which by definition means you can't make predictions. Too many unknown quantities. In economics though we can go back and isolate variables within multiple datasets, but even then you can't extrapolate a prediction since you can't control for every other variable.

For example in economics/policy economists took all the right to work state vs forced unionization states and found far higher growth in non-forced unionization state. Even with this fact you can't make a prediction due to other uncontrolled factors. But you can make generalizations. Just look at California vs Texas, they are too similar to be economically so different.

I really believe in paying interns if they are doing meaningful productive work (programing, engineering, design, finance). I made good money in college as an intern and would never even contemplate working for free.

For big companies sadly that's pretty normal from my experience, I've had to sign a similar agreement a couple times. That's how ebay is suing google for google wallet. What you can do (what I do) is give a very broad prior art base (they can't claim any work you have previously worked on). When I was younger since I already worked on a huge range of projects they can't claim I originated an idea while working with them. Sometimes they are even willing to narrow the agreement, depending on the level of your position.

Learned about it when I got screwed a few times during college for a couple inventions. At the time I thought the bonus was a fortune (5 figures), but looking back they screwed me royally.

I like forming LLC's in Indiana. It's cheap, takes a few minutes, no hidden fees, and no hassles. Once the company becomes something you can reincorporate in the right state for your business.

It can be huge depending on your target market and the psychological nature associated with the product. Look at a pricing study it's quite amazing how much a few cents can make a difference. I always do psychological testing (a form of A/B testing) to determine the optimal price.

A huge amount because and raise changes every ROI calculation. You can look back in history and see that the wealthy move their assets to tax-free shelters as tax rates rise. Take two companies A and B, under two different tax rates 10% and 90% respectively. For an investor to earn the same return company B would have to be 9x as profitable as company A (made simplifying assumptions). That's why increasing tax rates hurts, it makes competitive investments next to impossible to find, so investors shelter their money instead slowing growth, job creation, and wealth creation.

The extents that I have gone to to limit my tax liabilities in the past are ridiculous. To think how much time and money I have wasted that could have been put towards productive aims. It's sad.

We could do it now but they will be substandard (larger and require more power) than fully designed packages. Integrated systems like a phone require a lot of optimization and part matching to optimize the size and power usage. To allow multiple part they would be larger and much more inefficient. The opposite of the selling point of most consumer electronic products. I actually looked into this a few years ago, phones no, but think game console might go this route if Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo and smart. Anywhere where power consumption and size don't matter this can and should happen.

Think the Techcrunch/Crunchbase idea below is great. You might even be able to turn it into a business. If you do something along those lines I'd be glad to write an article on a subject every couple weeks.

Created a guide about six months ago on this exact subject (search for manufacturing on HN people have posted the link dozens of times). Still get asked questions a few times a months on here and via email on the subject. So there is definitely interest.

Other than myself I haven't met anyone that can take a product from concept through production so you are going to need a huge contributor pool. Also it's not having the information but understanding the process and cultures your dealing with. As an example a couple months ago someone on here contacted me for an idea: the main components were an LCD and the processor. So I told him to find a manufacturer already using those parts and then design his product using their base system. That way he could get scale pricing without having to purchase huge quantities. With my experience I knew what the key components were for his concept, where to look, and who to call. I don't think you can replicate that information in a guide.

Sadly right now I'm too busy to help much. But if you hit a hurdle on a subject feel free to email me with the question.

EDITED: Added stuff

Only everyday. I HATE our system. Any math, science, design, I only use the metric system.

It's just so much easier to do math and not nearly as confusing when you're trying to communicate with someone. Pound? Wait Pound Force or Pound Mass, wait maybe I meant a Slug. Horsepower, wait what. It's like someone randomly pulled names out of a hat and assigned them random numbers.

Yes it is corrupted by government regulations and interference that have distorted the pricing effect that makes markets work. These are basic economic principles. The problem is people don't understand the pricing effect. When you do it's obvious why problems such as health care exist or why increasing tax rate doesn't increase revenue (Hauser's Law, tax revenue is 18% of GDP no matter what tax rates are).

That's not the CEO that's the board selecting the wrong person and creating the wrong compensation package. Just like a basketball player getting hurt after signing a huge contract.

EDIT: Look at PG's response above. same thing.